Chase Elliott isn’t usually a name one would see on the list of NASCAR’s bad boys. And it turns out, he has been particularly careful about making sure his name doesn’t end up there. The 2022 Cup Series Regular Season Champ has seldom been among the instigators of conflicts in the NASCAR world. He has managed to put a cap on his temper before things have gone too far.

The driver even claimed that “a lot of people give me hell for just how boring I am in a lot of those instances.” However, he has a good reason for why he stays away from conflicts.

During an interview on “Rubbin’ is Racing” podcast with Jeff Gordon and the hosts, Chase Elliott said, “I also recognize what is going (on); like what matters and what doesn’t; and adding fuel to the fire. A lot of those situations just does no one any good, and it ends up becoming a distraction for my race team in weeks to come. And at that point in time, it’s taken away from the job that I need to do the next week.”

Of course, Elliott doesn’t have a clean record, and he knows that. He continued, “I haven’t always done it right. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve made my mistakes, too.”

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But he does prefer to keep it as clean as he can. “You have to step back and look at what is going to hurt me next week, what’s going to help me next week. And that is ultimately all it matters because you can’t go back and change whatever it was that happened.”

Chase Elliott had his boss defending his reasoning

Unlike Chase Elliott, his senior at HMS was definitely one person who didn’t run away from a fight. However, Jeff Gordon acknowledged that keeping a cool head is pretty important as he said, “You usually learn from your mistakes, not to mention you gotta race against all these guys the same week after week after week.”

He added by talking about how everyone wants rivalries, but just like Chase pointed out, they do no good. “We all want rivalries. We all want to see these emotions come out and bumping and banging and knocking guys out of the way. But the problem is, how do you do that week after week? And it not come back to hurt you, maybe more than what it helped you.”

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Few NASCAR fans would admit it, but they both do make a lot of sense. While rivalries often do no good at all, they remain quite entertaining. Would you prefer if Elliott were more expressive of his emotions on track?