From winning his first Cup Series championship in 2020 to taking home the Most Popular Driver award for the 6th consecutive year in 2023, Chase Elliott is one of the front faces of NASCAR.
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But how did he get into racing? How did he find the momentum that has made him perhaps the most sought-after NASCAR driver today? In an episode of The Pure Athlete, the Dawsonville resident opened up about his childhood and how he got into his full-time racing career.
Being the son of Hall of Famer Bill Elliott, Chase Elliott has always been a sports fan since his childhood. However, it was when his family decided to move out of Georgia and settle in Colorado that he started finding his knack for racing. And it all happened when Bill Elliott quit racing full-time.
“I was 6 or 7, my parents decided they wanted to move out west and give it a shot so we did that,” said Chase Elliott. “I had just started to race go-karts around home. So when we moved out west, I felt like that was kind of where my childhood really got going, I was getting involved in sports… kind of started to understand a little more about what was going on.”
He said, “I did some racing out there for a couple years but it was such a blast. That part of the country is such an outdoor area; if you’re not outside doing something you’re not living. It was amazing,”
“There were a couple race tracks in Denver, a couple race tracks on the western side of Colorado… Those years were super fun,” he added gleefully.
Chase Elliott’s unique childhood that got him into racing
Chase Elliott felt like his childhood was unique in the sense that he got to capitalize on his biggest dream only after he moved out of his hometown, and interestingly, he had to move back to Georgia to pursue his dreams further.
He explained, “I kinda got to a point where I felt like I wanted to pursue racing. Obviously, I was still very young but I wanted to at least try. So we moved back home because there wasn’t really a lot of racing in Colorado. It got to a certain point where it was barely competitive.”
According to Elliott, a kid could grow up and become a baseball player residing in Colorado but a NASCAR driver, not so much. “So moved back here and that’s when things started to get serious from the racing standpoint. I was starting middle school and I was racing full-time every weekend from that point until now,” he concluded.
