Chase Elliott discusses injury, recovery, return to Cup at Martinsville

The caller to SiriusXM NASCAR Radio on Thursday morning couldn’t contain his excitement that Chase Elliott is coming back this weekend at Martinsville Speedway after missing the past six races due to a fractured tibia.

With conviction, the caller said that Elliott would not only win this weekend at Martinsville but also do so the following weekend at Talladega Superspeedway.

Elliott chuckled when told this, but he appreciates the support of that fan and the rest of Elliott Nation during his recovery.

“Their support has been vital,” Elliott told NBC Sports on Thursday. “Just being at the shop the last couple of days and seeing the fans’ response to the news of getting back to the track.

“To go in the shop and to have the guys, your teammates at (Hendrick Motorsports) across the board be like, ‘Hey, we’re glad to have you back, we’re looking forward to going back to the racetrack with you.’ That stuff means a lot, and I think so does that coming from the fans because those are the folks that you see as you go to these different parts of the country.”

As to winning this weekend at Martinsville?

“Martinsville is certainly going to be a challenge,” Elliott said. “I don’t anticipate any of them to be easy. They’re never easy anyway, but certainly when you’ve been sitting out and your competitors have been racing and continuing to sharpen those tools and I haven’t.

“I do think it’s going to be tough, but I certainly believe we can go up there and have a really strong performance and get back in the groove. But we’ve got to have our ducks in a row, and I think it’d be a good just to get back in the swing of things and we’ll kind of see where it goes from there.”

Hendrick Motorsports announced March 3 that Elliott had been