Fan's Eye View ~ Before Chase There Was Casey11/26/2014 |
NASCAR Racing’s First Family from Dawsonville, Georgia has a
lot to celebrate these days. On the
heels of the announcement that Bill Elliott, one of the legends of the Sprint
Cup Series, will be inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame, Elliott’s young son,
Chase, won the Nationwide Series Championship this year, and did so being only
eighteen years of age. Bill made his
name mostly in the 1980’s and 1990’s, racing and winning races and
Championships against drivers such as Rusty Wallace, Terry Labonte, and Dale
Earnhardt, while Chase has quickly and more recently made his by scoring three
wins and a Championship in his rookie season, while driving for Dale Earnhardt,
Jr.’s JR Motorsports team. The Elliott family’s racing roots go much further, however,
than just the on track successes of a father and son. Bill’s father, George, owned a car dealership
and the team for which Bill would gain early attention, and brother, Ernie, is
well known for his engine building prowess, something he did for years for the
family racing team before expanding and providing power plants to other drivers
and teams. All of this, unless you’re new to the sport or have been
under that famous rock that some choose for a habitat, is known fact and often
shared story from the world of NASCAR. What might be less known, however, is
the story of what happened between Bill’s heyday in the Cup Series, and Chase’s
Championship in the Nationwide Series. There once was a young man named Casey… While Ernie Elliott was busy building all of those engines,
he was also building a family, and Casey Elliott was Ernie’s son. Born on February 13th, 1974, Casey
found himself growing up around a sport where his father and uncle were rather
successful. That alone is probably
enough to make anyone want to get involved in the sport, and Casey was no
different. The Georgia short tracks,
such as Lanier Raceway were places where Casey learned how to lose and win, and
how to prepare for moving up in the ranks.
Some folks thought that Casey just might be the next racer that the
Dawsonville Pool Room would recognize with that long wailing police siren that
owner Gordon Pirkle sounds when an Elliott takes a
checkered flag. Casey continued to grow in the sport through the Slim Jim
All-Pro Series, and in 1993 was ready to try his hand in a Nationwide (then
Busch) Series car. In his debut in an
Elliott owned car, Casey was able to qualify in the top-ten and finish a
respectable 20th at Michigan.
In October of the same seas, Casey once again qualified well, this time
in the fourth position. An accident,
however, shortened his car and his day, and he finished 44th. With two starts and a little bit of seat time under his
belt, Casey felt he was ready to move up to the Nationwide Series full time and
make a run. Unfortunately his plans were
not to be fulfilled as he wished. In
late 1993, Casey Elliott was diagnosed with a growth on his upper right
thigh. Instead of going to Daytona to
race in February of 1994, Casey had surgery to remove the growth, which was
found to be cancerous. Doctors were
cautiously optimistic that Elliott’s tumor had been completely removed, and
Casey began to show improvement. The
cancer, however, had already metastasized and later that same year, Casey
needed to have reconstructive knee surgery.
With his racing career all but over, Casey decided to devote his life to
Motor Racing Outreach, all while still continuing treatment for the cancer over
the next two years. In 1996 Casey was to have taken on a role performing crew
chief duties for ex-NFL head coach Jerry Glanville’s Nationwide Series
effort. Before he was able to climb atop
the pit box and make any calls, however, the cancer was aggressive, and Casey
Elliott succumbed to the disease on January 14th, 1996. Jerry Glanville,
who was supposed to drive the car that Casey was to be the crew chief for, said
this of his young friend: “He touched more people in 21 years than most of us
will no matter how long we live," Glanville said. "And he never complained
about his illness.” Glanville went on to
say that Casey was a “super, super kid.’
Lanier Raceway in Georgia now annually runs the Casey Elliott
Memorial. In 1995, Bill Elliott had left
Junior Johnson’s Budweiser No. 11 and started his own team. He was sponsored by McDonald’s and ran the
No. 94 in honor of his nephew.
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