NASCAR Cup Series

Chase Elliott on crew chief Alan Gustafson: 'He has always allowed me' to be myself

Updated May. 2, 2024 1:42 p.m. ET

Alan Gustafson has been Chase Elliott's crew chief for his entire full-time NASCAR career. So probably no one person has had a greater impact on the star driver than Gustafson has.

On the latest edition of "Kevin Harvick's Happy Hour," Elliott detailed his relationship with his crew chief.

"He is just head down and focused on doing his job and making sure that he's elevating the entire team to be better, making sure the right people are in place, making sure I'm doing my part, pushing me to be better, and we can just have these open and honest conversations with one another that are hard to have some days if I don't feel like I'm doing my part, or if he didn't do his part right, or vice versa," Elliott told host Kevin Harvick. "We can just have these conversations, and there's never any ill feelings afterwards. It's just like ‘yeah, you know what, you're right. We gotta go to work and make that better.' And that's just how our working relationship has always been, and it's super simple in that sense.

"I've always tried to let him do his job, and let him hold himself accountable first, and he has always allowed me to be me and do the same and just let me do my part and push each other when we need to."

Elliott, 28, has 19 career NASCAR wins and was the 2020 Cup Series champion. He's in the midst of his ninth season on the NASCAR circuit, which has been spent solely at Hendrick Motorsports and with Gustafson as his crew chief.

Meanwhile, Gustafson is in his 20th season with Hendrick Motorsports. Prior to working with Elliott, Gustafson worked with and/or served as crew chief for NASCAR champions Terry Labonte, Kyle Busch and Jeff Gordon, among other drivers.

Elliott won the AutoTrader EchoPark Automotive 400 at Texas Motor Speedway last month in what was his first win in 42 races. He's now third in points (377) this season, with four top-five finishes and five top-10 finishes.