NASCAR CUP SERIES
DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
DAYTONA 500
TEAM CHEVY MEDIA DAY PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPT
FEBRUARY 12, 2020
CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 9 NAPA AUTO PARTS CAMARO ZL1 1LE, Daytona 500 Media Day Highlights:
Q. Jimmie Johnson’s career, obviously he’s won seven championships. You don’t see him talked about.
CHASE ELLIOTT: It’s a shame (laughs).
Q. But for drivers like yourself who grew up watching him, do you think it’s viewed differently by you than some old-time racing fans?
CHASE ELLIOTT: Well, I don’t think he’s ever got the respect that he deserves over the course of his career. I think he’s the best to have come along. I think what he’s done, the amount of time he did it in, the way he did it, I just don’t see how that’s matched in my personal opinion. That’s just my opinion. I think like I said, I don’t think he’s ever got the respect he really deserves.
Q. Do you think part of that is he doesn’t have the electric personality of a Dale Earnhardt Sr. or something like that?
CHASE ELLIOTT: I think it’s just the era that he came along in. I think sometimes, too, maybe when he’s gone people will respect him the way he deserves to be respected. I hope that’s the case. Certainly doesn’t seem to be that way right now.
Q. He’s unquestionably the GOAT in your mind?
CHASE ELLIOTT: In my opinion, yes. I don’t think it’s even close.
Q. How do you replace someone like him as an organization? Has Jimmie talked to you about stepping up in a leadership role?
CHASE ELLIOTT: No, I don’t necessarily think anybody has to necessarily take on that role. Nobody walks around the shop with a sticker that says you’re the face of Hendrick. I don’t really know why it needs to be talked about or whatever. I don’t think it matters.
Q. Do you feel you’ll be more vocal after Jimmie leaves?
CHASE ELLIOTT: I don’t, no. I’m going to keep doing my thing. I’m just going to be me. I’m not the loud guy in the room. I’m not going to be the one that’s super talkative, this or that. I’m going to go about my business the way I like to go about it. Hopefully that’s good enough.
Q. (Question about Jimmie.)
CHASE ELLIOTT: I haven’t yet. I don’t know. It’s not really a conversation you have a whole lot with other drivers or friends much. It hasn’t happened to this point, so I don’t know.
Q. How big of a year is this for you?
CHASE ELLIOTT: Yeah, I look forward to the year. I look forward to getting started. I think we have a good opportunity as a team. I think our group is really talented. I think Alan is one of the best in the garage. I really feel like when you have a good group, you have a good pit crew, I feel like I can do a good job. When you have all those things in your mind, those things don’t always last forever. I don’t know how long is your pit crew going to be super-fast before somebody else wants to pay them more money to come pit their car. How long is Alan going to want to do it? He’s been here almost 20 years. You just don’t know. Nothing’s forever. I think we have a great opportunity right now. We need to make the most of it.
Q. If it were up to you, what’s the one thing you would change about the schedule?
CHASE ELLIOTT: Go to some different places. I think we need to visit different towns, different cities. There’s some great racetracks around the country that are already there established that we don’t go to. I think we should look at that.
Q. Your dad won this race 35 years ago, his first 500. Do you come in here with any different strategy this year or being in the right place at the right time?
CHASE ELLIOTT: Yeah, it’s tough. I really don’t know what the right thing to do is here. I wish I did, but I don’t. It’s been a hard thing because you see guys be really aggressive win. I’ve seen guys be really conservative win. There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of consistency as to who that is and when it is. I don’t know. Kind of play it by ear on Sunday.
Q. (No microphone.)
CHASE ELLIOTT: No, I mean, look, somebody’s always going to be mad, right? Might be me on Sunday. It’s good, though. I’m glad people like to talk and run their mouths on stuff because it gets y’all talking about it, gets people fired up on social media. All that’s good. It’s good for all of us. I think we should all be thankful that people like to talk and get mad, get upset. I think it’s good. You guys should keep promoting that. It’s a good thing.
Q. Your dad has the record for speedways. Do you ever talk about that?
CHASE ELLIOTT: We haven’t had one conversation about how many he’s got, this or that. We both recognize kind of what comes along with that. The people are what allows that to be, right? It’s more than a trophy. It’s more than an award or how many times you got it. I get that now. I think he does, too.
Q. (Question about helicopter.)
CHASE ELLIOTT: I don’t have one, for the record. I do have my rating, but I don’t have one. Haven’t done a lot of flying. Try to stay current, that’s about it.
