Chase Elliott walked into the 2024 Cup Series Annual Awards banquet knowing full well that he would be going back home with the Most Popular Driver award once again. As he has done for the last six years. The fan votes count made no mistake as the Hendrick Motorsports driver collected the accolade for the seventh consecutive time and kept his family honor flying high.
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The 2020 champion is only 28 years old and is already the one with the third most number of Most Popular Driver awards in history. Only Dale Earnhardt Jr. (15) and his father Bill Elliott (16) have won it more often than him.
Can he overcome these numbers, particularly that of his father, before he retires? The likelihood is extremely high at the rate that he has displayed so far. Assuming that Chase will drive till 40, he still has plenty of time and space to continue appealing to the fans and stay in their good books.
He showered praise on his family’s ability to connect with the crowd and said during the banquet, “They were an easy group of guys to like because I think they were extremely relatable with a lot of America and beyond. And I think that’s really cool.”
Bill’s father, Erving Elliott Jr., was a racing aficionado who founded the Winston Cup Series team Elliott Racing in 1966. He was also a big fan of the Blue Oval Brigade and started a Ford dealership in their hometown where there were none at the time. Chase draws inspiration from the high popularity that he and his three sons, Ernie, Dan, and Bill, had in the sport.
Is Elliott falling out of favor with Americans, unlike his family?
Performance on the race track is one of the biggest influencers of fan attraction. It is not something Chase has been good at in recent times. The 2023 season was a big debacle, with him not being able to make it into the playoffs.
Then again this year, he could only manage a single win throughout the season. If this trend continues into 2025, drivers like Ryan Blaney and Kyle Larson will likely begin to hound his fame as the next potential Most Popular Driver.
His reluctance to get involved in other ventures such as the Netflix docuseries Full Speed is building a case against him as well. This is what led many to expect that he will be dethroned as the Most Popular Driver this year. He might want to escape this corner before it’s too late.
The best way to do so is to reach victory lane more often and increase participation in activities that are aimed at increasing the sport’s reach.
