By his own description, Chase Elliott‘s 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season has been one of ups and downs.
The high point came on March 29 at Martinsville Speedway, where Elliott held off Denny Hamlin for the victory. Never before in his Cup career had Elliott won as early as the seventh race of a season.
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It’s not in Elliott’s nature, however, to get overly excited by success. Nor to get too disappointed when it doesn’t happen. But the driver of the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet sees the early victory as an opportunity to build a meaningful season.
“Fortunately, the last one was an ‘up,”” Elliott said of the Martinsville win. “But I think it’s also important to recognize that, man, there’s an awful lot of racing left. I think for us, it’s not like, ‘OK, we’ve got the win and pressure’s off.’ That’s not how I’ve looked at it.
“I’ve looked at it with, honestly, just some excitement from the standpoint of, man, we have a longer runway to build on a win. I think for us, we’ve gotten to the last 10 or 15 weeks of the year before and really had to perform just at an extreme level and kind of catch up, in some regards.”
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He added, “Like, even last year, we got ourselves to the playoffs and we didn’t have the wins, the playoff points and all the things banked up.
“I know the system’s different [return to the 10-race Chase format this year] and I get all that, but the concept is very much the same,” Elliott said. “We still need to perform well throughout the first 26 weeks, and I think when you are able to bank a win early, you kind of have a little bit of a longer runway to continue to put good runs together, stack more points and get going on the right foot.”
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