CONCORD, N.C. – With one race left in the Round of 8 of the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series owner playoffs, Chase Elliott and the No. 9 NAPA Auto Parts team are in must-win territory. The squad sits 77 markers below the elimination line and eighth in the owner points standings.
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Luckily for the group, the last race before the Championship 4 is set on the owner’s side comes at one of Elliott’s best tracks on the circuit, the 0.526-mile short track of Martinsville Speedway.
This year’s spring race at Martinsville served as Elliott’s first event back following a six-race absence due to a fractured tibia. In that 400-lapper, he finished 10th. Crew chief Alan Gustafson believes there has been a noticeable gain in performance for the team at tracks where Elliott has been in the car for both races.
"When we started going back to races that Chase (Elliott) had run the first race and the second race, it was apparent to me how much further we were ahead when we went back into those races the second time," Gustafson told MRN’s Crew Call. "You want to account for him being gone and make sure you don’t miss a beat, but it’s a difficult thing to do. It’s nice now getting back to the point of things flowing and feeling like we are back on equal terms to where we should be."
The 27-year-old driver has competed twice this year at four tracks on the schedule. Those tracks are Daytona International Speedway (38th in the DAYTONA 500 and fourth in the summer), Talladega Superspeedway (12th in the spring and seventh in the fall), Kansas Speedway (seventh in the spring and sixth in the fall) and Darlington Raceway (third in the spring and eighth in the fall).
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Elliott’s career stats at Martinsville are quite strong. In 16 starts, he has one win, five top-five finishes and 10 top-10s at the Virginia venue. His 957 laps led there are his most at any track in the series by 411. In his last six starts at "The Paperclip," he has led over a quarter of the laps run (764 out of 2,804 laps or 27.25%). Martinsville is one of four tracks that Gustafson has won at least three times in his crew chief career. One of the veteran pit bosses’ three wins came in 2020 with Elliott in this very race.
Entering the cutoff race that year, Elliott and the No. 9 team could mathematically advance on points, but a win was the most likely path to reach the title round. The group led nearly half the race – 236 of 500 laps – to score the win and move on to the next round. The following week Elliott and the No. 9 team won the championship at Phoenix Raceway, which was the first year the Arizona track hosted the title event. The 2020 season also marked the first of three straight Championship 4 appearances for Elliott in the driver’s championship.
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"Phoenix (Raceway) was a huge win but honestly Martinsville (Speedway) the week before was arguably equally as big just from the standpoint of if we hadn’t won, we wouldn’t have had the chance the next week," Elliott said. "Those two weeks were not only incredibly important for the course of the season in 2020 and for my career but for everything we had going on inside of our team."
This group has that experience to draw on as it now faces another must-win spot at a track they have done it at before and with a spot in the owner’s Championship 4 on the line. Tune in to watch the final race in the Round of 8 from Martinsville on Sunday, Oct. 29, at 2 p.m. ET on NBC, NBC Sports App, MRN Radio and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (Channel 90).