Posted on by Zack Albert

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. — The first-ever Chase playoff format for the NASCAR XFINITY Series created an intriguing foursome competing for the championship in Saturday’s season finale. The dualities ran deep.

 

Two pairs of title-eligible teammates from two organizations created a showdown between Joe Gibbs Racing and JR Motorsports, Toyota and Chevrolet, and — because of the wide range of experience among the four — a contrast between veteran savvy and youthful exuberance.

 

Those contrasts played out with the XFINITY Series crown on the line in Saturday’s Ford EcoBoost 300 with Gibbs up-and-comers Erik Jones and Daniel Suarez squaring off with JRM’s veteran compatriots in Elliott Sadler and Justin Allgaier at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

The final 50 laps saw all four drivers battling fiercly for the lead, but ultimately it was JGR’s Suarez who won the race, outlasting JRM’s Sadler, who gambled late with a two-tire pit stop and finished third. Sadler’s teammate, Allgaier, finished seventh and JGR’s Jones was ninth as they got trapped behind race leader Cole Whitt on the final restart.

 

The four drivers were in an anticipatory mood during Thursday’s Media Day at the Loews Miami Beach, trumpeting the virtues of having teammates to lean on through the weekend and conjuring up images of a virtual 2-on-2 matchup. But with a winner-take-all structure in place for Saturday’s curtain-closer, the allegiances may only go so far.

 

“We know already that we are going to help each other as much as we can before the race, and once we get into the race, everyone is on his own, and we know that, and we understand that,” said Suarez, in his second full season of XFINITY competition.

 

“There is just one trophy, and there are two drivers, two friends here. We have to take care by ourselves and move forward.”

 

Suarez has a stellar teammate in Jones, who is earmarked for a full-time ride in NASCAR’s premier series next year with Furniture Row Racing. The two worked well this season under the JGR umbrella, combining for six XFINITY victories. But Jones agreed that the notion of teamwork has its limits at Homestead.

 

“I think throughout the weekend, you don’t change your process at all. We still share information, still lean on each other, help each other when we can,” Jones said. “Obviously in the early and mid-part of the race, we’re not going to do anything to hurt each other’s races.

 

“Once it gets down to that last hundred, last 50 laps, I think you have to go for it. At some point you’re going to have to race for it. We’re racing for a championship. We don’t want to take each other out of that chance, but at the same time we have to be in it to try to win our team a championship and make it happen. I think that’s the point of this Chase and the point of this format.”

 

Among the four championship contenders, team alliances created a split, but so has the difference in age. JRM’s Sadler is the eldest of the group at 41 with his teammate Allgaier having just crossed the bridge into his 30s this summer. JGR’s Suarez is 24 years old with Jones the youngest at 20.

 

Experience can certainly help, but so does pure skill — something the final quartet has in bunches. While variances in their racing backgrounds exist, all four can claim newbie status in regards to the new Chase format.

 

“I don’t know that the years have really given us any more experience,” Allgaier said. “Who’s to say with the resources and things they’ve gone through that they could potentially have more experience than what I do? I think we got four really talented race car drivers that made the final round. I think you’ve got four great teams in this final round.”

Posted on by Track Release

MIAMI — Homestead-Miami Speedway today announced a grandstand sellout for the Ford EcoBoost 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Championship race on Sunday. The event, which starts at 2:30 p.m. ET and airs on NBC and MRN Radio/SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, has sold out each of the last three years.

“Ford Championship Weekend continues to grow in stature each year, and having sold out the Ford EcoBoost 400 three years in-a-row is a testament to that,” said Homestead-Miami Speedway President Matthew Becherer. “Not only do we have world class racing with Joey Logano, Kyle Busch, Jimmie Johnson and Carl Edwards competing for a championship amongst a full field of drivers, but we also offer outstanding entertainment as well, including the pre-race concert by The Band Perry. Championship weekend should provide tremendous excitement for the entire family as we celebrate the final race in the Chase for all three NASCAR national series, beginning with the Camping World Truck Series Championship race tonight followed by the XFINITY Series Championship race on Saturday.”

A limited number of Sunday tickets still remain for seats in the infield Pit Road Cabanas, in addition to spots in the FanVision Fan Zone, where four-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion Jeff Gordon will be holding a Q & A on Sunday at 12:30 p.m.

