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The 2022 NASCAR Cup Series driver's standings leader and one of the front-runners for this year's championship, Chase Elliott is a force to be reckoned with in the sport. The Dawsonville, Georgia native made his full-time debut in the highest echelon of stock car racing in 2016 with the Hendricks Motorsports team and has been on the pathway to the top ever since.
Starting out with the #24 crew at the Charlotte, North Carolina-based racing outfit, Chase Elliott drove the #24 car for two years until 2017, before switching to his current #9 car. Often referred to as 'Awesome Chase from the same place', a play on his father Bill Elliott's nickname 'Awesome Bill from Dawsonville', the now 26-year-old managed to clinch the Rookie of the Year award. He also managed to claim the Busch Light Pole Award in his first appearance in the Daytona 500 in the same car.
Elliott, however, would never be able to win a race in the #24 and visit Victory Lane in a car formerly driven by Jeff Gordon. Subsequently, William Byron's entry into the sport meant he would take the reigns of the #24, with Elliott shifting to his current #9 NAPA Auto Parts Chevrolet Camaro ZL1. The number 9 also had historical significance for the 2020 Cup Series champion as his father also used to run a car with the same number.
Chase Elliott speaks on NASCAR Next Gen car's safety issues
The seventh-generation NASCAR Cup Series car has been the primary topic of discussion in the sport as more and more drivers seem to get injured in the new car. Drivers such as Kurt Busch and more recently, Alex Bowman have had to sit out subsequent races after making contact with the walls at different racetracks and suffering considerable concussions.
Drivers such as Kevin Harvick and Denny Hamlin amongst various others have led the charge towards the governing body not taking any major steps to improve the safety of the Next Gen car.
Last Sunday's winner at Talladega Superspeedway, Chase Elliott, spoke about the issue post the 500-mile-long race in a press conference and said:
"I don't feel like we should ever have been in this position to begin with. We should have gone forward with a new opportunity and a new car. We have all these years of experience and knowledge and time of racing and crashing these cars and it blows me away that we can have something new in 2022 and we allow it to go backwards."
Watch Elliott's complete response below:
Watch Chase Elliott race this weekend at the Charlotte Roval Road Course for the Bank of America Roval 400.
