By alley - Aug 1, 2016, 6:47 PM ET

NASCAR: Elliott accepts blame for recent slide

Chase Elliott's already disappointing summer reached a new low on Monday when he was involved in yet another crash and finished 33rd in the weather-shortened Pennsylvania 400.

Elliott slid up the track in Turn 2 on Lap 106 and made contact with Joey Logano, sending him into the outside retaining wall. For his part, Elliott slid back down the track and hit the inside wall with the nose of his No. 24 Chevrolet.

"I thought Denny had the best run, so I elected to push him down the back, down there at the exit of Turn 1," Elliott said. "I thought that would be a good move to kind of get him passed and that hopefully he would drag me by ... I thought I slowed down enough to not get loose, but got loose and collected Joey. So, I apologize to those guys.

"It was completely my fault."

Elliott entered the weekend as the highest-ranked driver in the standings without a victory but has now lost that distinction after six straight races without a top-10. He was ranked sixth after Michigan in June but is now 11th with just five races remaining in the regular season.

Despite the slide, he still has a healthy playoff cushion, either 45 or 25 points, depending on whether or not Pocono winner Chris Buescher cracks the top 30 and becomes and joins the provisional Chase Grid.

True to form, Elliott didn't make excuses after the race and said he needs to "make better decisions" to turn his season around before the playoffs.

"I just need to rethink my approach right now," Elliott said. "It's definitely not working. We've had good cars. We had a good car today. I felt like we were a step in the right direction from where we had been the last couple of weeks, which I felt like was a good sign. I just didn't do my part. I need to rethink things and try to do a better job and put us in a better position.

"It's not bad luck. It's just me putting us in bad spots."