Tickets for the Ford EcoBoost 200 Camping World Truck Series Championship race tonight at 8:00 p.m. as well as the Ford EcoBoost 300 XFINITY Series Championship race on Saturday 3:30 p.m. are still available and can be purchased by calling (305) 230-5255, or online at www.HomesteadMiamiSpeedway.com.

Posted on by Team Release

CONCORD, N.C. — Chip Ganassi Racing (CGR) announced today that Tyler Reddick, a current driver and a three-time winner in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series (NCWTS), will pilot the No. 42 Chevrolet Camaro in multiple NASCAR XFINITY Series races in 2017. Reddick, 20, will share the No. 42 Chevrolet with 2014 NASCAR Sprint Series Rookie of the Year and 2016 member of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, Kyle Larson. Veteran XFINITY Series crew chief Mike Shiplett will continue to lead the No. 42 team.
 
·        Reddick has competed in many forms of dirt and asphalt racing in his still young career. He was the youngest driver to qualify in the pole position at the Eldora Speedway World 100, the youngest driver to win at the East Bay Winter Nationals, and the youngest winner in the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series. He’s also the youngest driver ever to qualify for a feature race in World of Outlaws Late Model Series.
 
·        Reddick won in his first career start in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East at Rockingham Speedway in 2012. He competed in the NCWTS on a part-time basis in 2013 and 2014, before moving to full-time duties in 2015 and 2016. In 62 starts, Reddick has three wins, three poles, 24 top-five and 39 top-10 finishes. He finished second in the NCWTS standings in 2015 and after a win, seven top-five and 11 top-10s in 2016, Reddick currently sits ninth in the standings.

Posted on by Nascar

MORE: Buy tickets for Homestead-Miami Championship Weekend

 

NASCAR Sprint Cup Series team owner Tommy Baldwin said Thursday that this weekend’s event at Homestead-Miami Speedway will be the last as a full-time organization for his single-car outfit.

 

The former crew chief said in a post on Facebook that “we felt it’s time for a new chapter in our lives and we have sold our charter to a great group of people who will continue to guide our vision.”

 

According to a release from Leaving Family Racing, which currently runs under the Circle Sport Leavine Family Racing name, LFR has purchased the charter from Tommy Baldwin Racing. No purchase price was announced.

 

Baldwin’s team currently fields the No. 7 Chevrolet with driver Regan Smith. The team was formed following the departure of Bill Davis Racing, for whom Baldwin served as crew chief, in 2009.

 

It has just two top-five finishes in nearly 400 starts, the most recent coming at Pocono this year when Smith finished third.

 

“For the past eight years we’ve shown up at every race, worked hard to compete at the top level and bring value to our sponsors,” Baldwin wrote. “I feel confident that we are moving on having accomplished that. There have been many teams like ours that have come and gone. I’m proud that we have been able to sustain ourselves from the very beginning. …

 

“If you’re reading this, you already know that NASCAR is the greatest sport in the world. I have been blessed to have a career in motorsports because of how NASCAR has grown over the years.”

 

Baldwin went on to say that he isn’t sure what the future holds; fielding a part-time team wasn’t mentioned but neither was closing the team entirely.

 

Securing the charter means that the LFR team, which currently fields the No. 95 Chevrolet for driver Michael McDowell, will be guaranteed a starting spot in each race next season.

 

“Leavine Family Racing is committed to continued growth on and off the race track,” owner Bob Leavine said. “The charter is a meaningful step forward for our team and provides us further stability as we look towards success in 2017 and beyond. We are confident that the purchase of the charter and continued improvement on the track will lead to increased revenue opportunities.”

Posted on by Nascar

MORE: Buy tickets for Homestead-Miami Championship Weekend

 

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. — Jimmie Johnson was the first to arrive and the second to be introduced and no, he wasn’t wearing a cape.

He’s a six-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion, but he’s filled his trophy case without the aid of superpowers. As far as we know.

Sunday, down the road at Homestead-Miami Speedway, he’ll try to do something only two other drivers have accomplished. NASCAR has two seven-time premier series champions, Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt. Win seven titles and you’re an icon. Johnson would like to be No. 3.

