Elliott ignores pressure from replacing Gordon
BEACH, FLA. Crew
DAYTONA chief Alan Gustafson, approaching another season atop the pit wagon of the Hendrick Motorsports No. 24 Chevrolet, says he is working on the “muscle memory” that might cause him to call new driver Chase Elliott “Jeff.”
A few mistakes of that sort would be excusable. Jeff Gordon, now a member of the Fox broadcast team, drove the No. 24 from 1993 through last season.
Now Gustafson — and the rest of the racing world — will see what The Replacement can do.
It’s a tough but welcome spot for Elliott, the 20-year-old son of Hall of Fame driver Bill Elliott. He stepped into the storm Sunday in a big way, becoming the youngest pole winner for the Daytona 500.
For at least a week, Elliott will be in the Daytona spotlight while the rest of this year’s rookie class waits their turn.
But Elliott said his pole win, which he credited to the Hendrick Motorsports team’s preparation, wasn’t a big moment in the big picture.
“I think there’s a lot of great rookies this year that are competing for that award,” he said Sunday. “But I don’t think today separates anybody from anybody else by any means. I think those guys have just as good a shot to have a great week as anybody else.
“There’s some good guys out there, good teams they’re driving for. I expect all of them to be good.”
Although their first week together could not have gone better, Gustafson said the No. 24 team’s new status would improve as the races clicked by.
“Daytona for us will be a little bit of a learning experience,” Gustafson said. “We’ve only had that one test together at Homestead. But he has a tremendous amount of talent. We’ll just have to work through the season and see what transpires.”
Calm and seemingly self-assured, Elliott is taking the “one game at a time” approach favored by football coaches.
“Wherever we start — whether it’s good, bad, ugly, fantastic or terrible, we want to try to improve from there,” he said. “We can accomplish our goals that way, not by getting caught up in what anybody else is doing.”
And the pressure of having the golden No. 24 on his car? Not a big deal, according to Elliott.
“The expectations of people outside Mr. Hendrick (team owner Rick Hendrick) and Hendrick Motorsports and our partners and Mom and Dad is irrelevant,” he said. “I just look at myself and what I want to do. You don’t need to get caught up in what other people say. I certainly have expectations of myself.”
Despite his youth, Elliott has made his mark. He won the Xfinity Series championship in 2014 and finished second last season.
He stamped himself as a rising star in April 2014 by charging from sixth place in the final two laps to win an Xfinity race at tough Darlington Raceway.
That late-race run underlined Elliott’s ability to separate himself from the crowd.
“I was comfortable doing that,” Elliott said of the Darlington surge. “They don’t bother me if you’re in a position to do it. But it’s a fine line. You don’t want to get in over your head and make a dumb mistake. I’ll find my comfort level and the balance.”
The ride begins now.
“We’ll just have to work through the season and see what transpires.” Alan Gustafson, crew chief for rookie Chase Elliott, on expectations this season