Tony Stewart is a versatile genius. He is a Cup Series team owner, a racetrack owner, and a Dragster racer all in one. On top of that, he is the only driver to have won championships in both the IndyCar Series and the NASCAR Cup Series. It goes without saying that Smoke is an inspiration to many.
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Hendrick Motorsports icon Chase Elliott opened up to The Pure Athlete about the impact that the Stewart-Haas Racing owner has had on his life. To everyone’s surprise, it started way before Chase Elliott started racing full-time as a Cup driver.
Chase Elliott is the son of NASCAR legend Bill Elliott. Hence, it takes a lot of courage for a kid hailing from a NASCAR family to come out and say that he likes someone else. But Chase Elliott did that. And Tony Stewart was his favorite.
“Tony Stewart was the first guy that I finally manned up enough to say, hey I like this guy,” said Elliott. “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.”
Chase Elliott feels like even today, Tony Stewart is exactly how he was when Chase Elliott had just started racing. Elliott said, “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.”
Chase Elliott stated that his first year in the Cup Series was the final season for Tony Stewart. He admitted, “I got the chance to race against him. My first year in Cup was his final season so, that was a pretty cool moment too.”
Tony Stewart and Chase Elliott broke a NASCAR rule, thanks to waivers
Technically, a driver has to race in all 26 races of the regular season to be able to be eligible for the playoffs. However, with the waiver that NASCAR handed off to Chase Elliott, it seems like exceptions can be made.
After missing six races due to a snowboarding injury, Chase Elliott was granted a free pass, which translated to this: if he won one of the remaining 18 races of the pre-season, he would be eligible to appear in the playoffs.
Back in 2016, Tony Stewart, too, received a waiver after he flunked eight races in the process of recovering from an L1 vertebra fracture from an all-terrain accident. Smoke didn’t win the Championship title, but he did win a regular-season race and made it into the playoffs for what would be his last season.
