It’s mid-April and the ninth race of the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series season is here. On Sunday, the drivers will compete in Martinsville, Virginia for the NOCO 400 at Martinsville Speedway. The race will start at 3 p.m. ET and air on FS1 and the Fox Sports App.
The big story heading into the race is the return of Chase Elliott. In February, Elliott suffered a leg injury during a snowboarding accident, leading him to miss six weeks of the season. Before the injury, Elliott scored a runner-up finish at Auto Club Speedway, which was needed since he had a disappointing showing in the Daytona 500.
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“We’re looking forward to having Chase back in his race car to pick up where he left off,” Rick Hendrick, owner of Hendrick Motorsports said in a statement. “Since the injury, he’s worked extremely hard and focused all his time and energy on returning to the No. 9 team. Throughout the last six weeks, he’s stayed fully engaged with everything we’re doing, and we know he’s chomping at the bit to get on the racetrack and compete for wins.”
Elliott has a good chance to have some success on Sunday. In his career, the 27-year-old NASCAR star has recorded five top-10 finishes at Martinsville Speedway, including a victory in the fall of 2020, the same year he won the NASCAR Cup Series Championship. Elliott is excited to be back on the track as well as his fellow drivers.
“There’s more people that want to watch when Chase Elliott is here,” Kevin Harvick said Saturday,” per NASCAR.com. “And I think we’re all thankful that he’s back because whether you like somebody, don’t like somebody, get along with somebody, don’t, everybody has a piece of the puzzle that they fall into. And Chase, for us, he’s our biggest star, and he’s the guy that needs to be here every week for it all to make sense currently. I think, for me, that’s important from an all-around picture. I know that sounds selfish. But I didn’t intend it to sound selfish. I meant that as a broad perspective on NASCAR racing in general.”
