Still Mr. Popular, Elliott Is Enjoying Driving Resurgence

Bill Elliott has not won a Winston Cup race since 1994, yet he is consistently voted NASCAR’s most popular driver. Last year was his ninth in succession and 14th overall, even though Awesome Bill from Dawsonville finished 21st in Winston Cup points.

“When things aren’t going right, it’s the fans who give you that extra shot of adrenaline,” Elliott said in accepting his award.

Of the 1999 season, he said, “If it wasn’t for bad luck, we’d have no luck at all.”

Besides his dismal season, in which his highest finish was fifth, Elliott’s sponsor, McDonald’s, announced that it would be dropping him in 2001 to back Cal Wells’ second NASCAR team with rookie Anthony Lazzaro.

Perhaps with all that in mind, the shy redhead from Dawsonville, Ga., came out fighting this year. He won one of the 125-mile qualifying races in his Ford Taurus at Daytona, preventing Dale Earnhardt from winning his 11th in a row, then finished a close third in the Daytona 500, his best there since he was third in 1990.

“Last year was a bit of a struggle just going to the races,” Elliott said. “We weren’t really running well and things weren’t going in a very good direction. I feel, right now, things have done a total 180. I’m enjoying going to the races again, I’m enjoying where I’m at.”

Elliott, 44, will be at Las Vegas Motor Speedway this weekend for the CarsDirect.com 400.

“If ever a year counted, this year needs to count,” he said. “Things happen for a reason and I don’t know that [losing his sponsor] was a wake-up call. Nobody needs to tell me that I need to run better when I’m running bad. But I do feel like for us to continue on, we need to make this year count.”

Elliott said his second priority--after running well on the track--is to find a sponsor for next year.

“With as good as the team’s performance is right now, I don’t see a problem in getting a real good deal down the road,” he said.

Elliott and other Ford drivers, such as Daytona 500 winner Dale Jarrett, Mark Martin, Jeff Burton and Rusty Wallace, will have an extra incentive in Sunday’s 400-mile race. If a Ford wins, it will be the manufacturer’s 500th Winston Cup victory, a record.

“Ford has been great for my career and it would mean a lot to be the guy who won the 500th race, especially as successful as my career has been throughout the last 15 to 25 years,” Elliott said.

Elliott, with 40 victories, is second on Ford’s roster of 499 winners. Ned Jarrett, now a TV commentator and the father of Dale, is the all-time leader with 42. Winston Cup champion Dale has 20.

“We’ll do our best [to catch Ned Jarrett] and take it one race at a time,” Elliott said. “I feel like we’ve got the car to do it this year. Ford has come out with this new 2000 Taurus and it’s been great, so we’ll keep digging away.”

Rumors that he might be lured to Ray Evernham’s Dodge program next year met with this comment: “I’m a Ford man. Ford’s been great to me throughout the years and my dad [George] would probably shoot me if I left.”

After 26 years driving race cars, first for his father and then for such high-profile owners as Harry Melling and Junior Johnson before becoming a driver-owner, Elliott has seen enough of sponsor shifting not to be bitter about losing McDonald’s, even to a newcomer.

“Obviously, [Wells has] done a good job of selling. If that’s where McDonald’s wants to go, that’s perfectly fine with me,” he said. “I’ve not performed well in my own eyes . . . and that’s pretty much McDonald’s prerogative.”

The seeds of Elliott’s popularity go back to his early days in Winston Cup in the early ‘80s when he was so shy he hated to even sign autographs and his country-boy look reminded NASCAR fans of Huck Finn.

“I’m sure I was totally amazed that somebody would want my autograph,” he said. “I grew up in a very small town and kind of lived a sheltered life. My dad ran a building-supply house and we worked very hard at that. I just wanted to race, that’s all I wanted to do. I didn’t know about all this other stuff that came with it. I had a real hard time in the mid-80s, trying to deal with that.”

That was when he won 11 superspeedway races and the first Winston Million--designated races at Daytona, Talladega and Darlington--in 1985. Even before that, however, Elliott was the people’s choice, winning his first most-popular-driver award in 1984.

Since then, only Darrell Waltrip, in 1989 and 1990, has broken Elliott’s spell over Winston Cup fans.

Popularity has come with a price, though, the price of attending to sponsors’ demands.

“To give you an example, when I started in Winston Cup racing, you could sponsor a car for a year for probably $100,000,” he said. “Back then, $100,000 was a lot of money but they didn’t expect a lot back from you. . . .

“Now, you’re talking about deals . . . anywhere from $5 million to $10 million a year. Well, sponsors expect everything for that kind of money. They deserve it to some extent, but the role of where it used to be to where it is today [has changed]. Now you do television commercials and so much around your sponsorship, where back then you did very little.

