Chase Elliott: NASCAR’s Rising Son
Chase Elliott leaned against the cabinet in his gleaming hauler, knees slightly bent, hands at his sides. He wore jeans, sneakers and a Napa Auto Parts hoodie. His sunglasses were perched upside down on his Napa baseball hat, and a line of black scruff outlined his chin. His dad, NASCAR Hall of Famer Bill Elliott, and mom, Cindy, sat in the hauler’s lounge. Members of his crew swirled in and out, preparing for Elliott’s Sprint Cup Series debut at Martinsville Speedway on Sunday.
He was in the eye of the storm, yet he remained perfectly calm. The biggest race of his life was three hours away, and Elliott exuded all the angst of a Sunday afternoon walk in the park. The closest thing he said or did to suggest he was in any way nervous was to confess that he woke up before his alarm went off, but considering it was set for 8 or 8:30, well, that ain’t exactly freaking out. The pressure he felt over his debut had ended when he successfully qualified for the race on Friday.
That left Sunday for gaining experience, with a goal of finishing every lap. The race would be less than an hour old before even those modest aspirations were dented like so much sheet metal. But for now, the son was still shining. “I feel good,” he says. “I’m ready to get going and see what happens.”
With Elliott’s debut the most-hyped in recent NASCAR memory, the rest of the sport was ready, too. The fresh-faced kid who has been around garages his whole life – all 19 years, four months and three days of it – had arrived at its elite level.
As race time neared, Elliott stood outside his car, talking with his parents and team owner Rick Hendrick, racing royalty arm-in-arm with racing royalty. It’s a scenario that seems inevitable now, but it was unlikely five years ago.
Hendrick Motorsports gave up signing developmental drivers in the 2000s, as the investment of time and money too often yielded nothing but bruised egos and rumpled race cars. But Chase Elliott’s combination of speed and control on the track – and ironed-shirt, look-you-in-the-eye, yes-sir, no-sir maturity off of it – prompted Hendrick to break from tradition and sign Elliott in 2011, when he was just 15.
The whispers of Elliott’s pending NASCAR stardom started as he progressed through lower-level stock car series. Those whispers turned to shouts in the Nationwide (now Xfinity) Series last year, when Elliott won two races before he graduated from high school and took home the championship (the youngest ever to do so), rookie of the year and most popular driver awards. He’s the only driver to win all three in one season at any NASCAR level.
Elliott’s appeal starts with the fact his dad is Awesome Bill from Dawsonville, the winner of NASCAR’s most popular driver award a record 16 times. (Side note: Chase’s given name is William Clyde Elliott II, but a family friend said he didn’t look like a Bill, dubbed him Chase, and it stuck.) But the pedigree only makes people pay attention. His performance makes him popular. In his first 47 races combined in the trucks and Xfinity series, Elliott finished on the lead lap 44 times, missing laps only because of wrecks.
Chase looks like his mom, Cindy, who met Bill when she was the photo editor for NASCAR Illustrated. But his driving and preternatural calm are pure daddy. “He’s the luckiest kid in the world – he’s got his daddy’s talent and his mama’s looks,” says Ray Evernham, owner of one of the teams Bill Elliott drove for and Jeff Gordon’s former crew chief.
Evernham, too, mingled with Hendrick and the Elliotts under the blue southern Virginia sky on Sunday. Finally Chase Elliott strapped into the car and pulled onto the track in the No. 25 Chevy for the first of five races he’ll enter this season before joining the Sprint Cup series full time next year. “Enjoy today,” Hendrick tells Chase over the team radio. “This is the first of about 900 races.”
Elliott has to hope there won’t be many that go worse.
Elliott’s debut marked the culmination of a whirlwind three months in which Elliott changed from NASCAR prospect waiting for his chance to a guy getting it.
The call came at 7 a.m. on a Thursday in January. Chase Elliott was doing what any self-respecting 19 year old would be doing at 7 a.m. on a Thursday in January: He was sleeping. He woke up quickly at the sound of Hendrick’s voice. Hendrick told him that in a few hours, four-time champion Jeff Gordon was going to announce that 2015 would be his last season as a driver. Hendrick told Elliott that he wanted him to replace Gordon next season. “That’s a heck of a phone call to wake up to,” Elliott says. “Just a crazy kind of morning.”
This news was surprising in that it came at 7 a.m. on a Thursday in January. But Gordon’s retirement had been a possibility for several years, and after his historically great rookie season in the Nationwide Series, Elliott had become the obvious choice to replace Gordon.
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