Fresh off his second win of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season, this time at Kansas Speedway in the Hollywood Casino 400, Chase Elliott believes one race in particular could play a crucial role in his run for a second championship.

The 2020 champion dove down the inside past a battling Denny Hamlin and Bubba Wallace on the final lap of double overtime in Kansas on Sunday to secure his spot alongside Ryan Blaney in the Round of 8, which is set to start after the upcoming race at Charlotte’s Roval.

Previewing the next round, which will see the series head for Las Vegas, Talladega, and Martinsville, Elliott told 2014 champion Kevin Harvick that, as far as he is concerned, his Round of 8 push will already get going in Charlotte.

“I would like to get five more points and that would be the first goal that I have in mind,” Elliott said on the ‘Harvick’s Happy Hour’ podcast. “You probably know me well enough to know I’m a week-to-week person. And my mindset right now is, how can I position our team to get five more points this week? And that’s going to do nothing but just help us when we get to Vegas.”

Despite Vegas having previously “been a little bit of a struggle for us,” Elliott seemed somewhat confident this time around following “a really respectable run going there last fall.”

Sign up to our NASCAR newsletter here.

“Another step in the right direction of improvement this past spring. And certainly I think with our performance at Kansas this weekend, I think some of that can translate to Vegas too,” he added.

The same, however, could not be said of the notoriously unpredictable Talladega, with Elliott saying, “That deal’s going to be about who doesn’t crash, I think, at the end of the day. 

“And if you can luck up and get a win at that deal, then fantastic,” he went on to admit. “But certainly going to have to do your very best there to be smart and keep yourself in a good spot. And I feel very confident we can go to Martinsville and have a shot to win.”

DON’T MISS…

Ultimately, Elliott believes “the big one’s just Talladega and what’s going to happen there, and whether or not we can get through the mess. And I feel like if we can do that, we have a real shot to make it to Phoenix.”

At this late stage in the season, Elliott believes the focus is on “buying yourself and your team more time,” as the further down the line you get, “The more opportunities you have and you just never know what can happen. And anybody in that top eight can get hot for a couple of weeks. And I think we’re capable of doing that too.”

A two-time winner at the Roval, Elliott could yet finish the Round of 12 on a high note ahead of the push to reach the Championship 4 at Phoenix on November 2.