Q. As someone who appreciates flying, how much do the fly-overs mean every week?
CHASE ELLIOTT: It is a cool thing, especially down here. The fly-over is really neat. I think the Thunderbirds do it down here. I always enjoy seeing that. I’ve even enjoyed, too, not always the military that do it, oftentimes we overlook that, but there are some different flying communities and local folks that do the fly-over some weeks. I think that’s pretty cool, too.
Q. Next year’s Daytona 500 is going to be the 14th. Super Bowl is February 7th. Typically, the Clash is the Sunday before. Would there be a concern of running the Clash and qualifying during the day of the Super Bowl?
CHASE ELLIOTT: So, the Clash?
Q. They haven’t announced the Clash yet. If the schedule were to stay the same, it would be the same day as the Super Bowl. Would that be a concern of running that event and qualifying during the day when the Super Bowl is that evening?
CHASE ELLIOTT: Yeah, for sure. I think you could expect not many people to be tuned in.
Q. What is the story behind you and William in 2015 when he said he didn’t know how to shift, cost you a race back in the day.
CHASE ELLIOTT: Yeah, we were racing down in South Alabama. He had just started racing late models at the time. I was running some late models here and there. It was a late model race there. It was a restart, I don’t know, probably halfway, three quarters the way through the race. I don’t think he had ever driven a straight shift before he got off iRacing to get in the real racecar. To his defense, he hadn’t done it much. It’s pretty wild really how fast he’s progressed, some of the things like that, for instance, that he didn’t have a lot of experience with. He missed a shift, I drove in the back of him and crashed basically.
Q. Do you ever think about it?
CHASE ELLIOTT: No. It happens. I get it. Like I said, in his defense, heck, he’d never done it much. I don’t know how old he was then. How old is he now?
Q. 12. No, he’s 22.
CHASE ELLIOTT: He was probably, what, 18 or so then. He hadn’t driven a car with a straight shift, with a clutch, even on the street much I don’t think. That was kind of the story I got. Somebody said after that they wanted to buy him like an old truck or something that was a five speed so he could practice on the road, just joking with him. No, it happens. It is cool, though. It’s amazing that you can learn that fast and do as well as he has.
Q. What was the relationship like between you and him growing up?
CHASE ELLIOTT: With William?
Q. With your dad.
CHASE ELLIOTT: With my dad? Obviously, I watched him race a lot as a young kid. As time went on, I feel like he’s watched me race a lot ever since. Our relationship has grown over the years. Really, I think it’s more of a father-son thing more than it is mentor-driver thing. He’s always kind of let me do my thing. I’ve always appreciated that.
Q. Do you remember the first race you were racing and he was in the stands?
CHASE ELLIOTT: I mean, my first one. It was great. I mean, good, happy to have him around. That’s not something that anyone should ever take for granted, having your dad, mom, family with you supporting you in something you want to do. It’s special. Lucky to have him the whole way.
Q. During the FOX telecast Mike said there were a select few select that reminded him of Junior Johnson. One was you. Have you heard that before?
CHASE ELLIOTT: There’s only a select what?
Q. Mike said in the broadcast that you reminded him of Junior Johnson. What does that mean to you?
CHASE ELLIOTT: I always appreciate the kind words. I didn’t know Junior at all. I may have seen him here or there. I didn’t speak more than five words to him in my entire lifetime. I can’t say I knew him at all. Obviously, dad did with his involvement with him over the years. Yeah, I appreciate the kind words. Enjoy having Mike. He’s a good asset to the booth. Yeah, like I say, appreciate everything he has good to say about me.
Q. How do you spend your time down here?
CHASE ELLIOTT: Well, I mean, yesterday and Monday were kind of our two days we didn’t have much going on. I didn’t do much then. Yeah, we start getting busy today, stay busy the rest of the week till Sunday. You at least have one or two things to do every day. Good to have it spread out. The Duel being there spices up the week a little bit. I’ve enjoyed watching the short-track racing. I’ll probably go over there and watch some more before it’s over.
Q. How do you feel the Chevrolets reacted in the draft? How was the ride compared to years past?
CHASE ELLIOTT: Similar, I would say. I think it’s really hard to judge our new car, our new body here. It’s just such a different animal. I think after we get back from the West Coast swing, we can take a step and say that we’re either better or we’re not. Hopefully it’s A and not B. But, yeah, we’ll go and we’ll run that West Coast swing, get out of here. This is its own week. These cars are different. They’re all speedway’d out, low drag, trying to go fast. When we get to Vegas, that’s intermediate. California is a big two-mile racetrack, which is different. We go to Phoenix, which is a smaller track. We have three opportunities to get three different report cards on how we did. I think that will be good for everybody.
