Chase Elliott’s delivery might have been in jest, but the meaning behind it is no laughing matter.

The night before activities began at Dover International Speedway, Elliott spent time in the casino located right outside the speedway. When asked Friday morning how he did, Elliott could only chuckle and admit it was a struggle.

“I was hoping May was over and June was going to turn a new page, and if the blackjack table has any frame on June it’s not good,” Elliott said.

May, of course, couldn’t have gone worse for the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports team. After six top-10 finishes in the season’s first eight races, Richmond (April 30) marked the start of an opposite kind of streak, one in which a little bit of everything has struck the team:

Richmond: an uncontrolled tire late in the race relegated Elliott to a 24th-place finish.

Talladega: Finished 30th after being caught in an 18-car wreck on lap 170.

At least 16 machines were damaged in this one.

We are still under the red flag. #NASCARonFOX pic.twitter.com/vTrUK4vx8o

— NASCAR (@NASCAR) May 7, 2017

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Kansas: A collision on pit road with Michael McDowell resulted in damage that never let Elliott be a factor. He finished 24th.

Last weekend, Elliott made a quick exit in the Coca-Cola 600 after he ran over a piece of debris from Jeffrey Earnhardt’s car. It went through the nose of Elliott’s machine, and as he began to slow, he was run into from behind by Brad Keselowski. He finished 38th. In this time, Elliott has dropped from fourth to seventh in points.

“We’re happy to see June and a shot to try to improve and get some good solid finishes if nothing else or really just finish would be good,” Elliott said. “That’s our goal this weekend to try and not have anything stupid happen, finish and hopefully just try to move on down the road and try to get some just solid days, just good experience, execution and just exercise all the parts of the race that you have to do to run well and compete to win.”

While bad luck isn’t a term Elliott likes to use, most of what has gone on in recent weeks has been “wrong place, wrong time.” Knowing that has allowed Elliott to keep a calm approach instead of letting the results gnaw at him.

“If you put yourself in good positions long enough I think eventually good things will happen to you,” Elliott said. “I’m a pretty strong believer in what goes around comes around, and I think everyone in racing – that’s the one thing I’ve learned over my career, I think everything in racing comes full circle at some point. I’m a big believer in that.

“So, I feel like if we keep doing our jobs and keep trying to run well and just keep trying to improve, I think it will come around for us and those opportunities will be there again for us to have good finishes. I don’t know that I had had an entire month be quite as rough as May has. Maybe at some point, I don’t know, I definitely have had things like that happen over time, but I don’t know that it’s all been back to back to back like it seems like it has been here lately.

“We’ll take this weekend for what it is and try to get a good finish.”

A year ago, Elliott finished third at Dover following an intense battle over the final laps with Kyle Larson and Matt Kenseth.