Chase Elliott's push to close out NASCAR Cup Series

The NASCAR postseason is winding down. There are just... Two races remaining, one this weekend in Martinsville and then the weekend after that, they'll be down in South Florida, Homestead, Miami for the finale of the season and the chase for that championship for the NASCAR Cup. Had the chance to speak with the NASCAR driver Chase Briscoe who has been contending for the championship this year but after a tough race at Talladega now falls 79 points behind the leader. So I talked with him. about his mentality going into these last couple of races and a whole lot more as well. Here's my conversation with him. Appreciate you joining us here today. Two races left in the NASCAR postseason. What's the mentality now going into these last couple races, down 79 points right now? What is the mentality? Yeah, I think it really doesn't change from the whole kind of postseason and just trying to go win races. Ultimately, I mean, that's the biggest thing you can do to gain points. So, yeah, after last weekend in Talladega and getting caught up in the wreck, it definitely is a big point swing. But, yeah, just have to go try to win these last two. If you go win these last two. You at least give yourself an opportunity and a chance and you just got to see what your competitors do, you know, in those next two races. But yeah, for us, it doesn't really change. Try to go win the races and score as many points as you can. And yeah, at the end of Homestead, it'll be what it'll be. That was a tough one in, uh, in Talladega. And I'm curious what, what's going through your mind during that crash, you know, mentally there, and also just kind of take us inside physically what you're feeling too. I mean, that kind of a one, two punch, I would imagine given your, you know, your, your hopes and, and, uh, you know, goals of a, of a championship this year. Yeah, it definitely is a crazy range of emotions. You know, when you're crashing, you're trying to make sure you're still good. It's trying to not get knocked out or whatever. So, you know, while I'm crashing, I'm just trying to make sure I'm still good. And then as soon as we got done crashing, I was just looking for the big screens, trying to figure out who all was in it. I knew it was a big wreck. So I was trying to see if the five car was involved, you know, kind of the guys I'm racing against for the championship. Then once we were out of the race, it was a wild range of emotions. You know, You know, just the five-car winning was kind of the worst-case scenario for not only myself but all the championship competitors. And, yeah, he was leading off turn two, and then he was back to, like, 11th place. Then he ended up still winning the race on the last lap. So just that range of emotions, I think, was... Even it's more all over the place than being in the crash itself. But yeah, I mean, that's just what Talladega is. We knew going into it that we could very well get caught up in a wreck and you're going to see the points swing a lot. So yeah, it's for sure unfortunate. You know, I think five or so laps before we crashed, I saw the big screen kind of out of the corner of my eye and I was second in points like 12 back and then now we're 79 back. So yeah, just a big swing for sure. NASCAR returned this year to the postseason chase format after kind of the elimination playoffs style for a while. I'm curious what you make of kind of being back in this format and if you like it, what it's like as a driver, what your thoughts are. Yeah, this is the first time I've ever ran under this format, but I've really enjoyed it. You know, I feel like it just makes every single race matter. Every single stage matters. We're in the past with the with the playoffs. If you're able to win a race, you'd automatically advance to the next round. So the next week or the next two weeks really didn't matter. A lot of the time you were just kind of out there and there was nothing on the line. We're now I mean, literally every single race matters. You know, the... You know, winning still is super important, but you know, those bad days, they just carry on where with the playoffs, they would reset and everything else. So I think as a competitor, I really enjoyed this one. I think, um, you know, whoever wins this championship has certainly deserved it and earned it. So yeah, I've, uh, I've really enjoyed it. Talk to me about the progression of your season, because I know it was a bit of a rough start to the season, but you really kind of caught fire this summer. I'm just curious what that was kind of like for you as a driver, what maybe kind of clicked and kind of how you've seen yourself and your team kind of grow throughout the year. Yeah, it was certainly a rough start, you know, especially coming off last year, you know, being in the championship round and having all these high expectations to start this year, you know, kind of right where we were last year. And, you know, from a speed standpoint, we did do that. We just, I think the first four races, we had three 37th place finishes, which is dead last and just mechanical issues and things like that. So, yeah, it was hard to just get any momentum. I felt like that first part of the season. I don't think we even won a race until the 4th of July weekend. So it was definitely a little bit of a struggle early on. And then it seems like once we kind of found our stride and started putting races together, that speed finally with execution just came where we were able to run up front a lot more often and a lot more consistently. And, yeah, it's been really good the last two months or so. So it's been a lot of fun. Yeah, I feel like this has kind of been our identity the last two years on the 19 group. We kind of start off a little slow, and in the middle of the summer, we start kind of finding some stuff. And at the end of the year, we're super, super strong and arguably one of the best cars every weekend. We just need to be a little more consistent from start to finish. There was a little bit of controversy, some frustration from one of your teammates, Denny Hamlin, over a move you made at Talladega, and I'm not asking you to rehash that. I know you've addressed it, but I'm curious if you could just speak to kind of the difficulty when you have teammates who are also competitors, and what's that like as a driver, and kind of that fine line that y'all all have to kind of walk on that tightrope. I would imagine that's a difficult thing. Yeah, it's definitely hard. You know, it's one thing, like, as a group of Joe Gibbs Racing, we typically are all racing each other for the win. So you get a lot of practice, like, truthfully, just being in that scenario of where the stakes are high. But the stakes are way higher, obviously, when you're racing for a championship. And, yeah, I mean, three out of our four cars are in the top four right now in points. So we all know that we're racing each other for the championship. And, yeah, it obviously is a very... Tricky thing to navigate, you know, because you do have to race your teammates a little bit differently. And there's just an expectation, I guess, from other teammates of like what they think that you're going to do for them versus, you know, being, you know, a Hendrick car, one of our competitors. So, yeah, it does get extremely challenging and tricky in those situations because as a competitor, you're trying to do what's best for yourself and your team. But you still have the organization to think about, too. So it's a very, very challenging thing to do. You know, I think Talladega and Daytona, those styles of racetracks are the hardest to do that at. But it's definitely something that's just challenging whenever you're all racing for a championship. I know you've been racing for a while, Chase. It's in your blood. Do you ever kind of pinch yourself and be like, you know, take a step back and be like, hey, I'm kind of at the pinnacle of our sport here and contending for a cup championship. Does that ever enter into your mind at this point? Yeah. Every day. It's I mean, it sounds cliche, but it's the truth, you know, just especially after last weekend, you know, I found myself being down in the dumps right about man, the championship just got way harder, but you're still battling for, you know, at the worst case second in the championship, which if you would have told me, you know, five years ago, three years ago, 10 years ago, I would be battling for second in the Cup Series championship or, you know, and so ultimately to win the championship. Yeah, I would have never in a million years believed it. So, yeah, I definitely find myself, it seems like daily, pinching myself because it just doesn't seem possible, the situation I'm in. Two races left, Martinsville, Homestead, Miami. What's your message to fans out there who are cheering on Chase Frisco? We're not going to give up, that's for sure. I think it's two great tracks for us. Martinsville has been a pretty strong place for us as a group. Homestead is my favorite racetrack, so looking forward to getting down there and seeing if we can mix it up and make this championship race exciting. We're definitely not giving up, that's for sure. All right, Chase Frisco, we really appreciate the time. Good talking with you today. Yeah, thank you. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me.