Of course, to accomplish that he’ll have to beat three other drivers — Joey Logano, Carl Edwards and Kyle Busch. It’s the Championship 4 round of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup and Sunday’s Ford EcoBoost 400 will either be 267 laps of heartache or jubilation for three of the four.

Thursday at the Loews Miami Beach, the four were making nice, sitting side by side, wearing smiles and fire suits. Unlike past years with a decidedly different mix of competitors, there was no animosity on display or simmering just beneath the surface.

“I don’t know how the guys feel, but I don’t think anything I’m going to say to these guys is going to make their car any slower on Sunday,” Edwards said, “so there’s really no point. I know it’s entertaining for you guys, but …”

Instead, we got guys talking about how they “embrace the pressure” and today’s today but this weekend when the helmets go on …

Maybe then it will be fire and brimstone, but Thursday it was more like milk and cookies.

“We’re all out there as competitors, but right now we’re outside the car,” Logano, driver of the No. 22 Ford for Team Penske, said. “We’ve got to spend a lot of time together this week.”

Busch, who can be the most caustic of the bunch — and God love him for it — described his fellow finalists as “easy to get along with, easy to talk to, easy to have a good time and joke around and mess around, so it’s been good.”

We don’t have to wonder if it will change Sunday. It will. Competition brings out the best, and sometimes the worst, and there’s no stage bigger in NASCAR than a season-ending race with the championship on the line.

Tempers will flare and nerves will fray and that’s as inevitable as the sunset.

Johnson, driver of the No. 48 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports, is making his first appearance in the finals under the elimination-style format for the Chase; previous titles were won by simply grinding the competition into the ground, then coasting to Homestead with “only needs to finish (fill in the blank) or better to clinch the title.”

Busch still jokingly refers to himself as a “part-time champion,” having won last year’s title with Joe Gibbs Racing after missing the first 11 races of the season due to injury.

Edwards, also out of the JGR camp, can’t avoid 2011 and losing the title on a tiebreaker – a replay of the final race of the season was the first thing he said he saw on TV recently while in New York City.

Logano, meanwhile, recalls his first final-round appearance in 2014, and how he says he “made a lot of mistakes that weekend,” inside the car as well as out.

They don’t have to dislike one another; each has his own baggage with which to deal.

The lack of contempt is the result of the four drivers involved according to Johnson.

“If you think of (past) years and people having issues with one another, there’s really nothing lingering,” he said. “Not to say there won’t be by the end of Sunday night. It doesn’t surprise me with the group of four that’s there. If you change a couple of people out it could have definitely been different.

“But this group, I can’t recall anybody really having an issue with one another.”

We sought mind games, subtle jabs and perhaps a sneer or two. What we got instead was a gathering of Phi Kappa NASCAR.

Tony Stewart and Kevin Harvick never seemed so far away.

Posted on by Nascar

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. — Johnny Sauter won two of the three Chase races in the Round of 6 for the Camping World Truck Series, but the veteran racer says it would be wrong to call him and his GMS Racing team the favorite in Friday night’s championship race at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

“I don’t ever consider myself the favorite,” Sauter said Thursday at the Loew’s Hotel here. “Anything can happen. We’ve seen it time and time again. I feel really comfortable with where we are as an organization and a team going into this race, but to say that I’m a favorite, that would not be doing ourselves a service.”

Sauter, Timothy Peters, Christopher Bell and Matt Crafton make up the Chase drivers who will be competing for the series’ title in Friday night’s Ford EcoBoost 200 (8 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Crafton’s a two-time series champion (2013-14) and drives for ThorSport Racing; Peters doesn’t have a win this season, but has managed to survive through the inaugural Chase for the series to put his Red Horse Racing team in title contention; Bell’s the only youngster in the group, a winner at Gateway earlier this year in the No. 4 Toyota for Kyle Busch Motorsports.

Sauter is the only one of the four finalists to bag a win in the Chase — he went back to back with victories at Martinsville and Texas to advance to the finals.

Crafton’s had three top five finishes; Peters has four while Bell has posted a pair.

That the title group is heavy on veterans isn’t a surprise to Sauter, who said the more experienced drivers “just probably through the course of the year raced a little differently than some of the younger guys … maybe a little bit smarter, and that just comes with experience, taking care of your equipment, things like that.”

