Famous pool room ready to trumpet Chase Elliott’s championship
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When Chase Elliott drove to his record-setting first NASCAR Nationwide Series crown last weekend at Phoenix International Raceway, it touched off a championship-caliber celebration in the Arizona desert. But two time zones away and with far fewer people on hand in Dawsonville, Georgia, the party was arguably much louder.
At the Dawsonville Pool Room in the typically sleepy county seat, the 18-year-old’s achievement was toasted the only way the stock-car racing institution knows how — with the shrill fire siren atop a checkered pole blaring at full tilt from the rooftop.
Elliott’s rapid rise as a budding young talent revived the pool room’s long-standing tradition this season. His legendary father, Bill Elliott, won 44 times in NASCAR’s premier series. Each time, the restaurant signaled the triumph with a piercing call from the siren, a custom that spanned the elder Elliott’s first win (Nov. 20, 1983 at Riverside, California) to his final victory (Nov. 9, 2003 at Rockingham, North Carolina).
For more than 10 years, the siren sat idle. It’s been getting more of a workout of late with the next generation’s success, culminating in last Saturday’s coronation.
“The pool room was packed just like it used to be back in the ’80s when his daddy was winning races,” said Gordon Pirkle Jr., manager and son of the restaurant’s legendary founder. “When I sounded the siren, the pool room was empty — everyone was outside listening. Everybody was stopping by in town, blowing their horns and waving. It’s just amazing to me how much bigger things have gotten.”
After a decade of inactivity, the siren has been virtually spoiled by the younger Elliott’s prowess this year — sounding on consecutive weekends in April to mark the occasion of his first win at Texas and a resounding second triumph at Darlington, and then later the trifecta in July at Chicagoland. Though he was nearly 2,000 miles to the west cheering his son on, Bill Elliott said he still felt the impact of what his son’s accomplishments have meant to the town.
“It’s been a big deal this year,” Bill Elliott said. “I mean, even when we won Texas back in the earlier part of the year, it kind of brought everybody back together again. It was a little bit stagnant back in the community as far as nobody racing this or that, and having Chase back racing has really brought the enthusiasm back into our area and even the whole state of Georgia.”
Chase Elliott’s connection to the Dawsonville Pool Room goes beyond his family bonds; he worked at the restaurant for his summer job as a 13-year-old, at which point he was already an aspiring racer. Five years later, the restaurant is giving him the same royal treatment once reserved for his Hall of Famer father.
Pirkle said the siren has one more blast left in it this year. In case any of Dawsonville’s 619 residents (according to the 2000 census) missed out on its championship wail last Saturday, Pirkle said the pool room will sound the siren again after this Saturday’s Ford EcoBoost 300 (4:30 p.m. ET, ESPN2) once the Nationwide Series season is officially in the record books.
“We’re real proud of him,” Pirkle said. “We’ve been lifelong friends with his daddy, and now it’s just taking the next chapter in his life.”
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