Opinion: Chase Elliott will win the All-American 400
Up and coming NASCAR Camping World Truck Series competitor Chase Elliott has won the Snowball Derby, World Crown, and the Winchester 400 super late model events; however, he has yet to conquer Fairgrounds Speedway at Nashville’s All-American 400. That could definitely change after Saturday night.
Chris Owens
NASHVILLE -- Making a case for at least half of the field present for this year’s Southern Super Series season finale and annual All-American 400 held in Nashville, Tennessee would not be a very arduous task. Despite that, I am sticking with one of the winningest super late model drivers in recent years to be up front after 300 laps; Dawsonville, Georgia’s Chase Elliott.
"We started off struggling quite a bit, but made some decent gains I hope," Elliott told SB Nation on Friday. "Fall is kind of different because it’s so warm during the day and gets so cool at night."
It may not sound like the most positive outlook, but countless times before Elliott has talked about how his car still could use some work between sessions, even when among the fastest. That constant drive to improve toward being as close to perfect as possible contributes to his focus.
Once the race begins, he has a knack for analyzing the race and the methodical strategy toward finding his way to the front. He seems to pace himself early on and saves the equipment for that last run for the win.
"I haven’t raced here in about three and a half years so I’m not sure what it’s going to do tomorrow night," added Chase.
It was that time in 2010 where Elliott finished second to T.J. Reaid for the 200 lap distance that year. Reaid drove for Kyle Busch Motorsports that year, the same team Elliott finished second to in last month’s Winchester 400.
In that race, Elliott steadily closed in on winner Erik Jones but ran out of time near the end of a race that saw an unusually low amount of attrition. With the caliber of competitors present at Nashville it should be the same story, and his knowledge of what Jones can do will play in his hands as well if it were to come down to those two again.
"They’re all special. We obviously want to win them all if we can. We’re going to give this race just as much effort as we do any other race," Elliott commented when asked if this particular race was any different than the others.
"We have a little left to go tomorrow so if we can do that and make a couple small gains I think we will be close," he added.
Complete All-American 400 coverage can be found on SB Nation's Ranting and Raving Short Track Blog.
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