“Wasn’t Doing Anything Stupid”- Chase Elliott Unapologetic for the 2023 Cup Season Jeopardizing Tragedy

2023 wasn’t what Chase Elliott or the Hendrick Motorsports fanbase thought it would turn out to be. The HMS driver, for the first time in his eight-season career, got eliminated without making it to the playoffs. An unfortunate snowboarding accident got the driver sidelined with a fractured left leg, leaving him hanging to watch his race car driven around the track by Josh Berry.

Chase Elliott returned to the racetrack after missing out 6 races but still couldn’t do anything significant while the point deficit slowly crept on him, getting him further towards adversity. Following the incident, the hot topic was about drivers committing to other side quests amidst their main objective—the Cup Series obligation—where Elliott’s boss, Rick Hendrick, reminded his driver of his position. However, Elliott remains unfazed, admitting that he learned quite a few things but did not commit anything “stupid” when he went snowboarding off the tracks.

Chase Elliott remains defiant despite the disappointing 2023 season

Dropping down to the Pure Athletic podcast was the 2023 Most Popular Cup Series Driver, Chase Elliott. Days before he won the award, being selected for the sixth time straight despite having a worse season, the driver reflected on his journey from being sidelined in the hospital bed to getting back in his race car when the host asked about his takeaways and what he learned from this season.

Elliott said, “Yeah, it’s definitely been a tough one, I mean just the way the whole year, I felt like, and 2 I’ve gotten older, I thought that there was so many lessons to be learned just from getting older and viewing things from different a perspective has been kind of weird but you know getting into my later 20s…” 

The 2020 Cup Series champion then laid out the whole thing, seeing his race car run around the track without him at the helm. He said, “Honestly, I got back because I was thinking I was going to, so from that standpoint, it was good, but you know, you sit there and you watch the races go on without you, and that can kind of push you into a different perspective just from how you look at things, and so definitely some lessons going there.”

WATCH THIS STORY: Chase Elliott once again wins the Most Popular Driver award despite a disappointing season 

“You know, I wouldn’t necessarily change anything; I wasn’t doing anything stupid, so I’m not. I’m not necessarily saying that, but just the experience I had sitting out, watching the car go around the race track, and then coming back, and then we struggled really for the remainder of the year, and there were some high spots in there.”

Elliott mentions the silver lining that came with the 2023 disappointment

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Adversity and challenges push a man beyond his known limits. And that seems to have made a profound change for Chase Elliott. Seeing his car driven by another racer and struggling to hold his ground after coming back from the injury seems to get the HMS ace to look at life from a different lens altogether.

Speaking on the show, Elliott came up with an important life lesson, reflecting on his tough situation. He said, “Sometimes when I thought we were talking about the right things and doing the right things and making some progress and I felt like all the ingredients have been there and there were these glimpses of hopes and what this new car get things going and I felt like we were finally going on the right direction, its just been a process and sometimes that’s what life is, bit of a  process and you got to work for it.”

READ MORE: NASCAR Insider Unmasks Forgotten 7LBS Chase Elliott Story on the HMS Golden Boy’s 28th Birthday