Chase Elliott on Why Tony Stewart Was His Favorite NASCAR Driver Growing Up

Getting to know the biggest names in NASCAR as a kid, Chase Elliott must have had no shortage of drivers to choose from to be his favorite. But the one who found the way to his heart was the 3X Cup Series champion, Tony Stewart. Elliott revealed last year that Stewart’s transitions between being a laid-back guy and a fired-up racer had appealed to him a lot.

Mentioning that he was quite fond of the little jokes that Stewart pulled on him when he visited the race tracks, he said, “You know, [He would] walk up to you and grab the back of your ear… Mess with you a little bit. I always thought that was really cool. For whatever reason, he and I kind of had that connection.”

Courtesy of the off-track involvement that Stewart had with Elliott, he had one more fan in the stands yelling for the #20 car.

Many years later, another youngster who is getting the same treatment as Elliott did back then is Keelan, the son of Kevin Harvick. Elliott said on The Pure Athletic podcast last year, “He [Tony Stewart] was such a good guy, he was so good with kids, so funny because I see some of the same way he has treated Keelan, Kevin Harvick’s son on pit road and around the race track and I’m like, man, that’s exactly how I remember my childhood being with Tony too.”

The revelations from Elliott about Stewart’s liking for kids only get sweeter to know considering that the SHR top man is currently busy planning a family with his wife, Leah Pruett.

The difficulty that Chase Elliott had in admitting to being a Tony Stewart fan

Being the son of a racer as iconic as Bill Elliott, it wasn’t easy for young Chase to come out and say that he was turning out to be a fan of a different driver. But Stewart created enough of an impression to take however big a risk.

Elliott said, “When you grow up inside a house of someone else racing it takes some guts to say ‘Hey I think I like this other guy too’. Not that you are completely jumping sh*t but to actually come out and say that was difficult. Tony was really that first one for me.

Things finally came full circle for Chase Elliott when he raced alongside Stewart in his maiden Cup Series season.