The Chase is officially underway ... for Chase Elliott, that is

In doing so, Elliott becomes the fourth and final driver in the Hendrick Motorsports stable to win at least one race in the first 11 – just under one-third of the 36-race season.

Whether the son of legendary NASCAR Hall of Famer Bill Elliott can continue going forward in a winning way – let alone win his second Cup championship in three seasons – remains to be seen.

But one thing is for sure: the way this season has begun for the younger Elliott has been somewhat odd. Hendrick Motorsports teammates Alex Bowman, Kyle Larson and William Byron all reached victory lane earlier than Elliott.

Now, I’m not saying Elliott has had a bad season to date just because he hadn’t won before Monday. On the contrary.

With the exception of a 26^th-place finish at Fontana, 14^th at Richmond and 11^th at Phoenix, Elliott has otherwise been knocking constantly on victory’s door.

But …

That previous statement must be clarified a bit. While he’s led the Cup point standings for now seven weeks and he has been at least at times in contention for wins, prior to Monday, the Georgia native had managed just one top-five finish this season, a fourth-place finish at Circuit of the Americas.

Sure, he also has six other top-10 finishes, but that’s the rub … he just couldn’t get it done and push it across the finish line before Monday.

Look at the numbers: 10^th (Daytona), 9^th (Las Vegas), 6^th (his home track of Atlanta), 10^th (Martinsville), 8^th (Bristol) and 7^th (Talladega).

Try as he may, Elliott just could not straighten his way into victory lane. It was always one thing or another, either contact (typically minimal) with other drivers, or he failed to lead a lap in a race (six to be exact).

“I think we had some opportunities to win some races certainly at the beginning of the year,” crew chief Alan Gustafson said. “Didn't capitalize on them. I think the pace was there at California, Phoenix, Martinsville. There were a lot of opportunities. You look at the box score, you don't see it. I feel like we've been pretty close.

“Unfortunately we hadn't finished where we should have or the way we were performing. Today I think we were able to put it all together and certainly get the win.”

No matter how hard Elliott or Gustafson tried, or how much input team owner Rick Hendrick and Chase’s father Bill put into the equation, he left race after race normally with a solemn, if not completely disappointed, look on his face.

Jaime Little of Fox Sports even quipped after interviewing Elliott on the frontstretch after the race that it was the first time she’d seen Elliott smile in a long time.

Oh, how true. So true!

And then Elliott himself kind of eluded to the frustration himself, when he told Little, “Really appreciate Alan (Gustafson, crew chief) and our entire team No. 9 Chevrolet team for just sticking with it. We've had some tough races over the last, I don't know, four, five months. Just great to get NAPA back to Victory Lane; great to get Hendrick Motorsports back to Victory Lane.”

A friend asked me a few hours after Chase finished all his celebrating whether I thought if Monday’s win would finally get the monkey off his back and was he poised to embark upon a big winning streak in the next several races.

My answer to him was simple: I just don’t know … or better yet, I don’t know what to think.

Sure, he dominated much of the second half of Sunday’s race, but he just didn’t look like the kind of guy who can dominate on a regular basis to me.

At least not yet.

But I’ll give Chase the benefit of the doubt and hope that Monday’s win – the 14^th already of his young Cup career – indeed will turn things around for him. I’d love to see him put together multiple wins in a season: not so much just the two he had in 2021, but rather the five in his championship season in 2020, or even the three wins each in 2018 and 2019.

Time will tell if Elliott can win more races in the remaining 25 events, including the 10 races in the playoffs. Let’s not forget that he finished fourth – or last of the four Chase finalists, if you will – in the championship race last November.

He came into that race highly favored because he had won his first Cup crown the year before, but Elliott uncharacteristically finished fifth in the season finale at Phoenix … and there went title No. 2.

So, let’s see where Chase goes from here. He can win Sunday at Darlington and give his mom Cindy a heck of a Mother’s Day gift.

“I want to do good every week, regardless of what's going on around me,” Elliott said in his post-race press conference. “Just proud of our team for sticking with it. I feel like we've had a lot of pace at different times throughout the year. We just hadn't put an entire race together really until today, I feel like.

“We’ve been fast at one point or fast at another. Just not quite putting it all together all in one three-and-a-half, four-hour time frame. It was just nice to do that today.”

Follow Jerry Bonkowski on Twitter @JerryBonkowski