Chase Elliott said the decision to withdraw his name from the NASCAR Cup Series most popular driver award to encourage a posthumous victory by Kyle Busch was inspired by his father before him.
In 2001, Bill Elliott withdrew his eligibility after winning the award 15 of the previous 17 seasons in response to the death of the Dale Earnhardt on the final lap of the Daytona 500. Despite his immense popularity, Earnhardt had never won the award in an era he shared with Elliott and Darrell Waltrip.
Earnhardt won as a result of the decision from ‘Awesome Bill From Dawsonville.’ His son hopes the same thing happens for ‘Rowdy.’ He has won the award every year since 2018.
“Ultimately, I was a young child, but looking back on that, I just always thought that was a really cool and admirable nod to, frankly, one of his biggest rivals, right,” the younger Elliott said on Saturday at Talladega. “And just something that I just always had a lot of respect for. Now, I was too little to know how he went about that and kind of what the things were that he did to go about doing that.
“But as the time got closer, I had been asked about it a few times throughout the course of the year since we lost Kyle. I certainly thought about that some, and then also kind of thought about what Kyle meant to my career and just the relationship that we had.”
Unlike Earnhardt Senior, Busch was never a true contender for the most popular driver, because he embraced a villainous role, but Elliott says there is something ‘popular’ about that too.
“And maybe people totally didn’t like him, but they sure did make a lot of noise for him, and I think we can all agree to that,” Elliott said. “I just felt like because of that, and because of a lot of the things that I’ve got the chance to see behind the scenes of things that he did for his fans and how much he cared about the sport and for his supporters; I felt like he deserved to win that vote.
“Now, that being said, just because I was in there, that’s not me saying that he wasn’t going to win by any stretch. But I do think it’s an opportunity for me to encourage the great supporters that I have and the people that have supported my family over the years to show that love and show that energy to Kyle and his family. Ultimately, I believe that he is a deserving winner of it, and he has my vote.”
Another emerging contender for the award for the years to come, Carson Hocevar, is still on the ballot but says he will vote for Busch while encouraging his fans to do the same.
“I’m gonna have way more years and everything. I think keeping up with tradition… obviously, Dale won it the year he passed, and I think Kyle was the most popular driver here at one point, right,” Hocevar said. “The whole garage and everybody, every article… It’s crazy. A driver that was probably super hated or not appreciated enough. He’s super appreciated now after his passing, and I think it just feels right. I texted somebody and I was like, ‘Hey, just go ahead and take my name off.’ They used to be PR and really close to Kyle, and they’re like, ‘He wouldn’t want to win it by default.’
“And so I was like, okay, I’ll just keep my name off then if that’s what you feel like. I’ll just urge my fans to go vote for him. I’d be very disappointed if they voted for me. We can try and win another year.”