Watkins Glen has always occupied a strange little corner of Chase Elliott’s career. It’s where he earned his first NASCAR Cup Series win in 2018, officially transforming from “Bill Elliott’s kid” into a genuine star. And ever since then, every trip back has carried the emotional baggage of a high school reunion, only with more horsepower and significantly worse weather.
The funny thing is, Elliott still genuinely likes the place.
Even after the last couple of seasons, which by his standards at Watkins Glen have felt about as enjoyable as stepping barefoot onto a Lego minefield at 2 a.m.
That frustration was obvious Saturday as Elliott spoke with reporters ahead of Sunday’s race. Yes, the memories of that breakthrough victory are still there. Yes, the place remains special. But nostalgia only goes so far when you’ve spent the previous year wondering where all the speed went.
“I’m not coming up here to reminisce,” Elliott said. “I’m coming up here to do a job.”
And suddenly, the No. 9 team looks capable of doing that job again.
Fresh off a dominant win at Texas Motor Speedway last weekend, Elliott arrived at Watkins Glen sounding less like a driver trying to rediscover himself and more like one finally remembering exactly where he left the keys.
Texas mattered because it wasn’t just a win. It was a complete performance. Elliott led the most laps for the first time since 2022, the pit crew nailed its stops, crew chief Alan Gustafson called the race cleanly, and the entire operation functioned with the sort of sharpness Hendrick Motorsports built its reputation on.
For Elliott, that was the satisfying part.
“When we’re clicking and we’re all doing our jobs to the best of our ability, I feel like we can really be one of the very best groups out here,” he said.
NASCAR teams are a little like symphony orchestras, except louder and with more arguments about tire wear. When one section misses a beat, the whole thing turns chaotic. At Texas, though, the No. 9 group looked synchronized again.
Even teammate Alex Bowman played a role, giving Elliott a critical push on a late restart that helped him clear Denny Hamlin.
“It’s a huge team sport,” Elliott said. “You have a little more trust in those guys.”
Still, Watkins Glen remains unfinished business.
Elliott openly called last year’s race here “terrible” (he finished 26th), admitting much of his focus this weekend centers around resetting his approach to the track entirely. Finding rhythm again. Finding flow. Finding a setup that creates speed without abusing the tires or asking too much from the car over a long run.
That challenge has only become harder in the Shane van Gisbergen era.
Much like Marcus Ambrose years ago, SVG has effectively raised the standard for road course racing in NASCAR, forcing everyone else to improve or get left staring at his rear bumper disappearing into another zip code.
Elliott knows it.
“I still have a lot of room and work to go,” he admitted.
But perhaps the most interesting thing about Elliott right now is that he doesn’t sound discouraged by any of it. If anything, he sounds refreshed. Focused. Motivated by the fact that, for the first time in a while, the No. 9 team appears to have momentum and enough runway left in the season to build on it.
That makes Watkins Glen dangerous again for everyone else.
Because when Chase Elliott starts talking less about pressure and more about improvement, history suggests bad things usually happen to the competition.
The challenge Sunday, however, will be substantial. Shane van Gisbergen earned the pole position Saturday, while Elliott will roll off 27th — his worst starting spot in 10 career Cup starts at Watkins Glen.
Which means the driver returning to the site of his first Cup victory now faces a very different sort of road course Sunday: traffic.
Greg was a writer for DriveTribe supporting Amazon's The Grand Tour and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, and a Masters degree in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek and a regular contributor to Forbes.