Having spent time in the Sprint Cup, XFINITY and Truck Series, Sauter has seen just about every type of situation arise; for that reason, he said it’s unlikely anything can happen that will catch himself or his GMS team off guard.

“For me personally, I feel like I’ve seen and heard and have done it all so nothing would surprise me in the least,” he said. “Having said that, I’m going to do everything I can to make sure nothing crazy happens, nothing foolish.

“But this sport is very humbling; you can have all the momentum in the world, everything going your way, win two of the last three races in the final round and tomorrow night anything can happen.”

Sauter has 13 career wins in the Truck Series and he won three times in the XFINITY Series. His Sprint Cup career consisted of 85 starts for a handful of teams, including Haas CNC before it became Stewart-Haas Racing.

He finished second in points in the Camping World Truck Series in 2011 and fourth the past three seasons. But he’s never won the title. It’s something he’s considered, especially now that he has another opportunity. What it would feel like to win it and what it might feel like if he doesn’t.

“I’ve definitely done that,” he said. “What a championship would mean for GMS as an organization for all the guys; this is a long season … I can make a case for both sides. It’s means nothing until we run that race tomorrow night.

“You have to make sure you don’t get caught up in it from a mental standpoint. Just keep doing what we’ve been doing.”

Posted on by Nascar

RELATED: Meet Denny Hamlin’s spotter, Chris Lambert

Editor’s note: This is the fifth in a series of interviews with NASCAR Sprint Cup Series spotters.

Tim Fedewa, Spotter for Kevin Harvick, No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet

How did you get started spotting in NASCAR?
I was running a Busch car, kind of at the back end of my career, so I knew I needed to figure out something to keep food on the table. It just came about that Bill Elliott needed some help on Sundays. Kristine Curley (PR) was working for Evernham at the time, we were friends. That’s kind of how I got going. Just kind of did it part time for different teams. Like I said, I knew my driving career was going down so I knew I better do something and that evolved into a job spotting.

Do you have any other duties with the team? 
Not really. I help out and do what I can but in today’s world there are a lot of people that just have their specialty. I spot for Stewart-Haas but at the track on the weekends I also will do an XFINITY, Truck, ARCA, K&N race. Whatever is on the track, I’m spotting for that as well. I work with JR Motorsports, the 88 car for (Alex) Bowman when he drives it; sometimes for Josh Berry. But when the other Sprint Cup drivers get in it, they have their spotters. And that makes sense. I’ll spot for Spencer Gallagher in the Truck Series, Noah Gragson in the K&N Series, Chad Finley in ARCA. We do whatever is here. That’s how we make our living. The more races the better, actually.

How long have you been spotting for Kevin?
Since he started with the 4 car in 2014, so this is my third year. I was with (Marcos) Ambrose before at Richard Petty Motorsports. When they started this deal at SHR, I came over.

You mentioned working with Bill Elliott earlier, was that the first time as a spotter? 
I might have done a little bit before then but I don’t think I did a whole lot because I was still driving. I might have helped a few guys up on the roof a couple of times. But I was kind of thrown into it in Sprint Cup. It couldn’t have worked out better for me because Bill, he didn’t need a spotter. He was so seasoned and good that I was just up there making noise in his ear, probably. But for me it was a good experience that I had a guy like him. If I had a rookie that really needed my assistance at the time I probably wouldn’t have been much help. But for me it worked out well because Bill … he was awesome.

What’s been the most bizarre thing you’ve witnessed from the spotters’ stand? 
Probably the (Juan Pablo) Montoya deal (at Daytona). That was … with it being a night race and flaming up like that, it was pretty surreal.

What’s been your most memorable experience as a spotter? 
Miami when we won the race and won the championship. There was a lot of stress that day for everybody. The Chase brings a lot of stress, each race you move on and advance the stress level for the team advances, as well. I just remember thinking that day, “Everybody has to do their own thing and do it right.” To have Kevin win the race and the championship, it was (great).

