Chase Elliott, 24, is the champion NASCAR desperately needs
LLANO, Texas — Whenever Bill Elliott won a car race, his home town of Dawsonville, Ga., saluted him with a screeching siren at the pool hall. “Awesome Bill from Dawsonville,” he was called. Year after year he was the most beloved driver on the NASCAR circuit, and he was the Cup Champion in 1988.
And Sunday afternoon at the Phoenix Raceway his 24-year-old son, Chase, won the championship. A second later, 2,000 miles away in a town of 3,300 people, a siren blared.
No sport needs a new champion more than NASCAR. It hasn’t had a true superstar since Dale Earnhardt died on the last lap of the 2001 Daytona 500. Since then we’ve seen some terrific drivers with plenty of charisma: Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Gordon, my distant cousin Martin Truex Jr., and 7-time champion Jimmie Johnson, a teammate of the newest Cup Champion who could become one of the greatest ever.
But no one has taken hold of the sport the way Earnhardt Sr. and, before him, Richard Petty, did. Chase Elliott won Sunday’s season finale the way the great ones usually do: easily. Although he started in the rear after his car failed prerace inspection, Elliott finished three seconds ahead of runner-up Brad Keselowski.
With 41 laps to go, Elliott passed Joey Logano and took control of the race. Only a caution flag could stop him, and there was none. A socially-distanced 11,000 – a fourth of capacity – cheered vigorously for the third-youngest driver ever to win the NASCAR Cup.
In his postrace interviews Elliott smiled broadly, two perfect rows of ivory. “Are you kidding me, NASCAR Cup champion? It’s unreal.”
The bigger surprise was the previous week at Martinsville, when Ellliott faced elimination from NASCAR’s arcane playoff scene. His crew chief, Alan Gustafson, found the answers in time for a victory that vaulted the Chevrolet team into the Championship 4.
“The 22 (Logano) was the car I thought we had to beat,” Bill Elliott said. “When he was leading I didn’t think Chase could catch him.”
But Chase Elliott saw vulnerability: “Joey was pretty loose, and I needed to get to him.”
Chase Elliott is what every sport wants: a prodigy, a millennial beacon, a revenue fountain. In his gratitude for all who’d supported him through the stock-car circuit, he glanced downward to sweep in all the logos on his chest, made sure to name them all, politely but not excessively.
He seems more attuned than his dad to the marketability of their sport. Bill Elliott was awesome with his fans, not so much with his business associates. By contrast, the son drew raves for his maturity when he told his crew last week: “Appreciate the moment you’re in.”
I’m not saying he’s Luke Skywalker. But I wouldn’t want to be the last to notice that Chase Elliott has starpower – the DNA, the parenting, the face, the brains to redefine his sport.
Rick Hendrick, known for recognizing rising stars, saw Elliott and the 45-year-old Gustafson becoming his No.1 team as Jimmie Johnson retires from full-time racing.
Elliott said: “My parents sacrificed greatly to put me in racing, and Mr. Hendrick took a chance on me when a lot of people wouldn’t.”
Bill Elliott served as a spotter for his son and gave him a soft punch on the shoulder when they met after the race. Then they hugged. Chase said, “He kept saying all week, ‘All you gotta do is beat three people.’ This is all I ever wanted to do. The stars aligned for me to be here.”
In this most improbable of seasons, Elliott persevered, bringing hope of reviving a NASCAR boom that had spiraled downward in the past decade. With a generation of young Americans losing interest in automobiles, the future of the sport is clouded. And in an era of social awareness it seemed on the wrong side of history, forever in the grip of a losing nation, the Confederate States of America.
But under a new president, Steve Phelps, NASCAR this year embraced the activism of a Black driver, Bubba Wallace, and pointed away from Confederate flags and the antebellum past. Attendance and viewership rose throughout the season, and Phelps happily noted a fan base that includes 6% Blacks – doubling from a year ago. Expansiveness is NASCAR’s new way. Phelps said, “We want to make sure people participate in this sport on television, radio, digitally and socially.” In Chase Elliott, they have a young star who will raise the popularity.
