Chase Elliott chats with NASCAR.com's Alex Weaver after missing out on the Championship 4 with a second-place finish at Martinsville.
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00:00Just short of a championship run for the 9 crew, but a solid night here.
00:05What more did you need at the closing laps?
00:08A new set of rear tires would have done me a lot of good.
00:14Really proud of our effort.
00:15We were right there in the mix of it.
00:18We got some damage early, kind of midway through the race, and honestly, I thought it was over
00:24right then, and Alan made a great call, got us the lead.
00:28We had a very fortunate caution.
00:29Came out, and next thing we know, we had a chance.
00:33Truthfully, it was my mistake getting the damage.
00:36I didn't recognize what the 7 team was doing, and then he went to pit road, and I hit him.
00:45That just put us in a position with the car where we were having to make adjustments that
00:49I really didn't want to make, and I think it ended up hurting me from being able to
00:55manage that last run like I needed to.
00:58Would it have been enough to hold Ryan off?
01:00I'm not saying that by any stretch, but, you know, you start adding those little things
01:05up here and there, and, you know, that could be the difference in it going your way or
01:10not.
01:11You mentioned adding those little things up.
01:13You've talked about the strength of this team, especially over the last few weeks.
01:16Was there a point in the playoffs where you could have done something differently and
01:19you wouldn't have been in this position?
01:21I mean, sure, yeah, but I mean, I didn't, and it was what it was.
01:27So that's life, and I think that, you know, for us, I just, we were really, we've been
01:34at our best the last three weeks, and I think that's really cool because, you know, this
01:38is a great time of year to be able to peak, and I think it just shows the strength of
01:42our team to be able to really step up when the situation's difficult, you know, and to
01:48have opportunities and to have chances to win championships, you're going to have to
01:51do that.
01:52You're going to have to do a lot of that, so proud of that, you know, proud of our effort.
01:55I hate we came up short, you know, but it sucks, but we'll go to Phoenix and try to,
02:01you know, build something for, you know, obviously that track is extremely important, so just
02:05go to work out there.
02:06Thanks, Chase.