What’s one thing fans might not realize about your job duties? 
I guess being away from your family. For anybody in racing, that’s the hardest part. You have different struggles from day to day in your job but as far as being on the roof and working the races, restarts are tough. You can’t predict what’s going to happen. You try to predict it in your head and you get in trouble. So I just go into every restart with an open mind. You think you know the tendencies of the other drivers but that’s where you get in trouble. You think, “OK, this guy doesn’t like going to the bottom (of the track); guys like Kyle (Busch) or Kurt (Busch), if they can get to the top and go, they’re going to go.” But you think that and it’s in your head but if that doesn’t happen, you stumble on your words … I just kind of try to go in there and tell ’em what’s happening. Just give them the best picture you can.

Which driver would make a good spotter and why?
I can tell you that Kevin has owned his own team; he’s watched it from above and he is just really smart. I always tell everybody that if I had had somebody like Kevin helping me when I drove, I’d probably still be driving or would have had a longer career anyway because he’s so smart. Not only as a driver. Usually when I tell him something, he already knows it. He’s already got it figured out. I’m Captain Obvious, that’s what I call myself. Between him and Bill, as far as knowing everything about not just driving but who has what tires, what strategy they’re thinking, he’s already thinking ahead and got that figured out.

Do you have a favorite track? 
I like Bristol. Because everything happens so quick, you’re talking all the time. It is what it is. Clear is clear and you can’t take it back. If you get them in a hole you better hope that it’s there. We stand down in Turn 1 and I can see the whole track. I don’t have to move my head back and forth like I would if I’m at the start/finish line, so I’ve got a good view of it. You can still get in trouble there and I have as a spotter – a couple of years ago we were coming off (Turn) 4 and there was a wreck in 1 and by the time you see it and say it, we still got in it. It’s a tough race track when wrecks happen. But as far as when you’re running good and passing cars, it’s a blast.

Superspeedway racing is fun, it’s different. You’re talking a lot, always trying to figure out the best input to give your driver. It’s a challenge, there’s a lot going on.

What is one thing the average fan might not realize about your job? 
Probably just how serious we take it. It’s stressful for sure. Yeah, we’re here racing but we put our heart and souls into it. It’s like I’m driving the car every weekend. I take it that serious. Nowadays, spotters are thought of as a competitive advantage – what can we do for the team to make it better? In all reality, we’re there to keep Kevin or whoever safe. That’s the bottom line so that’s the stressful part. That’s why we’re up there, to keep everybody safe. So whatever we do to get a competitive advantage, keeping your driver, and the other drivers, safe is still the priority.

Posted on by Staff Report

RELATED: What if Edwards had won 2011 title?

 

While Tony Stewart hasn’t wanted the whole “retirement tour” and the gifts that come along with it like what we saw with Jeff Gordon in 2015, the three-time Sprint Cup Series champion recently received a gift that he couldn’t refuse — and from an unlikely source.

 

Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup driver Carl Edwards revealed Thursday during the Championship 4 press conference in Miami that he gave “Smoke” the helmet he wore at Homestead-Miami Speedway to conclude Stewart’s third and final championship run in 2011 … when Stewart beat Edwards in heart/tie-breaking fashion.

 

“I watched him on my way up,” Edwards said of the gesture. “To see him progress and to finally be able to battle him, that was a lot of fun.”

 

The effort wasn’t lost on Stewart.

 

“That shows you how thoughtful Carl is,” Stewart said. “I think that’s a huge honor. It shows Carl’s character.”

 

It may have been fun, but Edwards still can’t quite stomach the reminder that he nearly could’ve been going for his second Sprint Cup Series title this weekend in Sunday’s Ford EcoBoost 400 (2:30 p.m. ET, NBC/NBC Sports App).

 

The final race from 2011 recently re-aired on NBCSN, and the veteran driver could only tune-in for a handful of minutes before he gave up after stumbling upon it on TV.

 

“I had seen enough after five or 10 minutes,” Edwards said. “I had to shut it off.”

 

MORE: Stewart relives title via live tweeting

 

Posted on by Staff Report

MORE: ’14 days of Smoke’ tribute | Buy tickets for Miami

STORE: Stewart commemorative Homestead shirts


One more race, one final paint scheme.

 

Stewart-Haas Racing revealed Wednesday the special No. 14 Chevrolet that driver and co-owner Tony Stewart will pilot Sunday in Miami for what is expected to be his last race in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.

 

A tribute video (watch it below) shows the details. “Always a Racer, Forever a Champion” on the hood. A list of his 49 career Sprint Cup Series wins on the back.

