Why NASCAR's latest second-generation champion is just getting started

Perhaps unreasonably, immediate pressure for success was placed upon young Chase Elliott's shoulders the very first time the son of 1988 NASCAR Cup champion Bill strapped himself into a full-time Cup ride with Hendrick Motorsports in 2016.

With 'Awesome Bill from Dawsonville' being voted the most popular driver in the Cup Series a record 16 times, picking up 44 wins across a career that spanned nearly four decades, the expectation was that the next generation of Elliott would pick up where his father left off and immediately start producing strong results.

Five years on, 24-year-old Elliott truly delivered on that expectation in the pandemic-affected 2020 season by taking his maiden Cup title at Phoenix, following in the footsteps of Richard Petty and Dale Jarrett in becoming the third son-of to emulate his father. But the 2014 Xfinity Series champion has had to be patient for his crowning moment at the top level of stock car racing.

Stepping into the Hendrick team as a replacement for retired NASCAR legend Jeff Gordon alongside NASCAR royalty in soon-to-be seven-time champion Jimmie Johnson and Dale Earnhardt Jr - who was replaced by Gordon himself when concussion ruled him out of the second half of the campaign - Elliott hit the ground running in 2016 and reached the playoffs in his first full season. But 2017 would go down as a missed opportunity - despite finishing fifth and only just missing out on being a title contender at the Homestead finale.

He racked up five runner-up spots among his 21 top 10 hauls, but without a win - being pipped by the astute Kyle Busch in backmarker traffic at Dover the most stinging defeat - questions were soon being floated about whether he could really cut it at the highest level. Those were swiftly answered at the Watkins Glen road course on his 99th start for Hendrick in 2018, adding two further victories at Dover and Kansas and a further three wins throughout 2019.

The changing of the guard at Hendrick began in 2018, when Alex Bowman and William Byron replaced Earnhardt and Kasey Kahne, but 2020 was the year it was truly cemented as Johnson once again missed the playoffs in his retirement year while Elliott properly morphed into the squad's lead driver.

PLUS: Why Johnson's playoff failure won't tarnish his legacy

Two regular season wins at Charlotte and the Daytona road course were enough to cement his playoff spot and where the 2019 playoffs wrecked his season, this year was the opposite. Victory at the Charlotte 'roval' for the second year in a row kept him in contention, and knowing only a win at Martinsville would be enough to keep him in the championship hunt, Elliott delivered - securing the first playoff berth for Hendrick since 2016 - and once again did so under immense pressure at Phoenix.

"Some of those rocky days and tough losses helped us to be prepared for a big moment like we've had over the past two weeks. At the time obviously, you want to go crawl in a hole, but looking back at those tough days, I think there were lessons learnt during those events that help you for something bigger down the road" Chase Elliott

Despite being sent to the rear of the field for failing pre-race tech twice, his #9 Camaro carved through the pack and had latched onto championship rivals Joey Logano, Brad Keselowski and Denny Hamlin by just the 42nd lap. And 22 years to the day since Gordon won his first title, he took advantage of slower backmarkers holding up Logano on the 270th tour to snatch the biggest victory of his career and with it, the title.

In doing so, Elliott answered his critics emphatically, but he was still in reflective mood a few days after his success when he sat down with Autosport in the middle of an extensive media tour.

"The road to that first win was kind of a long one I guess, and rocky along the way too," he says. "Some of those rocky days and tough losses helped us to be prepared for a big moment like we've had over the past two weeks.

"At the time obviously, you want to go crawl in a hole, but looking back at those tough days, I think there were lessons learnt during those events that help you for something bigger down the road, we just didn't know it back then.

"There was no point throughout the year that we were just messing around. You're always trying to win and pad those playoff points, and if you can get them, they're huge.

"We kind of started the year strong, and went through a period in the summer that wasn't so hot and then I think we kind of got back into a good direction around the time of the playoffs starting and it was just really good timing, fortunately for us."

That good direction Elliott mentions is backed up by his end of season stats. A career-best record of 22 top 10 results, including 15 top fives were supplemented by five wins split across road courses, short tracks and traditional 1.5-mile ovals.

His average finishing position was 11.6 across the 36 rounds, and the 24-year-old was just one of three drivers (Kevin Harvick and Denny Hamlin the other two, unsurprisingly) to top 1,000 laps led, Elliott second to Harvick's 1,531 with 1,247 of his own.

All this comes against the backdrop of a season disrupted by COVID-19 and a drastic shake-up to the well-tried motorsport weekend format of practice sessions, qualifying and then the race.

