Early Season Rookie Success: Chase Elliott

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By Richard Tix

NASCAR heads into a bye week during Easter break but that doesn't mean we don't have anything to talk about. We just left Auto Club Speedway and had one heck of a race. The Auto Club 400 was one of the best races from start to finish of the year.

We also have started out with some amazing finishes in two of the five races (0.01 seconds). It has been one heck of a five race start to the 2016 season that will give momentum to NASCAR for the rest of the season. None of this is even mentioning the excitement and fireworks of post race twitter this past Sunday.

Photo: Jasen Vinlove, USA TODAY

That's only scratching the surface because if we dig deeper past the on track product, past Jimmie Johnson's fast start, past all the penalties of the No. 78 team, we see the great rookie battle of Chase Elliott and Ryan Blaney.

Behind the Wall previewed this battle before the season even started by highlighting how good it could be and just like the aero package it has produced early and often.

The Auto Club 400 was arguably Chase Elliott's best run so far in the very early stages of 2016. If it wasn't for the late caution that was throw when Kyle Busch's tire went down, Chase would have easily finished with his first top 5 of his career and most likely even a top 3.

When the caution came out most of us watching Chase (fan or just follower) knew it might be bad news for his chance at the top 5. Not only would they have to make it through the late stop pit stop grind, but it also meant another restart. For the most part Elliott struggled all day on restarts so it was a tough break for the young rookie.

Even though he fell from the top 5, Chase Elliott still showed brilliant flashes on Sunday and put together another complete race (aside from some slow jumps on restarts). It was the second straight race where he ended with 100+ driver rating (101.0 last week and 105.1 this week at ACS).

In his last four races (everything but Daytona) he has finished 13th or better and now has three top 10's out of those four. Whats even better is that in those same three races he finished top 10 he also ran on average in the top 10 all race.

Photo: Jonathan Ferrey

He is running up with all the best drivers in NASCAR weekly and he has just started his career. Many drivers in the past 3-4 years have come in with a ton of hype but failed to produce right away, but Chase is starting on the right foot.

Chase was blessed with the opportunity to step into a high quality ride with Hendrick Motorsports right away, but it is still impressive to see what he is doing at a young age. It took 20 races in 2014 for Kyle Larson to get his third finish where he had an average running position in the top 10 (just for comparison).

It's obviously a small sliver of what will eventually become Chase Elliott's NASCAR career, but so far it has been a fun start and I am excited to watch the season long progression.