By: Darius Goodman
I really don’t want to be that guy, but this one has to go on the failed side of the spectrum. Face it, he has a legendary ride which is the #24 car that Jeff Gordon has vacated. He has the name Elliott. And he’s got a ton of spotlight on him which never turns out to be good. I have to compare Chase Elliott to a First-Round draft pick and call him a Draft Day Bust.
Since he entered into NASCAR, Chase has virtually had a serious silver throttle in his cars. He was signed to a JR Motorsports ride and didn’t have the issues of really learning what a moderately funded team had to struggle with and how to really learn his ride. Some might disagree with me, but that small fact that he didn’t have to struggle with a team that needed a lot of time to work on their cars is where Chase will fail. If everyone remembers Joey Logano when he first came into the sport he was considered the next Jeff Gordon, he had the sweet ride with Joe Gibbs Racing, he raced for Home Depot in the famous #20 car that Tony Stewart had made famous, but he was missing something that he eventually developed after four disappointing seasons.
Face it, people, Chase Elliott will NOT pick up more than 2 wins in his rookie season, his sophomore season will be far better but will end up being disappointing, as he won’t pick up a win and won’t even be in contention as a championship contender. I haven’t been impressed by him and the fact that people are building him up to be this next big thing as soon as he got behind the wheel of the car. Chase will NOT be good until he has to fight a poor handling car. Dale Jr. left Chase in Nationwide for another season to help him develop, but I think Chase would have been better off if Dale Jr., would have made it tougher for him to even have the speed he had. Development of a driver should cover everything, even finding speed in a car and turning a very bad run into a run that would leave me saying, “Wow, this kid is really good”.
Don’t even get me started on how he will struggle over his fellow rookies. He is just going to wind up a bust, your best bet at actually getting something out of him in the form of a win is if it rains and the race is over while he is leading. Otherwise, don’t place all of your seasonal hopes in seeing that number 24 reach victory lane as much as Jeff Gordon did throughout his career.
Chase Elliott will start all 36 races in the season and pick up 2 wins (max) 5 DNF’s; 4 Top 5’s; 1 Pole and average a lackluster 20.1 Finish position for his rookie campaign.
Sorry but Chase Elliott isn’t the right pick this year and all of the high expectations being placed on him are very misplaced. He will fail a lot and it will take some serious work before he can even be a true contender. Try back in 5 seasons once he develops the necessary skills to really be a competitor.
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