How odd and just a little bit hollow it would be if Chase Elliott finally did something grand on his home track Sunday and no one was there to see it.
Since stepping up to NASCAR’s premier series in 2016, the next in line to the Bill Elliott Georgia racing legacy has not exactly soared at the place he should know best, Atlanta Motor Speedway. Four Cup races, no finish higher than fifth. Average finish: 10.5. Laps led (out of a total of 1,304): Zero.
“It has been,” Elliott said, “a rough go the last couple of years, disappointing for sure. Hopefully this weekend it will be a little better.”
He’ll arrive at Sunday’s Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 as one of the clear favorites. Not a fan favorite, mind you, because there won’t be any fans at the track because of the coronavirus precautions. But a favorite nevertheless based on the fact he has been driving a rocket ship these past couple of weeks.
With a victory, a second-place and a fourth-place finish among the five races back since NASCAR emerged from its induced coma, Elliott has returned as one of the lead lead foots. He has been well-positioned to win four of those, only to be undone by a couple of late-race crashes (one of his doing, one not) and one caution near the finish, Elliott falling out of the lead in the Coca-Cola 600 on a decision to pit.
Which raised the question of whether Elliott should be happy for the way he and his team have come out of his sport’s long timeout or disappointed that he doesn’t have even more impressive finishes in the bank now?
“You can’t go back and change things now,” he said earlier this week. “I’m certainly proud of how we have run, how we have contended. It’s a goal of mine to be a contender every week.
“In racing you’re not going to win every week, and we understand that,” he added. “What is feasible – and guys do this – is to be in contention every single week. There is a handful of drivers and teams that have a shot to win every single week, and there is no reason we can’t be among that group. That’s our goal, and if you’re in that position enough, it will go your way plenty and you’ll get your fair share.”
As he has taken off in May, Elliott, at 25, is putting up the best argument yet that he is ready to contend for a Cup championship. His best finish in the points standing was fifth in 2017 – he was 10th last season. He’s currently third in points, with a bullet.
At this point Elliott will wave a yellow flag at the questioner who suggests that this is his time to really break through.
“We’re still very early in the season,” he cautioned. “There are going to be guys who improve throughout the season and get better, and we want to make sure we improve as much, if not more than, everybody else.
“It’s early in the year. For sure, I’m proud of how we’ve run these past four races, but that’s only four races. This is a 38-race season, and we have to keep that up to be a contender. I think we can do it, but until you go out there and achieve that, it doesn’t really matter.”
One very biased opinion has it that this is the year there’s an Elliott who is a Cup champion again – Bill won in 1988.
“I think so, I really do. I feel good about it,” said Gordon Pirkle, who owns the Dawsonville Pool Room, upon which stands the loud siren that has sounded every time an Elliott has won a race. Even as the Pool Room is closed because of the coronavirus restrictions, the si-reen – as it is pronounced locally – wailed last Thursday after Elliott won at Charlotte.
“With that car he can come up from behind as good as anyone I’ve seen,” Pirkle said. “And he wants it, and that makes a big difference.”
By the way, the Pool Room and its connection to the local racing tradition loom so large in Dawsonville that the Chamber of Commerce is contemplating a ceremony for the place when it does reopen.
Just as Chase Elliott’s emergence is big for his North Georgia hometown, where also rightfully resides the Georgia Racing Hall of Fame. According to Dawsonville’s mayor, Mike Eason, the Hall is working with Chase’s parents to flesh out an exhibit devoted to this generation of Elliott.
“It’s something we want to do because it represents our community so well,” Eason said.
Just as Dawsonville can use an Elliott bump, so can the entire sport. Chase came in advantaged by a powerful name in his sport. Fans have taken to him as they did his father, twice voting him in as NASCAR’s most popular driver. With seven race victories thus far, he has only turned to the prologue of his potential.
One quite notable change in Elliott is the growing ease with which he goes about his business. If he didn’t feel he truly stood eye-to-eye with the best, would he have waited at the track edge at Darlington and flipped off Kyle Busch after Busch took him out with a careless move. But more emblematic of a heightened level of comfort is Elliott’s willingness to have an opinion, and then actually share it.
For example, he now will speak quite effusively on how NASCAR needs to take some aspects from its compressed coronavirus-related schedule and apply them to the future. Maybe one reason Elliott is doing so well now is his embrace of two races a week as opposed to just every Sunday.
“I wish we were running this Wednesday. I hate that we’re not,” he told NBC’s Mike Tirico this week, as NASCAR paused for a moment before coming to Atlanta.
Maybe we’ll see as other sports modify themselves in response to the coronavirus, that their seasons are too long. Certainly, we have discovered that drivers don’t need to show up and practice for two days before a race, Elliott has pointed out.
“I think the product (since the return) has been great,” he said. “I think over time we have over-complicated weekend schedules and practice entirely too much. I know a lot of that is money-driven, and I get it that as the popularity grew over a period of time tracks have tried to get all they could get. But I think in a lot of ways we have to get back to our roots.”
Spoken like a short-track campaigner accustomed to just showing up and running.
“I’ve never understood why we should practice more as professionals at the top of our sport than local racers do on Saturday afternoon,” Elliott said.
The greatest drawback to how races are currently run is the lack of fan feedback, and the sterile atmosphere surrounding what is meant to be a vivid event.
“To me the weirdest experience I’ve had thus far was winning at Charlotte and getting out of the car and nobody being there,” Elliott said. “That was just kind of an awkward moment for me, honestly. I think for everybody who has won a race it’s kind of weird. Typically you feed of the crowd in those moments whether it’s cheers or boos or whatever. If they’re making noise that’s better than not, right?”
Regardless of result, there will be no cheers in Atlanta on Sunday. In Dawsonville, they’ll await, hopeful of hearing a siren’s song.
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