In the NASCAR Cup Series , entire careers can transpire over the course of a decade.
Thankfully, that’s not the case for Chase Elliott , who, at age 30, carries a ton of optimism into his 11th season in 2026 and, if he chooses, would seem to have years and years left to fully define his legacy in the sport.
Still, a decade is undoubtedly a landmark and heading into his 11th DAYTONA 500 start this weekend, Elliott took a little time to reflect on the time passed and specifically, where he was 10 years ago: on the pole for the Great American Race .
One would think, a pole award coming in the season’s biggest event would always be a plus. But for Elliott, who’d finished no better than 16th in five Cup Series races the season before, it was a heavy burden to carry through press conferences and onto the starting grid, even after a victory in Saturday’s Xfinity Series event.
That whole year, especially going into Daytona, was such a whirlwind. It was overwhelming in a lot of ways,” Elliott recalled in a recent interview with HendrickMotorsports.com . “I had run a handful of races the year before that all went pretty bad and Alan had a pretty big hand in what those tracks were going to be. It’s like he knew me really well before I really knew him, sending me to the tracks I did, kind of knowing how bad I was going to struggle, which ended up being a good thing. I certainly got humbled really fast, which I think was good.
“Then, going to Daytona, I had run the Saturday (Xfinity Series) race and won that and was on the pole from the Sunday before, which was just a lot. I think the toughest part for me going into that situation is, I knew how bad the five races had gone and how much I had to learn and Daytona qualifying is just not an indicator of a driver and that’s a really hard narrative to have people understand.
So, here I am, answering all these questions ahead of the biggest even of the year and I just didn’t really feel like I had earned my right to answer those questions and be talking about those things at the time. It was a lot. Trying to kind of get my way through all that and get myself to Sunday was kind of my mindset.
“Then, we get in the race and end up crashing there too, so, it was all kind of bad from there.”
As Elliott alluded, the 2016 DAYTONA 500 didn’t exactly go to plan for the then-No. 24 team. But thankfully, there were much brighter days in the races and years to come.
To get to them, the young driver needed a solid voice and presence in his corner. Gustafson, was just the man for that job. Already with over a decade of experience atop the box, Gustafson had been in a similar situation before, serving as Kyle Busch’s first crew chief when he began his full-time Cup Series career with Hendrick Motorsports in 2005.
“You had to give him his space and opportunity to learn and become who he wanted to be and what he wants to do and I’ve tried hard to do that,” Gustafson explained. “I think just trying to maintain that level of intensity and commitment to excellence it takes to be on top and not get complacent. It’s a delicate balance. It’s important to challenge yourself and your teammates to be better. You have to do that in a way that’s positive and productive and sustainable and I think that’s worked really well with the team in general and certainly him and myself. I’ve just tried to always keep that continuous improvement in mind and always focus on the opportunity we have in front of us.
“There’s certainly been some trying situations and different things. I think my advice has always been to be true to who he is. His moral compass or whatever you want to call it is good. So, you get in tough spots and things don’t go your way and you question things or you get in altercations or guys are trying to bully you, whatever it is, and I think for him it’s just always you reiterate that he’s doing the right thing. You’ve just got to stay the course, stand up for what you believe in, be genuine to yourself and work through all of it. Thankfully, that’s all worked out pretty well.”