Chase Elliott chats with NASCAR.com's Alex Weaver in Victory Lane at Texas Motor Speedway after snapping his 42-race winless drought.
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00:00 >> Here in victory lane, the siren is ringing again.
00:03 Chase Elliott is back at Texas motor speedway.
00:06 In victory lane, aggressive moves by you all day and then some crazy restarts at the end.
00:11 Let's walk through your race.
00:13 >> Yeah, honestly, I guess to back up to yesterday, I really felt like -- I feel like our car
00:19 drove -- Texas is always extremely uncomfortable.
00:22 I thought our car had more comfort than it has had here in the past.
00:26 That made me feel better about it.
00:28 I had a really bad qualifying lap, which is not uncommon.
00:32 So surprisingly, I actually was optimistic coming into the day and just felt like if
00:38 we could ever get some track position and get going forward that we would maybe be able
00:43 to get in the mix.
00:44 And our pit crew has been performing at an extremely high level all year.
00:49 And really everything just kind of went our way.
00:50 We got that caution early on to flip the track position.
00:53 Got us up in the top ten.
00:56 Had a couple good restarts and a couple good pit stops.
01:00 Just hung around, really, and got to the end.
01:03 And you know, just to get to the end and be on the front couple rows when they start -- when
01:09 you start having restarts and green/white checkers and all that stuff, you really -- anybody's
01:13 got a shot, I think, in those front couple rows.
01:17 And yeah, you know, Tyler and Denny were on the front row.
01:21 I had a run to his bumper and I thought he was going to block the bottom and he just
01:25 didn't.
01:26 I was like, all right, I'm headed south, you know, if you don't want to go.
01:29 So fortunately I was able to get clear and then that kind of set us up to have an opportunity.
01:36 But we were really pretty good on the short run.
01:40 I got really loose as we ran.
01:42 So the quick runs there at the end certainly fell into our favor.
01:45 And glad it did, for sure.
01:49 >> We know the struggle that you had in 2023 sitting out those races.
01:52 And it's been since 2022 that this team has been in victory lane.
01:56 What can you say about this attitude and the never give up mentality for this non-crew?
02:00 >> Yeah, you know, it's -- it certainly has not been fun, or a lot of it hasn't been fun.
02:06 But it's also -- it's also grown us, you know, grown me, I feel like, and kind of helped
02:12 shape who we are as a group.
02:15 And you know, any time -- we've been through a bunch together, our whole group has, and
02:21 we've had a lot of success, and we've had some rough years, too.
02:25 So it's just -- you know, it's just refreshing, because I feel like very easily this group
02:32 could have split or something could have happened, somebody could have thrown in the towel.
02:36 I feel like we're stronger today than we've ever been, just from a mental toughness standpoint,
02:42 our willingness and drive to work together and work for each other.
02:48 So yeah, you kind of have -- you can jump ship or you can stick with it, and this group
02:53 has doubled down on sticking with it and sticking with me, and I couldn't be more proud of them,
02:58 because they've elevated me to be a better driver and a better person, and I think we're
03:03 all making each other better right now, and that's a special thing.