To limit the amount of time crews would need to spend working together and potentially spreading the virus, upon the resumption of the season at Darlington in May it was decreed that practice and qualifying would be done away with for the remainder of the season. Therefore, the first time drivers would sit in their cars with engines fired on a race weekend would be just as the formation laps got rolling.

To at least give drivers a chance at fixing any problems that arose early in races, NASCAR built competition cautions into races, where around 20-30 laps into the distance, cars could pit under caution to rectify any problems. In this environment, it wouldn't have been unreasonable to expect veteran drivers dominating, but in the first five races back, (two at Darlington, two at Charlotte and Bristol), Elliott was a major factor in all of them.

He created a memorable moment at the second Darlington race when he gave Kyle Busch the middle finger after the #18 nudged him out late on, and was denied victory in the 600-miler at Charlotte two laps from home after a puncture for team-mate William Byron sent the race to overtime, with pitting for fresh Goodyears proving to be the wrong option. A clash in the closing stages at Bristol with Logano for the lead also provided some feisty debate between the duo post-race.

"It was super interesting [racing without practice or qualifying], now practice would feel weird," he laughs. "I remember that first race, I was like 'Are we really going to go to Darlington and not make any laps and all expect not to crash in Turn 1?' So yeah, it was different, but as we got used to it, it became very much normal.

"There is no better practice session than a race, there are things that you are going to see throughout an event that you never see in practice. Ultimately, I think it just cuts us down to it and you get after it. You either have it or you don't and if you don't, you've got to work on it and try to be better next race."

While 2020 was the year Elliott somewhat flew under the radar as Harvick and Hamlin stole most of the headlines, it was maybe just what he needed: to work quietly with crew chief Alan Gustafson and brick-by-brick build a championship-winning campaign. And rather than that first Cup title being an end point, it could open the floodgates that propels Elliott into NASCAR Hall of Famer territory.

Elliott has age on his side, where many of his contemporary heavyweights do not. Harvick, Hamlin, Kyle Busch, Keselowski and Martin Truex Jr are nearer the end of their full-time careers than the beginning. In the coming years, coupled with the introduction of the Next Gen car, the likes of Elliott, Logano and the returning Kyle Larson - who will go up against Elliott at Hendrick next year - will assume the mantle of drivers to beat.

"The leadership group at NASCAR has changed more in the last six months than folks before them changed in about four years. That's nice and encouraging" Chase Elliott

NASCAR's leadership is also keen to add more variety into a calendar that has an overwhelming majority of copy-cat 1.5-mile ovals. That will favour well-rounded drivers that can be quick across all types of track and should be music to the ears of NASCAR's premier road course expert... For next season, new road course races at Road America and Indianapolis - until now only used by the Xfinity Series - will join the calendar, as well as a first dirt race since 1970 at Bristol. So, what are Elliott's thoughts on the direction NASCAR's leadership is taking?

"That's been a popular question and I really don't know how to answer," Elliott replies. "I don't have a road course racing background really, so I really don't know. I've been as surprised as anybody.

"I really feel like I came into a good situation. Jeff [Gordon] was a very good road racer with years in NASCAR, and as I stepped in with Alan, I think Jeff's experience and being so good on road courses, they really focused on a lot of the things that are important about road racing.

"Coming into something like that, a good situation learning about the things that matter, the right way and having a good foundation to start at is big and I felt like I had that and I think we've made it better and improved on it since then.

"I think it's good we are changing things up," he adds. "I will say that the leadership group at NASCAR has changed more in the last six months than folks before them changed in about four years. That's nice and encouraging.

"Are all the new things we're trying going to work? No, probably not, but we have to adapt and we have to continue trying to grow this thing and make it better. I think them trying new things and going to new places is doing that, and I am looking forward to it."

As well as in the series overall, Hendrick has overgone serious change in the last year, with Johnson moving to IndyCar, while his former crew chief Chad Knaus moves away from the pitbox to fill the vice-president of competition role overseeing shop operations for the four Camaros.

"Chad is obviously very good, very accomplished, as good as they come," Elliott says. "To have him working on the ground and at the shop and seeing what is going on there is important, because as you know these team members and crew chiefs spend a lot of time traveling, a lot of time on the road. To have a face and a brain that smart always there will have to help and I think it'll elevate our position on the weekends."

Not that NASCAR's new most popular driver and poster-boy has much to worry about. He is excited about the challenge that lies ahead, the battles and rivalries to come with the likes of 30-year-old Logano - "somebody's mad, somebody's not, that's typically entertaining to watch" - but he is determined to take on the mantle of stock car racing standard-bearer the way he has tackled his career thus far: with a dogged determination to improve and learn from his mistakes, traits that have seen him become the most potent weapon in the Hendrick arsenal.