NASCAR CUP SERIES: CRACKER BARREL 400

May 31, 2026

Chase Elliott

Pit Lane Interview

Q. You're a fifth-place finisher. Obviously things got wild after the start/finish line. You had a pretty quiet day. I thought you were about to steal a win here.

CHASE ELLIOTT: I thought we got our Napa Chevy pretty good by the end. Caught that caution, which was nice. Got some stage points in the first stage, caught that caution with Ryan there and was able to kind of get back in the mix.

Yeah, just always, any time you're back in traffic, you kind of have to just stick to your guns a little bit on what you think your balance is doing. Fortunately, I got an opportunity to be up front and got to show we actually had some okay pace.

I'm not sure we had anything for Bell. I thought he was probably the best car. Credit to those guys and obviously the 11 for getting it done.

Yeah, just a solid night. Obviously been a really bad month, honestly, ever since Texas. Nice to kind of get the train back on the tracks, I hope, and we can kind of build from here.

I'm glad. I heard Tyler's okay. I'm glad he's all right. That had to be a big hit. Ryan was -- nothing intentional on my end obviously. Ryan was trying to push me to the line and got super out of shape. The 45 was just kind of in the way unfortunately for me spinning. Hate that.

Certainly proud of the fight all night to get a top five, and we'll go on to Michigan and try again.

Q. You were really quiet on the radio for the most part, talking little changes here and there, yet the JGR Toyotas still have three cars in the top three. What do you need? What does this Hendrick group need to go in and contend for those wins right now?

CHASE ELLIOTT: It's not as much as you think. That's the challenge, right? You're just fighting for such small margins. Truthfully, I thought that last run that we made, I thought we were just another inch closer to those guys.

I need to digest it and understand exactly where we're a little deficient in certain areas, but I thought we got closer throughout the night. Certainly proud of our whole team for just keeping our heads down and everybody at Hendrick Motorsports for continuing to just chip away at it, man. It's a long year.