Chip Ellis doesn’t having any illusions about where he is in NHRA’s hunt for a Pro Stock Motorcycle world championship.

Yes, he’s fresh off an emotional win at the Carolina Nationals Sept. 18 – his first national event victory since 2008.

True, he moved from sixth place to second in the point standings, 44 points behind two-time and reigning world champion Harley-Davidson rider Andrew Hines heading into the Midwest Nationals Friday through Sunday at Gateway Motorsports Park in St. Louis.

Eddie Krawiec, Hines’ teammate, and three-time world champ, is fourth in the points.

Still, Ellis is keeping everything in perspective – especially when it comes to the Harley duo.

“I worked at Vance & Hines for five years, so I know what those guys are capable of and they have a lot of resources, and for us as an independent team to be able to go and run with those guys is pretty amazing,” Ellis said.

St. Louis is the second race in the six-race Countdown to the Championship, and Ellis certainly is not in the business of making guarantees.

“All I have to do is worry about riding the motorcycle,” said Ellis, who finished a career-best third in the points in 2007. “I don’t keep up with all the stats and whatever. I don’t even look at the points. Lon (Moyer, Ellis’ crew chief) and I are just focused on trying to make the bike run good. If you make the bike run good and you cut good lights on Sunday and you take one round at a time, those rounds will add up and everything will fall into place.”

Ellis has had success in the past at Gateway Motorsports Park, as he won the national event in 2006 when he beat Michael Phillips in the final round.

“We want to try and go and win like we did last week,” said Ellis, who has seven PSM national event wins. “The bike is pretty much turned around and ready to go back in the trailer and we’re ready to take that momentum with us.”

Prior to the Carolina Nationals, Ellis was coming off a second-round loss at the U.S. Nationals in his Junior Pippin-backed Buell motorcycle.

“We’ve had good power, but we’ve had some reliability issues we’ve had to contend with,” Ellis said. “That’s what we’ve been working on all year, trying to make the engine more reliable. Over the last month and a half, we’ve been working on some other stuff like making more power, now that that we have the reliability. We switched bikes a few races ago and we’ve been trying to get everything dialed-in. That’s a challenge, but we’re dialed-in now and now we just have to keep focused on the goal ahead and that’s just one round at a time, and try to keep moving forward.”

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