Elliott has fun preparing for RA comeback
ELKHART LAKE - Bill Elliott still insists it isn't his choice to run one more NASCAR event.
Was never his plan.
Wasn’t his desire.
If it were up to him,
GMS Racing would give a young kid a shot in its
No. 23 Xfinity Series Chevrolet next weekend at Road America, rather than an aging Hall of
Famer six years removed from his most recent serious stock-car race.
Elliott blames all of this on his son, Chase, and his longtime friend Mike Beam, first for recruiting him and then for announcing his return before the
elder Elliott could back out. Yet all of this complaining is done with a twinkle in his eyes and a smile on his face.
“I’m no road-course shoo-in, ace, whatever you want to call it, and hell, I’m 62 years old on top of that,” Elliott said Thursday. “I’ve got a lot to learn.
“For me to be able to just get in and hang around with (the promising young Xfinity drivers) is going to be a lot of fun and we’ll see how it goes.
“I mean, I’m a competitive guy and I want to run good – don’t get me wrong – but there’s a lot of factors why guys don’t go on and race until their 60s or 70s.”
Elliott won 44 times in NASCAR’s top division in a career that started in 1976, covered 828 starts, included the 1988 Cup Series title and culminated with his induction into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2015.
His first Cup victory came on a road course in the 1983 season finale at the long-since-closed Riverside (Calif.) International Raceway. He last raced in NASCAR in 2012.
Elliott has driven in a handful of vintage races in recent years, but it wasn’t like that created an itch that could only be scratched by one more NASCAR race. He told Beam – who did several stints as Elliott’s crew chief and is now GMS Racing president – he would like to drive a Cup car in a test once to compare it to previous generations.
“I’ve been very fortunate to see the cars from the ‘70s all the way to now,” Elliott said.
Getting from that request to a fullfledged, one-race comeback in the Aug. 25 Johnsonville 180 – for sure, no backing out, complete with a throwback paint scheme from his 1994 Southern 500 victory – is where the story spins a little out of control, according to Elliott.
“I was at Watkins Glen after the Xfinity race, and I was fixin’ to spot the Cup qualifying,” he said. “I’m over there in the Bus Stop, and I text Mike Beam and I said, ‘I really think you need to put A.J. (Allmendinger) in the car for Road America.’ About 10 minutes passed. I got a text back. He said, ‘Too late, Bud, we done announced it.’ ”
Allmendinger won at Road America in 2013. Until last month, Elliott had never driven it.
Someone of Chase’s generation might learn the hilly 4 miles and 14 turns by watching videos or driving it on the popular simulation game iRacing. But that’s not Elliott’s thing. Having learned to race by the seat of his pants, that’s the way he expects to learn Road America, too.
Unfortunately a blown engine kept him out of the track’s recent vintage races and then an axle came out of his old, red No. 9 Dodge on Thursday during one of the track’s test-and-tune sessions. By lunch he had, at most, 25 laps, or about half a race's worth.
“I hadn’t been in a car for a long time until I went to the SVRA event at Indy three years ago,” Elliott said. “You get back in the car, and you’re really rusty at the things you do and how you feel.
“I’m still learning every lap I make out here – well, I should have done this or should have done that … need to be easier on power or something. You’ve got some of the basics, but being able to brush it up, put it all together and then not make mistakes, that’s the biggest goal.”
Preparing to come to Road America put an interesting twist on the relationship between father and son as Bill went to Chase for advice for a change. The younger Elliott raced here in 2014 and ’15 with a pair of fourth-place finishes and 23 laps led.
“Very helpful,” Bill said of the tapping into Chase’s memory. “But still, he’s not in the car.
“To tell somebody how to do something and then put it in perspective but just giving you the basics is a lot of learning curve as well. Brake points, shift points, stuff like that, the basics. But still, I’ve got to figure it out.”
Elliott likes to joke about this experience: His goal is to finish first in his age group. He’s only struggling on one part of the track, the part from the pit exit to the start/finish line. And so on.
But, seriously, what’s the best-case scenario for the race? Can Elliott be competitive? Can he contend? Can he win?
“Y’know guys, I don’t expect anything,” he said. “I’m just going to do my best and have the best time I can and just enjoy it.
“There’s a lot of fans I’ve met that want to come out here and watch this race and want to just see me run, win, lose, draw or whatever happens. That’s why I’m here.”