Q. Are you excited to see how the car performs at Las Vegas?
CHASE ELLIOTT: I’m super excited, yeah. We had an opportunity to make something better. Chevrolet put a lot of effort into it. As a group, collectively, from the team side, I know HMS did. I’m excited to see where it is. It’s an exciting thing to be able to have an opportunity to make something better. This sport is always evolving. There’s always people out front, you’re trying to catch them. This is an opportunity for us to catch up, do better, improve. That’s all we want to do, is just improve from where we were.
Q. William and Alex talk about an influence Jeff Gordon plays behind the scenes at Hendrick. Have you experienced the same thing with Jeff?
CHASE ELLIOTT: Especially the way I came in, he was stepping out. He had a very large role in me getting started, the role that I was playing coming in. Yeah, absolutely. Jeff has been a good asset to Hendrick behind the scenes doing some new things, bringing some new life to some different areas, which I think has been good. Yeah, hopefully he’ll stick around and keep trying to help.
Q. Do you expect Jimmie to step into that role next year?
CHASE ELLIOTT: I think Jimmie is a little bit different guy. Everybody kind of has their own thing. I think Jimmie wants to go do some other racing, go try some different things. Hey, man, he deserves that. You have the kind of career he’s had here, you should be able to go drive whatever you want to drive whenever you want to drive it, in my opinion. I think he’ll exercise that and he should.
Q. (Question about adjusting cars after the Clash.)
CHASE ELLIOTT: I mean, you might make it drive better. We’re not going to change the noses and the tails of the car, right? Especially other manufacturers. I think Chevrolet to Chevrolet seems to go pretty good. Yeah, I mean, we can’t change those other guys. They can’t change our stuff either. We just need to make sure we make that to our advantage and not theirs.
Q. You have to play the numbers game?
CHASE ELLIOTT: Yeah, I mean, I’m sure that will be talked about at some point. It always is. It’s always tough, though. We’ve seen it these last few, probably the last four plate races, I feel like there’s been a lot of gamesmanship played from manufacturers, people trying to work together. It’s hard. I mean, it really is hard to get everybody on the same page and know when to draw that line and when to not. We’re learning as a group from the Chevy side. We’ll try to see what we can do to try to get somebody in Victory Lane on Sunday.
Q. Do you think he’s still the greatest?
CHASE ELLIOTT: Jimmie?
Q. Yes.
CHASE ELLIOTT: I would, for sure.
Q. Did you have that opinion before you were teammates?
CHASE ELLIOTT: I did, yeah. He went five in a row. Like the seven thing is great, that’s amazing. But five in a row? Y’all sit back and think about that. That’s about as many times as I’ve won a race, which isn’t saying much. Like, I think about all the great drivers who won one. That’s crazy. Probably won’t ever happen ever again, ever.
Q. What do you think is the biggest thing he’s done since you’ve come to Hendrick?
CHASE ELLIOTT: I think he just exemplifies how you should go about your life really on and off the racetrack. I think he’s a great person. He has his off-the-track life figured out. He treats people the way they deserve to be treated. He’s just a class guy. I think he leads by example. I’ve enjoyed having somebody like that to look up to.
Q. Why don’t you think he gets the respect?
CHASE ELLIOTT: I don’t know. I’ve often wondered that. I don’t understand why. I don’t know if it’s just an era thing. On the same token, he was around in the mid-2000s when some other guys were, too, that I feel like get a lot of that recognition and names that you know. I don’t know. I really don’t. I’ve often wondered that. I’ve never really understood. I do think it will be one of those things that once he’s gone people are going to be like, Whoa. Maybe it’s just because he’s such a nice guy, that he hasn’t changed at all. He’s had that same even keel that he had when he came in in 2000 or 2001. Never had the big personality I guess to go along with all the success, which I think is great. I think that’s how it should be or how you should be. But maybe that’s why. He’s just always kind of had that even keel about him. Yeah, I really think once he’s gone, I do think that will change a lot then. If it doesn’t by year end, I think it will when he leaves.
Q. (No microphone.)
CHASE ELLIOTT: For me the moment at Watkins Glen, him pushing me around the front stretch was really cool. That was about as cool as me winning the race. It was a big deal. Just the respect I have for him. I respect him a ton. I’ve looked up to him for a long time.
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