The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Difficult season closes with boost from Elliott
AVONDALE, ARIZ.— Drivers, finally, stop your engines.
NASCAR has waved the checkered flag on its frenetic 2020 season, a whirlwind of rescheduled and relocated races held with lots of fans, some fans and no fans at all. The effort to complete all 38 races during the pandemic was rewarded with a new champion, who just happens to be NASCAR’s reigning most popular driver.
Chase Elliottwon three of the final five races, including Sunday’s winner- take- all finale at Phoenix Raceway, to claim the first Cup of his career. His late- season surge upstaged KevinHarvick and DennyHamlin, the two most dominant drivers this year, and elevated the second- generation NASCAR star alongside his Hall of Fame father as NASCAR champions.
Itwasa promising close for NASCAR, which verymuch needs its young stars in the spotlight. Dale Earnhardt Jr. was a 12- time winner of the fan- selected most popular driver award but neverwon a championship. Elliott took the reins in 2018 after Earnhardt retired and rewarded his loyalists in his fifth full season atNASCAR’s toplevel.
He has faced quixotic expectations since he was 14— that’s when Rick Hendrick gave him a driver development contract—from peers who saw his heritage as a means to re- energize a sport that saw its biggest stars trickle out of the driver’s seat the last five years. Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, Carl Edwards and Earnhardt have retired, and seven- time champion Jimmie Johnson joined the group Sunday.
Elliott’s instant popularity was ordained not for what he did in his Chevrolet, but
because of his family tree, which dates to a NASCAR some fans still yearn for. Bill Elliottwonthe 1988Cuptitle, 44 races overall and fans voted “Awesome Bill from Dawsonville” the most popular driver a record 16 times.
Hewould have kept winning the award, too, but in 2001 he removed his name from the ballot and encouraged fans to honor his late rival, Dale Earnhardt Sr.
Chase Elliott, who turns 25 later this month and is NASCAR’s third- youngest champion, is verymuch like his dad: soft- spoken outside of the car, calm and calculated behind the wheel. The family has never left their Georgia hometown of Dawsonville — a town of less than 3,000 people an hour outside Atlanta — and they still sound the siren at the local pool hallwhenever an Elliott wins.
When Harvick was asked in 2017 what NASCAR needed to re- energize its base, he pointed directly to Elliott.
“NASCAR needs Chase Elliott to win,” Harvick said. “Chase Elliott is the tie to the traditional NASCAR fan. It’s the only shot they’ve got with the traditional NASCAR fan. His dad, the history and heritage
of the sport, there isn’t anybody else in the lineup that I can think of.”
He’swon now. And at the same time, NASCAR seems to have stabilized.
The series for at least a decade has been adjusting to an ever- changing economic landscape, an aging fan base, declining television ratings and attendance, and adearthof starpower. When the pandemic put NASCAR ona 10- weekpause inMarch, the series could have collapsed.
Instead, NASCAR was one of the first sports to resume competition, first to get fans back into the stands and first to complete its entire schedule. A new car originally scheduled for 2021was postponed a year, but expectations of the car improving the business model have ignited interest among new team owners.
NASCAR President Steve Phelps called 2020 “the single most difficult year that we’ve faced as a sport,” but a year in which the industry unified to keep cars on the track. Next year’s seasonopening Daytona 500 is still on schedule for Feb. 14 and plans nowinclude spectators in the stands.