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Aging gracefully Elliott smack in the middle of a points race at age 46Posted: Saturday August 03, 2002 9:28 PMUpdated: Saturday August 03, 2002 9:29 PM
By Denise N. Maloof, CNNSI.com INDIANAPOLIS -- By today's NASCAR standards, he's a member of the Keenagers Club, closer to the half-century mark than most of his peers, but not quite ready for the history books. Several things are contributing to Bill Elliott's current fountain of youth. A bright-eyed six-year-old named Chase ranks pretty high, but so do all those trophies and accolades that Chase's dad is suddenly accumulating. "Oh, I'm having the time of my life," Elliott said recently. "I'm 46 years old. I'm on the shorter end of the stick than most of these kids, [but] I look at it as if I can just keep nipping away at here, and just have some fun -- it's time to have some fun." Nothing like a points battle to stir the blood, either. Or a fully-financed owner, top-line equipment and good personnel. Elliott, who starts second in Sunday's Brickyard 400, is flush with revival. Winning last week at Pocono confirmed it. It also elevated him to ninth in the Winston Cup standings, and back in the spotlight. "I was 10 years old when Bill Elliott was winning races back in 1988," said Kurt Busch, last week's second-place finisher. "And I would have thought that would have been the end of it, but here we are in 2002 and he's just as strong as ever." There are reasons: Elliott's 27 years of NASCAR experience (he's in his 21st fulltime season). He and his crew chief, Mike Ford, are in tune, and these days, Elliott fills only one role. Instead of balancing driving and ownership headaches as he did from 1995-2000, Elliott just jumps in the car now. That's simplistic, of course, but concentrating on performance instead of fiscal survival should prolong his career. "He plays with his dirt car, he's getting to spend time with his son and I think he's got confidence that we're giving him the best stuff that we can possibly get," said owner Ray Evernham. "And I think he appreciates our effort. He sees us giving him 100 percent and he's giving us 100 percent in return. I think he feels good about it." Only 18 months old, Elliott's No. 9 team has emerged as the flagship for Evernham Motorsports. After a 15-place finish last year, they've earned four poles, three top fives and nine top-10s through 20 races this season. And it hasn't been instant success. As the lead organization for Dodge's 2001 re-entry into NASCAR, Evernham's group started from scratch working out of Elliott's old shop. Both the No. 9 and No. 19 teams had to gear up before they could go anywhere, and now both can concentrate on speed instead of working just to get to the track.
"This year we've been able to concentrate on making the cars equal," Ford said. "Making the engines more reliable, find more horsepower and really key on their setups and get consistent over what we learned last year -- trying to eliminate problems from last year." After a career spent in Fords, Elliott sold his team to Evernham in 2000. He also tried to forget the previous decade's struggles. As the 1988 Cup champion, Elliott was nearly always a factor from 1982-1991, when he drove for owner Harry Melling and finished in the top three six times. He drove for Junior Johnson from 1992-94, finishing second, eighth and 10th, respectively, but it was a pairing doomed by the souring relationship between Johnson and Tim Brewer, Elliott's then-crew chief. Elliott went his own way in 1995, joining other owner-drivers such as Darrell Waltrip and Ricky Rudd. But it never really worked; his best results were a pair of eighth-place points finishes in 1995 and 1997. Beset with injuries, nasty wrecks, and family tragedies [he lost his parents and nephew Casey during that time], Elliott absorbed his final blow in 1999, when then-sponsor McDonald's told him they were heading elsewhere after the 2000 season. Stuck with lame-duck backing, Elliott remembers not even wanting to go to the track. "It was hard," he said. "We couldn't find sponsorship. It was going through a tough time. I had a lot of employees. I had a lot of struggles within myself with what to do and what was the best avenue for me, whether to quit or keep driving or what." Enter Evernham, who had won three Cup titles as Jeff Gordon's crew chief, and was eager to accept Dodge's point-man commission. He saw through Elliott's gloomy back-to-back finishes of 21st in 1999 and 2000; the tarnish obscuring a former champion. "He's a good guy that really cares about racing and he cares about the people," said Evernham. "He's not what everybody thinks he is. He's very intelligent, I'll tell you that. He's not a simple country boy. He understands a lot about a lot of different things. And he's very skilled at understanding situations." Surrounded by a youthful crew and the latest technological toys, Elliott has flourished. Ford, who calls his driver, "probably the smartest guy that I've been around in the garage as far as being open to suggestion and being able to adapt," says Elliott is anything but a curmudgeon. The crew chief cites remarkable chemistry between younger, eager crew members and a veteran who used to set up his own chassis, hang his own sheet metal, and write his own checks. "You always have to try things, and what surprises me the most is he is so open-minded," said Ford. "But yet, you get on a thought, and he can carry it a step further. He focuses in on how he can help in driving the race car to make certain things work." "They started putting real good stuff under me and that's just kind of been an on-going evolution," Elliott said. "It's been a building block." According to Evernham, Elliott is still dynamite, particularly at fast tracks. He's also wily. The possum-playing, stalking and eventual pass of Sterling Marlin for last week's win illustrates that veteran patience and savvy. "He thinks out so far in advance," said Evernham. "He plans and watches things. And he's very, very good at communicating what that car's doing to help Mike and [team engineer] Derek [Jones] fix it. He's 46 years old, and he's a little bit fearless, to tell you the truth." "He likes information," Ford said. "You just feed him information during the race and he learns from that as the race goes on. It makes calling the race real easy." Another crucial component is the owner-driver relationship, a harmony that's been gradual. Evernham says he was so busy, and that Elliott was still acclimating through the first of last season for the two to really meld. But by the time second-half consistency had surfaced, and Elliott won the season-ending race at Miami -- his first victory since September 1994 -- the two men were clicking. Evernham says Elliott can drive for him as long as he likes, and when he retires, he's welcome in another capacity. Elliott says he'll fulfill his final contract year in 2003, then consider a two-year option. "We don't really argue over much," said Evernham. "He's happy. The guy's low-maintenance. He doesn't ask me for anything. I don't ask him for anything other than to do a good job in that car." "I'm proud of who I'm driving for in Ray," said Elliott. "He's given me some great equipment. He believes in me. He's really helped my confidence week in and week out, and shoot, that's 95 percent of the game right there, is being able to put the people together and make it all work." |
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