DARLINGTON, S.C. — Running the Darlington Raceway Xfinity Series race for Chase Elliott was a no-brainer.
It’s not that the 29-year-old third-generation racer doesn’t love the 1.366-mile oval.
Elliott is attempting to find a way for Darlington Raceway to love him back.
“I love the race track,” said Elliott, who will pilot the No. 17 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet in addition to the No. 9 UniFirst Chevrolet in Sunday’s Cup race.
“To me, Darlington just really kind of defines everything that you think NASCAR is and should be, in my opinion. From a driver’s perspective, it’s so difficult. It’s such a tough place to navigate and drive—particularly for the fall race being another 100 miles, right?
“I’ve always enjoyed going there. I hope some day it enjoys having me more than it’s had, more enjoyment than it’s given me thus far. Hopefully, we can make good gains. We’ve put a lot of hard work into it already and intend on putting in a lot more.”
In 16 Cup starts at the Track too Tough to Tame, Elliott’s best result of third came in the 2023 Goodyear 400. He has accumulated four top fives and seven top 10s overall.
Although his body of work in the NASCAR Xfinity Series is a smaller sample size, Elliott won in his first start in 2014. In his last two Darlington NXS starts, he has finished sixth in 2018 and fourth here in the fall. He’ll roll off eighth in Saturday’s Sport Clips Haircuts VFW Help A Hero 200.
“This Xfinity race – it’s been a year since I’ve driven one of those things—jumping back and forth, I always find it to be a little bit of a challenge.,” Elliott said. “Looking forward to getting going over there.
“Hopefully those laps will help me just get kind of comfortable with the race track; visualize things how I think they need to be. And then when we get out there and in Cup practice, try to get going and get going quick.”
One key to finding speed at Darlington is running the high line around the wall. Certainly, the bulletproof nature of the Gen 7 cars offers the drivers a lot more security than earlier generations of vehicles where just acquiring a Darlington stripe—after kissing the wall—might be a race ending circumstance.
“It’s very similar to Homestead in a lot of ways,” Elliott said. “I think what makes it different here is that Homestead has a very gradual entry. If you enter on the wall, it has this nice radius to the corner. And this place, the wall is kind of choppy and makes it hard to get against it just right at the perfect time. You’ve got the safer barrier that juts out there in (Turn) 3. All those things kind of play a role.
“Obviously, the tire wear throughout a run here is extreme, just like it is at Homestead, too. It’s always a challenge, but I think probably just the radius of the corners makes it a little different.”
Following a challenging outing at Homestead, Elliott is hoping to continue on the progress achieved by the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports team last weekend at Martinsville Speedway. Elliott’s 42 laps led were a season high for the driver. After scoring points in both stages and duplicating his best 2025 result of fourth, Elliott left the track third in the Cup standings and wanting more.
“The company as a whole has done a great job over the winter to build really, really fast race cars,” Elliott said. “I think there’s some areas that we can be better. I really don’t think we’re at our best, really any of us, honestly. So it’s encouraging to see that. We can pretty confidently say that – hey, these are flaws. These are areas that can certainly have improvement.
“That’s an exciting place to be, in my opinion, because there’s so much more racing left this year and opportunities to get where we want to be, and I think we can do that. The company’s in a good spot. Everybody’s pulling in the same direction, and we’ve got to keep that up.”
