NINE Nation is not happy after Chase Elliott’s 14th-place finish at Darlington in the opening race of the Cup Series Chase. Passionate as ever, his fans, who have voted him Most Popular Driver of the Year eight times, are now blaming the poor result on his longtime crew chief, Alan Gustafson. The pair’s successful history seems to have taken a back seat, with fans now calling for a major change.
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It all stems from one bad pit stop and the radio message that followed. After the red flag was lifted with 30 laps to go in the Cook Out Southern 500, Elliott came into the pits. Once his right-side tires had been changed, he was leaving his pit box when one of the over-the-wall crew members attempted to move to the left of the car.
Elliott reversed back into his box, and once he was back on track, the radio exchange revealed clear miscommunication before the stop.
“Never heard four. That we were doing two,” said Elliott before his crew chief Gustafson replied, sounding frustrated, “1 said four. Ten Times, Ten Times.”
Gustafson’s snap was one that didn’t go down well with Elliott’s fans, who flooded social media calling for him to be sacked by Hendrick Motorsports.
“FIRE ALAN GUSTAFSON!!!” seemed to be the common feeling for Elliott fans, as one wrote on X.
“Just inexcusable for Alan Gustafson to speak to his driver like that when he CLEARLY doesn’t say 4 or 2 tires one way or the other… but this is what we have to deal with until changes are made,” wrote an annoyed fan.
“It’s genuinely shocking how Alan Gustafson actively makes the car worse and worse EVERY TIME. Like, how can you be this bad at your job???” was the question another fan had.
One Elliott fan wrote, “Alan Gustafson is by far the dumbest crew chief on pit road,” while another wrote, “If you guys don’t fire Alan Gustafson in November, I’m taking my talents to F1.”
“Alan Gustafson is and always has to be the problem. They need to be separated with A.G. gone from crew chief at HRM,” wrote another before adding, “Been saying since 2021 Alan Gustafson is NOT a top-tier crew chief and should have been gone after the championship season.”
Another fan expressed similar opinions of Elliott winning another title with Gustafson, “Alan Gustafson is a clown. Defended him all year, but once again we have to mention it. Know this story all too well. Unless something dramatic happens. We won’t see the 9 as a Champ again with AG.”
Elliott and Gustafson have been a team for over ten years now. And they have tasted immense success together, including 23 wins and the 2020 Cup Series championship. However, this isn’t the first time fans have blamed the No. 9 HMS Chevrolet driver’s miseries on Gustafson.
One fan went as far back as May to find a tweet from Jeff Gluck about Gustafson quoting David Goggins while talking about the hate he gets on social media. The quote Elliott’s crew chief used was “You’ll never find a hater who can do it better than you can.”
Reposting Gluck’s post, the fan wrote, “Alan Gustafson and his team have had 2 top 10s since this. LMFAO.”
While Elliott’s crew chief was getting slandered across social media, journalist Kelly Crandall tried to defuse the situation, stating that it was a bit too much to call for someone being fired without attempting to understand the full context of what happened.
Crandall posted an almost 20-minute-long video from Elliott’s car of the red flag from start to finish. In the video, there are several minutes of nothing but silence and a few interactions between the driver and his crew, with a bit of static in between.
What Crandall tried to clear up was that there was either a radio issue or the message was not broadcast. The second reason could be because the broadcasters either do not use all team radio messages or the team used a different channel for the message.
The first one seemed more likely because there were a lot of moments of just static, and that points to the radio itself malfunctioning. This is the point that Crandall not just argued but tried to back up with examples.
“Did the 9 team have radio issues where things weren’t going through?” wrote Crandall. “For instance, notice the static when Elliott is on pit road coming toward his box, as if someone is keying up. Gustafson later says that he said it while Elliott was on pit road.”
HMS will need to figure out exactly what happened during the pit stop and with the radio message that followed, whether it was a communication gap or a glitch. Elliott will need these problems solved if he is to have any chance of putting up a genuine fight for the title. It’s been a difficult season for Chevrolet and HMS as a whole, but he has shown that he can win even when the moments are tough.
He remains Rick Hendrick’s only driver to win races in 2026. Two, to be exact. Now, he’ll be hoping to add more in the remaining nine.