Hey, anybody noticed that it's 2011 and Bill Elliott is still running in NASCAR? I know, we're as surprised as you are, but he's not only still around, he'll be running in at least 18 races this year.
After running a part-time schedule with Wood Brothers Racing for the past four years, but with Wood angling for Trevor Bayne, Elliott will jump to Phoenix Racing. He plans to race in the Daytona 500, though he'll have to qualify via means other than owner's points ... which is where a certain champion's provisional might come in very handy.
As we don't have any other new news to report, you'll pardon me if I steal a paragraph from myself. Much like certain baseball players and hair-metal music, Elliott gets dismissed or overlooked these days because he dominated in the cultural and sporting wasteland that was the 1980s. But try these stats on for size: From 1983 to 1995, he finished in the top 10 in 12 of 13 seasons, and in the 13th, he finished 11th. Included in that total were a championship, three second-place finishes and two third-place finishes. The dude could flat-out wheel.
He's also only a couple years older than Mark Martin, who's still running in state-of-the-art equipment. Would Elliott have remained relevant longer had he driven better cars? We'll never know, but based on his longevity, we can hazard a pretty good guess in the affirmative.
So, yeah, we'd say to catch Elliott when you can because he won't be around forever ... but it looks like he just might be.
Joe Nemechek Gator com Chevrolet Michael Annett Germain com Toyota
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