 

And the signature of every Stewart-Haas Racing employee all over the quarter panels.

Posted on by Nascar

MORE: Buy tickets for Homestead-Miami Championship Weekend

 

Bill Elliott remembers the conversations with his son.

“I said ‘If you want to race, then we’ll go race. But if you want to go hang out with your buddies on Saturday night, then you can do that. It’s your choice,’ ” Elliott recalled recently.

Chase Elliott wanted to race. He wanted to race small cars and big cars, on dirt and on asphalt. So he did. He raced and he won and he lost and he learned.

And in 2016, two years removed from winning NASCAR’s XFINITY Series title, the youngster was handed the keys to his future — the seat in the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet driven at the time by four-time series champion Jeff Gordon.

Sunday’s Ford EcoBoost 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway (2:30 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) signals the end of the ’16 season. Elliott will enter the race 10th in points, having qualified for the championship-determining Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup but falling out of title contention after a difficult second round.

There have been “a lot of ups and downs this year,” he said.

“I think the biggest thing I’ve seen as I’ve run throughout this year, and Jeff touched on it as we talked in the offseason, he just kept bragging on this group of guys and how good they were and kept saying, ‘Man, you’re going to a really good group.’ I think you have to see some of those things firsthand to really recognize it and appreciate it and as I’ve gone through this season I really have. I’ve got some of the best cars you could have to drive. They make me look a lot better than I am.

“Those are the kinds of people you want to be surrounded with if you can do that. I really had nothing to do with the group of people that I was assigned, I was just lucky to fall into place where I did at the time I did. That’s been one of my biggest takeaways.”

“I’ve had some really good cars to drive and I think having that good relationship with this group and to be able to count on the job that Alan (Gustafson, crew chief) does … he does an incredible job and doesn’t get enough credit; he makes my job as easy as you could have it.”

Elliott has 10 top fives and 17 top-10 finishes this season and won a pair of poles — at Daytona’s season opener and the unpredictable Talladega. He earned career-best second-place finishes at both Michigan races this year and was third twice in the opening round of the Chase.

“I think he’s very competitive and in the race car to me he’s a veteran,” Gordon said. “I know he’s beat himself up a few times outside the race car but I like that. That means that second or third is not good enough for him. He’s got a bright future.”

The fact that he was able to qualify for the Chase, Gordon said, wasn’t a surprise. Not after Elliott won the XFINITY Series title his first time out while driving for JR Motorsports. Paired with teammates Jimmie Johnson, a six-time series champion, Kasey Kahne and Dale Earnhardt Jr., at HMS, Gordon expected the 20-year-old to excel.

“You still never know,” Gordon said. “Especially at the Cup level it’s very competitive. Not just in the garage level but at Hendrick. To have Jimmie and Kasey and Junior as your teammates, that’s going to make you have to step up. But I don’t think we would have put him in there if we didn’t believe in him. And you know there are going to be some growing pains. I would say there have been far less than I anticipated.”

Gustafson worked with Kyle Busch, Mark Martin and Gordon at HMS. He said there was never a question of talent when it came to Elliott. But others with talent have come and gone. Younger drivers can go fast but going fast is only part of the equation. Race conditions, passing, altering one’s line to adapt to changing track conditions, and the race on an off pit road are additional hurdles to overcome in order to contend.

It’s what Gustafson refers to as “the art of racing” and said it is something that’s “definitely underappreciated” today.

“He does that really well,” Gustafson said. “Typically in my experience it takes some time to master passing or running in traffic or where you need to move on the track, what you need to do to improve your position. He does a really good job at that. You always can get better — I think it’s something he can learn and change and grow with but I’ve been pretty impressed with his first year and how he handles all that.

“His maturity and mental aptitude and demeanor are pretty far beyond his years. … Everybody makes mistakes but I think he minimalizes a lot of what you typically see in rookie.”

LEARNING CURVE

Gustafson said Elliott’s ability to adapt and digest information quickly when he has struggled in a particular area or at a venue has been impressive. Often, it’s the next trip back to that track, or even a year or two, before such improvements bear fruit for a driver.

For Elliott, it’s sometimes much sooner. Over the course of a weekend in some cases.

“It doesn’t change through practice but then once he’s able to go and digest it, think about it and come back with a game plan … he attacks it and makes significant improvements,” Gustafson said.

