Chase Elliott: From Georgia Short Tracks to the 2020 NASCAR Cup Title

Chase Elliott is an American stock car driver who has raced full-time in NASCAR's Cup Series since 2016. He began on the short tracks of Georgia and the Southeast, won the Nationwide Series title as a rookie in 2014, and went on to win the Cup championship in 2020. This article follows his route through the sport and the seasons that shaped it.

Who is Chase Elliott?

William Clyde Chase Elliott II was born on 28 November 1995. He is the son of the 1988 Winston Cup champion Bill Elliott, and the two are one of the many father-son pairs in NASCAR history. The pairing has been a recurring theme of his career.

He competes full-time in the Cup Series for Hendrick Motorsports, and he has also raced part-time in the Truck and O'Reilly Auto Parts series. His record includes a Cup title in 2020, a Nationwide title in 2014 and a list of wins on road courses.

A rookie Nationwide champion, a Cup title at 24 and a career that keeps finding new ways to win.

How did Elliott's short-track career begin?

Elliott was featured in Sports Illustrated in July 2009, when he was 13, among a group of young athletes considered potential stars. The following year he raced in forty events across several series, winning twelve and reaching the top ten on 38 occasions.

He won the Winchester 400 in 2010, and in 2011 he became the youngest winner of the Snowball Derby. The World Crown 300 went to him in 2012, and the All American 400 followed in 2013, which made him the first driver to win all four of the country's leading short-track events.

That record was a matter of controversy in the following weeks. A prohibited piece of tungsten was found in his car after the weekend's races, and the victory was awarded to Erik Jones. He took the Snowball Derby crown again in 2015, once the original winner was disqualified.

What did Elliott's ARCA and truck seasons show?

Elliott raced six ARCA events in 2012 and five in 2013, and on 8 June 2013 he became the youngest winner in ARCA superspeedway history at Pocono Raceway. The move from short tracks to larger circuits was deliberate, and it gave him experience of bigger ovals.

In the NASCAR Truck Series he took his first career pole at Bristol in 2013, becoming the youngest pole-sitter in the series. He then won at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, where the series had never raced on a road course outside the United States before, and at just seventeen, he was the youngest winner in Truck Series history.

That win was not free of controversy either. At the last corner he tangled with Ty Dillon, who was pushed into the tyre barrier, and Dillon said he would not forget it. Elliott later said he had tried to apologise and had received no reply.

He returned to trucks in later years and won at Martinsville for GMS Racing in 2017, and in 2020 he won the Charlotte race that settled a bounty challenge set by Kevin Harvick.

How did the Nationwide title come in 2014?

Elliott joined JR Motorsports full-time in the Nationwide Series in 2014, driving the No. 9 Chevrolet with sponsorship from NAPA Auto Parts. His first series win came at Texas Motor Speedway in April, where he held off Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch.

A week later he won at Darlington Raceway, passing Elliott Sadler on the last lap, having restarted sixth, and he added another victory at Chicagoland Speedway. The title was settled at Phoenix, where he clinched it with a 53-point cushion over teammate Regan Smith.

That made him the first rookie, and also the youngest, to win a NASCAR national series title. He was also voted the Nationwide series' most popular driver that year.

The 2015 season was harder. A crash at Daytona gave him the first DNF of his career, and he finished 28th there. He snapped a 36-race winless streak at Richmond in September and finished second in the championship battle with Chris Buescher.

How did Elliott's Cup Series career begin?

Hendrick Motorsports announced in early 2015 that Elliott would make his Sprint Cup debut that year in the No. 25 car, and that he would take over Jeff Gordon's famous No. 24 car in 2016. His debut came in the STP 500, where he secured a place on the grid with a lap speed that placed him 27th.

The race went badly after contact with Brett Moffitt left damage on his car, forcing him into the garage. He returned 69 laps behind the leader and finished 38th, 73 laps down.

In 2016 he joined the Cup Series full-time in the No. 24 Chevrolet, working with crew chief Alan Gustafson. He replaced Gordon, who was retiring, and his primary sponsors included NAPA Auto Parts and Mountain Dew.

He was named Rookie of the Year that season, and he outpaced Ryan Blaney and three others for the award. In his Daytona 500 debut he won the pole at 20 years old, the youngest to start from pole in the race's history.

The season had setbacks, including a spin during the 500, but it also brought strong results. At Pocono he led a race-high 51 laps, and at Michigan he finished second. Fifteen races in, he had two poles, six top-five finishes and eleven top-tens, but he was still searching for his first win.

In September 2016 he came close at the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 400, where a late caution wiped out a three-second lead over Martin Truex Jr. He finished third, and he ended the year tenth in the standings.