“They came in, paid you some money and you put the name on the side of the car and they pretty much left you alone. You went out and did your thing. Today, there is so much marketing and involvement and participation from the team, the driver and the fans. It’s pretty incredible where the marketing side has gone today.”

As a top-five Daytona 500 finisher, Elliott is eligible for another $1-million bonus in the No Bull 5 program Sunday. He has to win the race to collect, but this is the first time Elliott has been eligible for the new style payoff. Others in the hunt are Dale Jarrett, Burton, Wallace and Martin.

SPEEDWAY CYCLES

Speedway motorcycle racing, a weekly staple at the Orange County Fairgrounds in Costa Mesa for 31 years, will open its final season of competition April 8 with the annual Spring Classic. The regular weekly schedule will start April 29 and conclude Oct. 14 with the U.S. Nationals.

Escalating costs have caused the Oxley family to make 2000 their last season as promoters of racing at the legendary track where future world champions Bruce Penhall, Sam Ermolenko, Billy Hamill and Greg Hancock got their starts.

SOUTHLAND SCENE

Ventura Raceway will open its season Saturday night with a variety of races, including VRA sprint cars, street and pony stock cars and I-4 modifieds. . . . After hosting the World of Outlaws winged sprint cars last week, Perris Auto Speedway will showcase the non-winged Sprint Car Racing Assn. Saturday night. Danny Lasoski passed Craig Dollansky in mid-race to win a follow-the-leader Outlaws main event after Joey Saldana had set a qualifying record of 14.07 seconds. The SCRA track record is 16.4 by J.J. Yeley.

UNLIMITED HYDROPLANES

World champion Dave Villwock has survived flipping his unlimited hydroplane at 200 mph. After an accident in 1997, he needed reconstructive surgery on his mangled right hand.

The driver of Miss Budweiser is laid up again, but not because of racing. He was injured when his 10-foot wingspan, 10-horsepower model airplane attacked him.

While Villwock was test firing the engine in his backyard, the restraint system failed. Defending himself from the giant model with his left forearm, he broke a small bone in his arm and hurt his left middle fingertip.

“It was a little like trying to stop your lawn mower with your bare hands,” he said, adding that he expected to be healed before testing time for the 2000 season. The first race is May 19-21 at Lake Havasu City, Ariz.

LAST LAPS

Hank Parker Jr. had the top qualifying speed of 166.328 mph at Las Vegas Motor Speedway for Saturday’s Sam’s Town 300 Grand National race. Parker bumped career series win leader Mark Martin from the pole position. . . . Davey Hamilton, the only driver to have competed in every Indy Racing League event, has signed with Team Xtreme Racing to drive a G Force this season. Rookie Airton Dare will be his teammate. Hamilton previously drove for Galles Racing. . . . Lee Baumgarten, former manager of Saugus Speedway, has been named director of track and event operations at Phoenix International Raceway.

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This Week’s Races

NASCAR, CarsDirect.com 400

* When: Today, first-round qualifying (ESPN2, 2 p.m.); Saturday, second-round qualifying, 11:30 a.m. (ESPN2, 7:30 p.m., tape); Sunday, race (Channel 7, 11:30 a.m.)

* Where: Las Vegas Motor Speedway (tri-oval 1.5 miles, 12 degrees banking in turns), Las Vegas.

* Race distance: 400.5 miles, 267 laps.

* Last year: Jeff Burton outraced brother Ward to win, the first 1-2 finish by brothers since Terry Labonte beat Bobby in ’97 in Talladega, Ala.

* Last week: Bobby Labonte won Dura-Lube/Kmart 400 in Rockingham, N.C. Pontiacs and Chevrolets swept top four spots a week after Ford Tauruses caused uproar about supposed aerodynamic advantage by taking the first five spots in Daytona.

*

BUSCH GRAND NATIONAL, Sam’s Town 300

* When: Today, second-round qualifying, 1 p.m.; Saturday, race (ESPN2, 1 p.m.)

* Where: Las Vegas Motor Speedway (tri-oval 1.5 miles, 12 degrees banking in turns), Las Vegas.

* Race distance: 300 miles, 200 laps.

* Last year: Mark Martin won, setting a race record of 165.715 mph. Jeff Gordon, making his first Busch series start since 1992, finished fourth. Two of the three races in Las Vegas have been won by the pole sitter.

* Last week: Martin won the Alltel 200 in Rockingham, N.C. Martin, who won his series-record 41st race, led 152 of the 197 laps.

* Next race: Aaron’s 312, March 11, Hampton, Ga.