CONCORD, N.C. -- Chase Elliott is the current NASCAR Cup Series champion but he still has far more he wants to accomplish in his Cup Series career. One of those goals is to earn a victory at his hometown track of Atlanta Motor Speedway.
Elliott will have that chance this weekend when the Cup field heads to the Georgia track. The 25-year-old driver would not only secure a coveted win at an extremely difficult track, but he would become the second Georgia-born driver to win at the speedway. His father, NASCAR Hall of Famer Bill Elliott, currently is the only Peach State native with a win at the track.
“I would love to have a win at Atlanta,” Elliott said. “I feel like anybody’s home track, you want to have a win at, for sure, if you can get it. But like I’ve said in the past, I’m not super picky when it comes to wins; I’m good with wherever. They’re too hard to win. Atlanta would be great. I would love to get it done one day and be able to have one there, for sure.”
In five starts at Atlanta, Elliott has one top-five finish and four top-10s. He started from the pole last year and led for 26 laps before finishing eighth. While Elliott has had solid runs at the venue, he admitted the track could be “hit or miss” and a driver has to execute a race almost perfectly to place well there.
“Atlanta definitely is a tough place,” he said. “The racetrack has a lot of wear to it. The surface is one of the oldest that we go to, so finding grip is a challenge. The track has a lot of character – very line sensitive to where you can and can’t run to find that. You really have to hit your marks well at Atlanta to have success.”
Just 83 miles south of his hometown of Dawsonville, Georgia, Elliott will have a solid fan base rooting him on at Atlanta. However, there are no distinct advantages in him racing at the venue. In NASCAR, up to 40 drivers are shielded from crowd noise as they try to carve out a way to take the checkered flag, as opposed to two teams competing against each other in other sports.
“NASCAR is definitely unique in that way, and I don’t really have a good way of describing that,” Elliott said. “It’s not like the Braves having home field advantage for their playoff run ... I wish Atlanta was like that for me, but there’s a lot of people there that want to see other drivers do well, too. Granted, I think a lot of them are from around here and will want to see us do well.”
Elliott still is gunning for his first win this season but the Hendrick Motorsports driver has solid resources in his corner. Teammates William Byron and Kyle Larson took home victories this year at Homestead-Miami Speedway and Las Vegas Motor Speedway, respectively, which are both 1.5-mile tracks. Atlanta will be the third mile-and-a-half venue on the 2021 schedule, and Elliott praised how the Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LEs have been performing at these tracks.
“I think it’s really a testament to everybody at the shop putting in a lot of effort; each individual team putting in a lot of effort to go and be the best we can and that’s really what it comes down to” Elliott said. “I don’t think any of the drivers are trying any harder than we have in the past. I think it’s just a really nice effort from the top to the bottom of trying to take four fast race cars to the track every weekend.”
Elliott and the No. 9 team will try to bring home their first win of the season at Atlanta Motor Speedway this Sunday. The race will begin at 3 p.m. ET and be broadcast of FOX.