How did the 2017 and 2018 seasons go?

In 2017 Elliott won the pole for the Daytona 500 for a second consecutive year, and he won the first Can-Am Duel, a feat last managed by Dale Earnhardt in 1996. At Dover he led 138 laps before Kyle Busch passed him late on.

Later that year at Martinsville, Denny Hamlin spun him out with three laps remaining, and Elliott retaliated by driving Hamlin into the wall on the cool-down lap. He finished the season fifth in the standings.

In 2018 Hendrick Motorsports moved him from No. 24 to No. 9, the number his father had driven for most of his career. He won his first Cup race at Watkins Glen, starting third and leading the final 33 laps.

The victory mirrored his father's career in one important way: Bill Elliott had also finished second a number of times before winning, and both men earned their first wins on road courses. Bill was also among the spotters calling the race for his son.

He won again in October, when he held off Denny Hamlin in overtime at Dover. He ended the year sixth in the standings after a playoff run that stopped at Phoenix.

What did the 2020 Cup championship involve?

Elliott won the 2020 Cup Series championship at 24, which made him the second-youngest winner in Cup title history. The title was Hendrick Motorsports' thirteenth overall Cup championship and its first since 2016. The championship came in his fifth full season in the series.

He had a difficult run through the middle of the season. At Darlington he was running second when Kyle Busch turned him, and at Charlotte he was leading when a caution and an overtime restart cost him the lead. He still won the Alsco Uniforms 500, moving past Kevin Harvick into the lead with 27 laps to go.

In July he won the All-Star race at Bristol, leading for most of the night. The Elliotts became only the second father-son pair to win that race, after the Earnhardts.

The championship race at Phoenix finished with a 153-lap performance, a race-high figure. He started last after failing pre-race inspection twice, then led the most laps to secure both the victory and the championship. The Elliotts joined the Pettys and the Jarretts as the third father-son pair to win Cup titles.

What were the 2021 and 2022 seasons like?

The 2021 season was a rollercoaster. In May he won the inaugural race at the Circuit of the Americas, which was delayed by rain, and he later won at Road America by edging out Christopher Bell and Kyle Busch. The year also brought a heated feud with Kevin Harvick, which continued at the Charlotte Roval.

He reached the Championship 4 but finished fifth, the lowest among the four contenders, and failed to defend his title.

The 2022 campaign opened with a tenth in the Daytona 500. Elliott rebounded from a difficult spell, and then won at Dover, Nashville and Atlanta. At Atlanta he won both stages and led 96 of 260 laps, and he and his father became the second father-son pair to win at the track.

He clinched the 2022 regular-season championship with one race remaining, and a win at Talladega in October gave him his fifth victory of the season. He finished 28th in the Phoenix finale after being spun by Ross Chastain.

What happened to Elliott in 2023 and 2024?

He started 2023 with a second at Fontana. Later that year, Elliott broke a tibia while snowboarding in Colorado, and Josh Berry drove the No. 9 car for a stretch of races. When he returned, a dispute with Denny Hamlin at Charlotte led to a one-race suspension.

The year ended with a first-ever miss of the playoffs in his Cup career. He was unable to win enough races to make up for the time he lost.

In 2024 he ended a 42-race winless streak by winning at Texas on 14 April. It was his only win of the season, and he did not qualify for the Championship 4, finishing seventh in the points standings.

What has Elliott done since 2025?

In 2025 he opened the season with a win at the Cook Out Clash, and he took his 20th Cup win at Atlanta, passing Brad Keselowski on the last lap. He won at Kansas during the playoffs and finished eighth in the standings.

He began 2026 with a fourth-place finish in the Daytona 500, and he then scored wins at Martinsville and Texas during the regular season.

Outside the Cup Series, he made his 24 Hours of Daytona debut in 2021 for Action Express Racing, and he has raced in the Superstar Racing Experience. In 2021 he beat his father, Bill, to win the SRX finale at Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway.

What is Elliott's legacy?

Elliott's legacy rests on his titles, his road-course record and his place in a NASCAR family, where his name sits alongside his father's. His record includes a rookie national title in 2014 and a Cup championship in 2020, with seven road-course wins to add to the story.

He has also built a presence beyond the track. He voiced Chase Racelott in Pixar's 2017 film Cars 3, appeared in the NASCAR video games, and was the subject of the 2021 documentary Chase, made with Dale Earnhardt Jr.

His career has been shaped by the weight of his father's name, and by a steady run of results that began in the first short-track races.

What are Elliott's main career results?

Elliott's career spans short tracks, trucks, the Nationwide Series and the Cup Series. The entries are set out in one place for quick reference. The table gathers his most significant results, from his early titles to his Cup championship and his road-course and playoff highlights.