BUY TICKETS: See the races in Atlanta | Get the ‘Chase U’ ticket package

For Chase Elliott, a fondness for Atlanta Motor Speedway is only natural. The track sits roughly 90 miles south of his hometown of Dawsonville, Georgia, and his famous father, Bill, enjoyed success as a five-time winner on the Atlanta high banks.

Plans are already in place to make this week a busier, more heartfelt homecoming than normal. It involves giving back, both to the area and to the venue that’s been so intertwined with his family’s racing history.

Thursday, the 21-year-old driver plans a visit to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta to visit with young patients and announce the launch of the Chase Elliott Foundation, which will present its first donation to the pediatric hospital. The charitable organization will also reveal the details of a special program that will have Elliott and his three Hendrick Motorsports teammates — Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jimmie Johnson and Kasey Kahne — sporting some snazzy footwear this weekend for a special cause.

"Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, they’ve always been so kind to us," Elliott said. "Obviously they’re very well known for the job they do for kids and treating different sicknesses. Doing a great job with that is the most important thing. Anything we can do to try to grow that awareness and help them out, we’re definitely all-in for it. Their entire staff has always been very gracious and easy to work with in our hometown."

To help amplify the debut initiative for Elliott’s foundation, all four Hendrick drivers helped to judge a drawing contest by young patients at the hospital. After handpicking their favorite designs, the next step was to enlist Alpinestars, an Italian maker of performance gear, to bring the colorful shoes to life.

The designs will be revealed Thursday, and the foundation plans to auction off all four pairs after Sunday’s Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 (2:30 p.m. ET, FOX, PRN, SiriusXM) for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series.

"I’m really excited about that, and I really appreciate all three guys giving up whatever shoe they (regularly) wear to do that this weekend," Elliott says. "It’s really nice of them and I appreciate that."

Home track memories

Elliott will be making only his second Atlanta start in the Monster Energy Cup Series this weekend, putting him just 60 starts shy of the career mark established by his father from 1976-2010.

Still, his connection to the 1.54-mile track runs deep with a wealth of memories growing up. Elliott’s most prominent childhood remembrance of the home-state speedway involves simply being a kid — one who probably skirted the rules by shimmying to the top of a tubular jungle-gym that used to be in the infield.

"I reference playgrounds a lot because I was always playing on them when I was little," Elliott says. "Atlanta had a cool playground because you could actually climb up the outside of it and get on top and it was a great place to watch the race. I remember always climbing on top of this thing — I don’t think you were supposed to do that — and watching the races. That’s my Atlanta memory when I was little."

The race track is now Elliott’s playground, one that will get some extra use this weekend. Elliott also plans to participate in Saturday’s Camping World Truck Series event as part of a four-team effort from GMS Racing, which celebrated a championship with Johnny Sauter last year and a Daytona victory with rookie Kaz Grala last weekend.

With on-track double duty and his foundation’s activation already on his loaded plate, Elliott’s also making an effort to help attract younger fans to the historic venue. He has lent his name to a ticket combo called Chase U that’s designed to give college students the works — parking, food and drinks, live music and a grandstand seat for $24, a figure that not coincidentally matches Elliott’s car number.

"It’s basically just a cost-effective ticket package for students to come, have a place to hang out and party and tailgate before a race and enjoy the race," Elliott said. "I just thought it’d be cool to kind of incorporate something along those lines to a race weekend, and Atlanta’s been doing a really good job about getting the word out with that and trying to get some exposure with it."

For all generations of fans, there will be plenty to see. The race will mark the 2,500th event for NASCAR’s top division and will be the final race on the 20-year-old asphalt before a repaving project begins this spring. The last time the track had fresh pavement applied was part of a major reconfiguration project, when Atlanta flipped the frontstretch and backstretch and added the dogleg to the true-oval layout that was home to so many Bill Elliott successes.

Chase Elliott was just shy of his second birthday when that configuration debuted in 1997. The impending move to new pavement will likely bring challenges during its breaking-in period, but Elliott plans a fond farewell to the aging surface — the second-oldest on the circuit — which is expected to produce multi-groove racing with plenty of slipping and sliding through the field.

"I think we all have mixed opinions on the repave, but I’m sure there are some similarities from the old layout to what it is now," Elliott said. "We haven’t really talked about that a ton, but I’m curious to see this last race and I’m going to enjoy this last race on the old surface."