“More than I thought”: Chase Elliott describes his feelings about Bowman Gray track’s ‘racy’ condition

Chase Elliott kicked off his 2025 Cup Series campaign with a victory at the Cook Out Clash exhibition race from pole position at Bowman Gray Stadium. In a post-race conversation with former Cup Series champion Kevin Harvick, the HMS driver spoke about how the track felt more racy than he had initially thought.

The track at the Bowman Gray Stadium is known as the Madhouse for its intense racing, where carnage and aggression are the norms. However, the 200-lap race was relatively well behaved with only four lead changes and seven cautions (excluding the competition caution at the halfway mark) compared to nine cautions in just a 75-lap LCQ before the main event.

Speaking to Chase Elliott on 'Victory Lap' at NASCAR on Fox this week, Harvick told the No. 9 driver that he was surprised to see how racy the track was. He asked Elliott to share his thoughts on why that was the case.

"It was and I think even more than I thought it was going to be as well. I attribute that to just the age of the surface and in my opinion, it took a little bit of time for the tire wear to get to a position that you did have an option to move off the bottom, but it did happen…” Elliott explained.

The HMS driver gave a couple of more reasons for the quarter-mile track conducting such good races including the characteristics of the track and the wear on Goodyear tires.

“I think the straightaways being a little longer, the corners being a little more sweeping; not such a tight little apex that you had to work with at the Coliseum, gave you some of those options, and then obviously, whatever tires Goodyear brought it did have some fall off to it and it had some wear and it took 60 70 laps but after a bit of time you could hurt the tire and I think that was where you know you really saw the racing get good," Eliott added.

HMS Vice-Chairman Jeff Gordon also gave his opinion on how the No. 9 team managed the Goodyear tires at Bowman Gray.

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Jeff Gordon impressed with how Chase Elliott managed his tires in the Clash

Chase Elliott was on top of his game since the start of the weekend. He topped the practice sessions and then went on to secure pole position for Sunday’s Clash by winning the first Heat Race on Saturday. During the main event, he led for 171 of 200 laps.

Denny Hamlin chased Elliott for the lead for much of the first half of the race, followed by a charge from the No. 12 Team Penske Ford Mustang of Ryan Blaney in the closing stages. However, Elliott kept his cool as he navigated his way through the backmarkers and secured his victory.

Former four-time Cup Series champion and Vice Chairman of Hendrick Motorsports, Jeff Gordon praised Chase Elliott for his victory and managing tires beautifully throughout the 200-lap race.

"Grip is grip. Those guys really had something special and you could see the car was working well. Chase I thought was doing a great job managing the tires and the balance and I just thought all the way around it was a good weekend for the No. 9 team in a big way. I don’t know how much of that transfers over to anything else but if they can find one, tiny ounce, they’ll take it," Gordon said in a press release.

Chase Elliott will hope that this strong performance at the Clash will also translate into a quick car for the official start of the season in the Daytona 500.