Chase Elliott, the driver of the #9 NAPA Auto Parts Chevrolet, stands in the garage during practice for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond Raceway on April 20, 2018, in Richmond, Virginia. Photo – Sarah Crabill/Getty Images

RICHMOND, Va. – With a season-best qualifying effort on Friday at Richmond Raceway, Chase Elliott is in the ideal position to make personal history—not to mention achieving a major milestone for the Hendrick Motorsports organization that fields his No. 9 Chevrolets.

Elliott put his car on the outside of the front row for Saturday night’s Toyota Owners 400 (6:30 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at the 0.75-mile short track, a race that will mark Elliott’s 86th start in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series. Seven of those starts have ended in runner-up finishes, but Elliott is still searching for his first victory at NASCAR’s top level.

Also at stake is the 250th victory for Hendrick Motorsports, which has been to Victory Lane in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series 249 times with 16 different drivers. Elliott would like nothing better than to contribute to that total.

“Yeah, it’s incredible,” Elliott said of Hendrick’s long run of success. “That’s a huge achievement. I can’t say I’ve helped them a whole lot to get there, but it’s been awesome to be a part of that company and to have watched it over the years, and to have watched them from the couch (winning) races.

“I would love to get number one for me, obviously, but the score of 250 will be pretty spectacular. For them to have 249 wins if you could ever just get one to be amongst the people who have won there, I think would be pretty cool in itself.

“We have to just keep trucking forward like we have been. We’ve been struggling at some of these places and just trying to scratch and go on and get what we can and get back to the ways that I think that our teams deserves to be in.”