Dawsonville's Chase Elliott may not have gotten the win on Sunday at Martinsville, but he was in contention on the final restart.
Elliott finished third in Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series race, his best performance of the season. Hendrick Motorsports finished 1-2-3, with William Byron taking the overtime win and Kyle Larson making a rally for the No. 2 spot.
"Second or third, what does it matter? Yeah, obviously, number one, congrats to William and everybody at Hendrick Motorsports—Rick and Linda, all the folks, Jeff and Jeff and Chad, all the people who put this together for us," Elliott said after the race. "They have an unbelievable program. I think we’re all proud to call it home.
"It was nice to have a couple of solid weeks and to be in contention for a win. I haven’t been in contention to win one in a while. It was fun to get to that last restart, and it actually mattered. I enjoyed that aspect. I am certainly hungry for more."
Eliott feels like the No. 9 team is starting to hit its stride. He's finished in the top 10 in three of the last four starts and is currently sixth in the Cup points standings.
"Yeah, no, the last couple weeks, really not just the last couple weeks, but I feel like throughout a lot of the season this year," he said. "We’ve been working in a good direction, working really good together. Pit stops have been really good. Alan has been calling really good races. All that stuff has been going in a really positive direction, in my opinion. I think if we can keep producing that, we’ll get our turn one day."
