Chase Elliott once again cemented himself as one of the elite drivers in NASCAR, accomplishing a feat no other driver has, as his crew chief Alan Gustafson challenged the star.

Since debuting for Hendrick Motorsports (HMS) in 2016, Elliott has proven himself a winner, culminating in a Cup Series championship in 2020. Two seasons later, the HMS star won the regular season championship by way of accruing the most points in the races before the playoffs. 

As Elliott looks to continue his success this season, another title is in his sights. However, the star accomplished a feat no other has done before.  

For the second consecutive season, the 29-year-old has finished every lap, save for one lap, in the first 23 races of the NASCAR calendar, per NASCAR Insights. For reference, Matt Kenseth, Greg Biffle, and Kevin Harvick completed every lap in the first 23 races, with the exception of two laps in 2003, 2012, and 2020, respectively. 

Tony Stewart missed out on three laps in 2009, Kyle Busch (2019) and Denny Hamlin (2021) did not finish four laps apiece while Joey Logano (2019) and Austin Dillon (2021) did not finish five laps in their 23 races. 

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And while Elliott’s accomplishment is impressive in and of itself, Gustafson is hoping the star can rack up one more win in the final three races of the regular season. Having already won at Atlanta, the crew chief outlined a challenge to the HMS star. 

“We obviously want to win the regular season, but more importantly than that, we want to win some races,” he told HendrickMotorsports.com. “I’m excited about Watkins Glen. 

“Richmond is a race that, same thing, I like racing there. It’s a lot of fun. I’m excited to get there and we’ve been working on some new things, so we would like to try to incorporate that at Richmond and try to win that race. And Daytona, we were really good (in the DAYTONA 500) in February. That’s as good as we’ve been down there in a while.”

He added: “Anything can happen at any race anymore, and Daytona has a lot of randomness to it, but I feel good that we should be in as good of a position to go there and win as anybody.

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“I think we’ve got three races to polish up as much as we can and go win and get to the playoffs. You’re always trying to be better but I think the team has been operating at a high level. Certainly, there are things, and you always want to improve and if you look at the last couple of races, we haven’t gotten the finishes we wanted.

“But I feel like we know why the performance has been there in the car, so I’m excited about Watkins Glen.” Additionally, Elliott is only 18 points behind HMS teammate William Byron for the top spot in the regular season standings. 

That is important because Elliott believes the Cup Series championship should be awarded to the most successful driver throughout the entire season. 

“If you just take that as your sample set over the first 26 weeks, it looks pretty solid to me. The system would be just fine if you just had a full season. And if somebody runs away with it, so what?” he pondered. “Let’s celebrate the fact that somebody ran away with it, that somebody was just that good. Motorsports does not have to be like everybody else to be successful. And I’ll stand by that til I get done.”