Chase Elliott: The Most Popular Driver in NASCAR, and One of the Best Road Racers Ever
Welcome to the Happy Hour Racing Driver Spotlight - where we pull one Cup Series driver into the garage, look under the hood at their career, and tell you what makes them tick. This week: the number 9.
The Short Version
Chase Elliott is a NASCAR Cup Series champion, the son of a Hall of Famer, and the most popular driver in the sport for nearly a decade running. He owns the best road-course win rate in the history of the Cup Series, a 2020 title, and 23 career wins and counting. If you only know one thing about him, know this: when the track turns left and right, very few people in NASCAR history have been better.
From Dawsonville to the Cup Series
Chase Elliott was born on November 28, 1995, in Dawsonville, Georgia, a small mountain town that already had one NASCAR legend in it. His father is Bill Elliott, the 1988 Cup champion and Hall of Famer known as "Awesome Bill from Dawsonville." Following a famous parent into the same job is a heavy thing to carry, and Chase carried it about as well as anyone ever has.
He served notice early. In 2014, at age 18, he won the Xfinity Series championship as a rookie - the first rookie and the youngest driver ever to win one of NASCAR's national series titles. He moved up to the Cup Series full time in 2016, took home Rookie of the Year, and inherited the famous number 9 at what is now Hendrick Motorsports.
The Breakthrough and the Title
Elliott's first Cup win came in 2018 at Watkins Glen, a road course, which turned out to be a sign of things to come. The wins kept stacking up, and in 2020 he put it all together. In his fifth full season he won five races and closed out the year with a victory at Phoenix to claim his first Cup Series championship. Two years later, in 2022, he won a series-best total of races and took the regular-season championship, cementing himself as the centerpiece of the Hendrick stable.
By the Numbers
Here is the career so far, laid out in the parts that matter. Every number below is a Cup Series career figure.
The Road-Course King
If there is one thing Elliott does better than almost anyone who has ever raced in the Cup Series, it is turn right. He has seven career road-course wins, and they came in a remarkable burst between 2018 and 2021 when he seemed almost unbeatable any time the schedule left an oval. That run gave him the highest road-course winning percentage in the history of the Cup Series. The sport has a new road ace stealing headlines now, but the record book still belongs to Elliott.
The Most Popular Driver in the Sport
Every year, NASCAR fans vote for their favorite driver. Every year since 2018, the answer has been Chase Elliott. That kind of streak is not an accident. It comes from a quiet, steady personality, a famous last name that fans grew up loving, and a throwback look that feels like old-school NASCAR. The connection is real, and it is why the number 9 gear moves the way it does.
Off the Track
Away from the car, Elliott keeps a low profile by superstar standards. He is an avid outdoorsman who hunts and fishes, he is a devoted fan of his home-state Georgia Bulldogs, and he is rarely seen at the track without his crew and his easygoing manner. He still represents Dawsonville everywhere he goes, carrying the same small-town North Georgia legacy his father built decades ago.
The Bottom Line
Chase Elliott is the rare driver who is both a fan favorite and a genuine all-time great at one discipline of the sport. He has a championship, a famous name he has more than lived up to, and a record on road courses that may never be topped. Whether he adds a second title or not, his place in NASCAR history is already secure.
Ride with the number 9. A few fan favorites in stock right now:
- Chase Elliott #9 Most Popular Driver Award Tee
- Chase Elliott #9 2026 Martinsville Winner Tee
- Chase Elliott #9 2025 Clash at Bowman Gray Winner Tee
- Chase Elliott #9 NAPA Racing Patriotic USA Tee
- Chase Elliott #9 Striped Snapback Mesh Hat
See it all in the Chase Elliott collection. New driver spotlights drop every Thursday.