Chase Elliott Looks To Daytona For Strong 2019 Start

Chase Elliott comes to the Daytona International Speedway this year with one weight lifted off his shoulders.

He will never again be asked “When are you finally going to win?”

The Dawsonville, Georgia racer scored his first career Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series victory last year on the road course at Watkins Glen, followed by wins at Dover International Speedway and at Kansas Speedway.

“Just nice that that question is eliminated, at least for a little while,” Elliott said during Wednesday’s Media Day at the Daytona International Speedway. “Yeah, I mean, if it wasn’t that, it’s, When, are you going to win again? It’s always going to be something. Y’all have to do your jobs, and I get it.”

When it came to finally nailing down that first win, Elliott said he wasn’t really getting impatient to finally put a check in the win column.

“I wanted to win from the get-go. Lucky to have some wins over the years, Xfinity, Truck, to get to this point. You come along, I think you realize how difficult it is, racing against the best on Sundays. It’s not Friday, it’s certainly not Saturday. It’s the real deal.”

Elliott will need plenty of patience to have a shot at scoring a win in Sunday’s Daytona 500. He was fourth fastest in qualifying this past Sunday, and finished eighth in Thursday night’s qualifying race. He will roll off from 16th on Sunday.

He does have experience winning on Daytona’s high banks, having scored the win in the NASCAR Xfinity Series here in 2016. He can also boast a pair of pole starts in the 500, in 2016 and 2017.

But in the 500, he’s been a little snake bit. A crash took him out of contention in 2016. He rain out of gas while leading in 2017. Last year, he was caught up in a multi-car crash just past halfway.

“Obviously Daytona is a big race,” Elliott said. “Having it at the beginning of the year, you don’t really think about that, how you kind of get over it because the year is so long. Yeah, I had a fast car here last year. All that was kind of drown out by having a good couple summer months.

“Yeah, I think beginning of the year, if you have a bad day down here, you can kind of move on from it just because you’re not racing for a championship here. It’s the first race of the year. I think the championship to me means more than this race does. I think that can overshadow an unfortunate day down here.”

But with it being the start of a new season, a good run in the 500 can translate into a lot of momentum moving forward. Along with that, Elliott’s crew chief, Alan Gustafson, is a Daytona native, and he has never won a Daytona 500 either.

So does what would it mean to Elliott to deliver that first victory in the Great American Race for both of them?

“I think it would be awesome,” Elliott said. “It’s funny. We talked about that the other day, how many opportunities he’s had to win it, how close he’s come before. Yeah, he’s never won a Daytona 500 or a championship. Would love to deliver both of those things to him. He certainly deserves both.

“He’s probably built in the past 10 years, I would say, four or five of those years, I would say his car has probably been the fastest one down here. It’s pretty impressive how good he is at that. Unfortunate that none of those years have worked out. Hopefully we can get that done for him.”

One might think that being the son of a two-time Daytona 500 winner would give Elliott an edge. But when Hall of Famer Bill Elliott was still racing, Chase had other concerns.

“I think he sat on the pole one year down here with Ray (Evernham, car owner), the early 2000s, somewhere right in there. I thought he did one year. Maybe they didn’t. But I thought so. I vaguely remember that going on, that success.

“At that age, I was more worried about that playground over there, how cool it was. Aside from that, he never really had a lot of success here at Daytona. Unfortunately got caught up in a lot of wrecks. I wasn’t born or able to experience the really good days he had down here, unfortunately.”

But when the green flag drops on Sunday afternoon, Chase Elliott’s thoughts will be on reaching another playground – Victory Lane at Daytona International Speedway.
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McMurray Ready To Bid Farewell With Final Start At Daytona

After 17 years, 582 starts and seven wins, Jamie McMurray is ready to call it a career.

The Joplin, Missouri native is slated to make his final career start in Sunday’s running of the Daytona 500 – a race he won back in 2010.

When he climbs out of his No. 40 Chevrolet for the last time on Sunday, he’ll be prepared to climb into an analyst’s chair as a member of the Fox Sports NASCAR television team, where he’ll appear on the NASCAR Race Day and NASCAR Race Hub programs.

Despite the change in vocations, McMurray doesn’t feel like he’ll show a lot of emotions after Sunday’s race.

“My emotions were really all at Homestead,” he said during Wednesday’s Media Day at the Daytona International Speedway. “This has been really just a celebration more than having emotions. I’m going to miss the racing part of it but not all the rest that goes with it. As far as driving, yeah, I’ll miss all of that. I’ll still be at the racetrack, all my friends are here. It’s not like I’m giving up all of it, I’m just giving up the driving part.”

McMurray said that his favorite moment in the Daytona 500 is – obviously – the year he scored his victory in the Great American Race.

“When I think about the Daytona 500, I think about the year Dale Earnhardt, Sr. finally won and the crew guys all were lined up,” he said. “I think about Sterling Marlin pulling on his right-front fender when he was leading and there was a red flag. There’s been some amazing memories – not necessarily from the guy that won – just throughout this race.

“This race takes so much out of you and it’s crazy we have this as our first race every single year. There’s so much build-up around this event that when it’s over it’s exhausting.”

Should McMurray pull out a win in his final start on Sunday, he would become only the third driver in NASCAR history to do so. What would that mean to him?

“I find that shocking but that would be awesome,” he said. “It would be cool because I won in my second start and it would be cool to win in my last.”

Austin Hill Fastest In Final Truck Series Practice

Friday night could be a good one for the Georgia Gang.

Austin Hill, from Evans, Georgia, was fastest in final practice for Friday night’s NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series practice.

Hill, who is piloting the No. 16 Toyota for the defending series champion team, Hattori Racing Enterprises, toured the 2.5 mile Daytona International Speedway with a lap in 46.646 seconds, 192.943 mph.

Hill was also second fastest over the course of 10 consecutive laps, with an average speed of 190.126 mph. David Gilliand was fastest in that category with a 190.580 average.

Dawsonville, Georgia’s Spencer Davis also found some speed in the final round, turning in the 10th quickest time in the No. 82 Toyota with a lap in 47.864 seconds at 188.033 seconds.

Qualifying for the NextEra Energy Resources 250 is set for 4:40 Friday afternoon, with the race slated to roll off at 7:30 Friday evening.