“It’s impressive. I don’t know that I’ve ever worked with a driver that had that ability.”

The technology available today has been a big help. Elliott will often pour over information gleaned from his teammates while awaiting changes to the car during practice or at day’s end. Where someone brakes in the corner, how fast they pick up the throttle, how much steering they’re putting in their car can help when he’s searching for more speed or a better handling ride.

And he isn’t hesitant to change. The stopwatch doesn’t lie, he said.

“If the guys have found a way to get you out on the track better for one lap or get you around the race track better for long runs, and that’s a proven fact from the stopwatch or tire falloff or whatever data that you can see, then there’s no denying that fact,” Elliott said. “I think that opens your mind up to try and see what they are doing and how they’re going about their job. Amongst our guys or any of the guys in the garage, I just can’t see that person X has a car that’s that much better than mine. I think you have to recognize that we’re in a pretty tight boundary of competition and for you to be way off, well maybe you need to think about how you’re driving. Because I know my guys haven’t missed it that bad.”

Gordon, now a FOX NASCAR analyst, says being young or new to the series is a plus; it’s easier to absorb the reams of information available without the baggage of preconceived ideas.

“You’re a sponge,” he said, “so you can adapt quickly.

“As a team we have to take advantage of that because the longer you go, the harder it is to do that. I think that’s one of the things that’s made Jimmie so great over all the years is he’s been able to do that as well or better than anybody that I know. Someone like Chase, that’s as talented and young as he is, I see that in him. That’s why I think they’ve performed consistently very well.”

Bill Elliott says he tries to look at his son’s progression as a driver and not as his son. Either way, he’s been impressed with what he’s seen.

“I think he’s done a great job from a driving standpoint,” Elliott said. “I really didn’t know … when you come into these deals and you think ‘OK, I’m getting in Jeff Gordon‘s car and it’s already got a pretty good history to it, a damn good history to it, and what are the expectations for a kid that’s come in and only run a handful of Cup races prior to this? I’ve been very impressed.”

A FAN FAVORITE

The elder Elliott won the series’ most popular driver award, overseen by the National Motorsports Press Association, a record 16 times. Earnhardt Jr. has won the award the last 13 years. In fact, the award, which has been presented annually since 1953, has gone to someone named Elliott or Earnhardt every year since 1991.

Could the younger Elliott be the next in line?

He has quickly developed his own following of younger fans while appealing to those who were fans of his father, the 1988 series champion, and to those who were fans of Gordon and the No. 24 team.

Voting for this year’s MPD award closes Sunday at 11:59 p.m. ET. (www.mostpopulardriver.com)

“The fan base that I acquired the years that I ran was just so phenomenal,” Bill Elliott said. “They supported me through thick and thin. I’d fall out of races on some days and there would be fans that would tell me, ‘We don’t care if you never win another race; we’re behind you 100 percent.’ To have that kind of following … I think it just had to do with my background, how I got into the sport, I wasn’t part of the established group. I worked hard and tried to do things the right way, which I didn’t always do that. But I tried really hard to take care of the race fans because I really respected the fans, whether they were pulling for me or the other drivers.

“I think Chase has been very good and very gracious with the fans and he’s been able to pick up that group, plus Jeff had a strong fan base. When you’ve got everything else … being involved with Dale Jr. on the XFINITYY side got him exposed to a lot of people. Winning that championship the first year and coming back and finishing second last year, there was a lot going on.”

Chase Elliott says seeing fans wearing the No. 24 gear carrying his likeness and name wasn’t something he was expecting as the year got underway. And while the competition side of the sport is where he’s focused, he understands the importance of the fans.

“They’re what makes it go around,” he said.

“One thing my dad always touched on was if you’re having a bad day or not feeling well, not doing too good, you have to recognize that whether there are two people at an event or 2,000, if you make one person’s day then that goes a long way with that person. Coming from him, I think that’s a pretty good word of advice and something to help keep things in perspective.”

He listens. And he learns. Even if it’s sometimes hard to tell.

“We were in the shop one day and we were working on the Late Model car,” Bill Elliott said. “He asked me how to do something and I told him. Then he argued with me and I told him, ‘Well, do it your way.’ So there you go.

“You know how kids are.”