“I Thought I Ended Our Hopes” – Chase Elliott’s Team Member Blames Himself for Nearly Losing 2020 NASCAR Championship

The king of Road Courses, Chase Elliott, won the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series Championship. Of course, everyone knows the iconic driver, who is the son of NASCAR legend, Bill Elliott. But things were not so easy for the #9 driver throughout the 2020 season.

In fact, Elliott almost lost all hopes of winning the title in 2020. And it wasn’t even his fault.

NASCAR’s governing authorities inspect every car ahead of races and ensure that the car is legal and ready to race. And the same was the case with Chase Elliott‘s #9 NAPA AUTO PARTS Chevrolet.

Even his car chief, Matt Barndt, felt they combed out everything as he said, “The main job is to make sure that the car doesn’t have issues. We’re looking at the finite details. This car gets put together over the course of three weeks. We get it and in three days go through it with a fine-toothed comb trying to find any potential issues.”

But inspection did not go well for the team, Barndt recalled, “Inspection went terrible. We failed twice and passed on the third, so we had to go to the back.”

In fact, he felt that was the end of the road for the #9 team. Matt confessed, “I thought I ended our hopes.” 

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The most crushing detail is that these issues happened on the very last race of the season, the title race at Phoenix raceway.

So how did Chase Elliott perform in the title race?

The inspection might have crushed the team’s hopes, but Elliott made sure to pay it all off for the team.

The #9 car made a quick way up to the top of the field. And the driver led a race-high, 153 laps to head to take the chequered flag, along with his 2020 NASCAR Cup Series title.

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Leave it to Chase Elliott to turn a bitter weekend into a very, very sweet one. And time and time again, the driver proves that he’s getting even better and faster. So, do you think we will take the 2022 title as well?