“I’m excited about Watkins Glen. It’s a great track for us,” Alan Gustafson said last week. However, the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports crew chief saw his ambition go up in smoke. His driver, Chase Elliott, has been on and off in the NASCAR Cup Series this season. He has one win at Atlanta Motor Speedway to boast about, but his consistency has probably been Elliott’s crowning glory this season. Sadly, he lost that recently.

NASCAR visited Watkins Glen International with a lot of attention on Shane van Gisbergen. The Kiwi speedster is the new-age road course phenomenon, and he lived up to his godly reputation. At the same time, however, an older road course racing talent faded away – to fans’ utter disappointment.

Chase Elliott chafes under a petty mistake

Before SVG broke into the NASCAR scene, other road course racers dominated the game. One of them was Chase Elliott, with his seven road course wins being the third best of all time behind only Jeff Gordon (nine) and Tony Stewart (eight). What is more, the 2020 Cup Series champion had a huge advantage at the Glen. He had a pair of wins and four top-five finishes in eight starts at the 2.45-mile serpentine circuit. Elliott’s average finish of 10.6 is best among all active drivers with five or more starts. However, a trivial mistake on his team’s part axed his chances to win and his season-long consistency.

On lap 20 of 90 laps of the Go Bowling at the Glen race, Chase Elliott‘s spotter made a blunder. Trey Poole inaccurately deemed it to be the final lap of the stage, causing Elliott to slow down the No. 9 Chevy to 60 MPH. Soon after, Poole corrected his supposition and apologized on the radio. But by that time, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. had edged up to Elliott’s car, making a fierce charge to overtake him. Thankfully, he could not do so; however, Elliott’s day was sealed nonetheless.

The HMS star finished in 26th place – effectively breaking his top 20 streak. Chase Elliott had finished top 20 in all 23 races in the 2025 season. In total, his streak spanned 26 races, dating back to Homestead-Miami in October 2024. NASCAR expert Eric Estepp lamented about this unfortunate turn of events: “Chase Elliott has finished top 20 in every single race this season…I never would’ve guessed Watkins Glen would be the troublemaker.”

Chase Elliott lost 24 points to points leader William Byron, trailing the latter by 42 points in total. Now, he has only Richmond and Daytona to make up for his loss. He has been solid at Richmond, where he has strung together 13 straight, top-15 showings. As for the wildcard option in Daytona, the team’s raw speed in the rest of the season looks encouraging in the chaos of the drafting track.

For now, however, the community is not at all happy with the missed chances in Watkins Glen.

NASCAR fans call out the lackluster move

For a road course talent like Chase Elliott, his failure in Watkins Glen was surprising. The incident when his spotter messed up raised fans’ eyebrows during the race, as they were surprised to see Elliott slowing down. One fan reflected on that sight: “It was comical hearing his car cut out coming to the line. Seems like everyone in the stands wondered what was happening as there was still 1 lap left.” Breaking the consistency of 23 race finishes inside the top 20 got on fans’ nerves, especially at a track where Elliott has won twice. So somebody could not help but diss the team’s petty blunder: “This team is in shambles.”

The HMS No. 9 Chevrolet qualified in 20th place, but there were a number of miscues that axed his pace. Chase Elliott finished 4th in the first stage, but the lack of fresh tires cut back his progress soon after. One fan lamented about this pit road miscue, calling out Elliott’s team: “I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a driver so much better than his team. He’s towards the top of the standings with almost no help.” Alongside his old tires, Elliott was also relying on old fuel, as the driver apparently almost ran out of gas during the mishap. One fan spotted this, as they wrote, “Chase was out of the gas for a min there too as a result. Crazy he hung on to that spot lol.”

Trey Poole is actually Chase Elliott’s cousin, having spotted for him in previous road course racing events. He slipped into Eddie D’Hondt’s shoes in 2024 – but so far, fans have not been satisfied with him. One fan wrote about how he lacks camaraderie with Elliott and Alan Gustafson: “Spotters and their relationships are complicated, but Sometimes I feel like Trey frustrates Elliott and AG. The dynamic that they had with Eddie has never really existed with Trey in the events where I have listened to their feed for the entire race, which is probably 3-4 races a year. Obviously I’m no insider but it just doesn’t sound like they are meshing 100%.”

Clearly, the HMS No. 9 team needs to smooth a few wrinkles. Meanwhile, Chase Elliott will now focus on the championship instead of his record of consistency. Let us see how far he goes!