All year long, and really for the past three seasons, the narrative surrounding Chase Elliott and the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports team has been that they've taken a "good points day" approach. "Collecting points" has been the name of the game, and as such, his championship prospects have taken a hit, despite his consistently strong results across the board.
Elliott has shown he knows how to win. He was the only driver with multiple wins each year from 2018 to 2022. His five-win championship season in 2020 easily could have been double that, if not for an abundance of late-race scenarios that didn't go his way during the year, and he notably paired an incredible level of consistency with a series-leading five victories in the opening season of the Next Gen era in 2022.
Things haven't been the same since.
In 2023, he would have gotten into the playoffs, based on points per race average, had he not missed six races due to injury (and one due to suspension). And based on his post-regular season results, he would have advanced to the round of 8. But he didn't win.
In 2024, he ranked third in total points scored. But he won only once at Texas Motor Speedway and came up short in a must-win situation at Martinsville Speedway to get back to the Championship 4.
The 2025 season has produced much of the same, after things started so promising with a dominant showing in the preseason Cook Out Clash exhibition race at Bowman Gray Stadium.
He did manage to break another win drought of over a year with a drive to the front in the closing laps at Atlanta Motor Speedway, and despite having only one win, his lack of anything lower than a 20th place finish at that point (with no DNFs) resulted in him spending time atop the point standings.
Still, the overall "mid" performance and lack of speed from the No. 9 team led to the narrative that he was content to simply ride around staying out of trouble and collecting points, even though that approach obviously doesn't generate any much-needed playoff points.
Frustration was evident after the round of 16 finale at Bristol Motor Speedway, when Elliott insisted that he was eliminated and admitted he couldn't see how he would advance to the round 12 following his race-ending wreck, even after a third place finish six days prior at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway.
But Elliott found his way back to victory lane at Kansas Speedway on Sunday to punch his eighth ticket to the round of 8 in nine years, and the way he did he totally dispelled the narrative that he's in this fight to simply avoid trouble.
Chase Elliott dispels NASCAR fans' narrative at the best possible time
He drove from 10th to the lead in the two-lap double overtime, passing the entire group of five Toyotas drivers who led the field to the restart green flag. He delivered Chevrolet their first win since mid-August and Hendrick Motorsports their first in nearly two months.
He took advantage of 23XI Racing's Bubba Wallace and 23XI Racing co-owner Denny Hamlin battling for the lead, sneaking to the inside to cross the finish line first. Tire advantage or not, a driver riding around to collect points would have let them duke it out and settled for third to avoid being caught up in the melee, especially in such a short stretch of time at such a crucial point in the playoffs.
But that's not Elliott's approach, and while the emphasis on his top 20 streak during the regular season was indeed a bit much, given how little it really matters, it never has been.
Let's not forget how dominant Elliott was at Dover Motor Speedway in July, when an inexplicable call from crew chief Alan Gustafson to pit and give up track position not only gave up track position but basically donated a win to whoever else really wanted it that afternoon.
That sixth place finish should have been a win, in which case he'd have three this year, tied for the team lead with Kyle Larson – and good for three times as many as all of his teammates combined since mid-May.
In an era that has been dominated by parity, the fact that Elliott isn't winning 10 races per year is not as concerning as it's made out to be. Sure, he's not leading 100 laps per race, but no one is. The fact that he's NASCAR's Most Popular Driver Award winner, year after year, certainly plays into some of the doom and gloom narrative when he goes on an extended win drought.
NASCAR needs him to be successful to move the needle, so if he's running second or worse for more than a couple weeks at a time, it's supposedly time to sound the alarm. Maybe the extended stretches with no bad results (but no wins) do give off the impression that he doesn't care enough to fight for wins.
But as we've seen once again at Kansas, when a win is in front of him, he is as aggressive as anybody, and he knows how to capitalize. This was more of a reminder than it was a "blast from the past", and now his sights are on qualifying for his first Championship 4 since 2022.
He knows better than anybody that a string of top 20 finishes won't be enough to get him there.
The Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval, where Elliott drove from the back to win in both 2019 and 2020, is scheduled to host the Bank of America Roval 400 this weekend. Live coverage is set to be provided by USA Network beginning at 3:00 p.m. ET on Sunday, October 5. Begin a free trial of FuboTV now and don't miss any of the upcoming NASCAR Cup Series playoff action!