For the first time in his career, Bill Elliott will start the season as a Chevrolet driver. He has teamed up with James Finch's Phoenix Racing to run the #09 Chevrolet in a minimum of 18 races this season.
Announcement
Collapse
No announcement yet.
welcome aboard awesome bill
Collapse
X
-
Re: welcome aboard awesome bill
The new combo will start the season at Daytona, where Elliott has four Sprint Cup wins including two in the Daytona 500 and Finch has finishes of third, fourth, ninth, 10th and 12th. Phoenix Racing team also has a Cup victory at Daytona's sister track, Talladega Superspeedway, in 2009 with Brad Keselowski driving. "It's big for us and big for Chevrolet to get Bill Elliott," Finch said. "It's the first time in his career that he's committed to race a Chevrolet." Finch also said he was confident that even at age 55 Elliott, whose previous Cup wins have come in Fords and Dodges, can get the job done in his Chevrolets. "With the right equipment, he's ready," Finch said. "He was just a couple of hundredths of a second off the pole at Homestead last year." Nick Harrison will serve as crew chief on the #09 Impala, and the team will use engines from Hendrick Motorsports. Bill Elliott said he's excited to be moving to Phoenix Racing and to the Chevrolet camp.
"I think this will be a really good deal," he said. "James has really good race cars, and there's no doubt about the Hendrick equipment. After all, look at all the championships they've won." Elliott, who will climb in the #09 for the first time on Thursday {jan 20th] during testing at Daytona International Speedway, said he's pleased to have the opportunity to drive proven equipment at this stage of his career. He plans to make the most of it. "This may well be my last really good chance as a driver," he said. "I'm going to give it my best shot. I feel like I'm still in good shape, and I thought we ran pretty good last year." Finch said he hopes to run the full Sprint Cup schedule with the #09, and he plans to run a limited Nationwide Series schedule, focusing on the restrictor-plate tracks. "I'm going to concentrate on the Cup side," Finch said. "We'll see what we can do."
Comment
-
Re: welcome aboard awesome bill
Not to re-kindle the whole roundy-round versus straight line thng, I didn't watch a single lap of NASCAR last year. Who won the championship? Don't tell me it was Robot again, I hope not.
But until two years ago, I was a rabid NASCAR fan. On the eve of the Daytona race last year, I was ready to watch it all again, every lap, but I sort of changed my mind. It's all so commercial.
And when I was a fan in the later years, I didn't have a favorite at all. If Jeff Gordon didn't win, it was a good day watching he race on TV for me.
But Awesome Bill, he's the real deal. He seems to be a great guy, and from the real South as well. When he won the Winston Million, he ran that race with the "9" on his car inverted, flipped over, like a lower case "e." The talkers on TV at the speedway didn't notice until I called them on the phone, and then they made note of it, briefly. Bill did that because his grandmother had a dream that he won the million and the number on the roof of his car was backward.
I wrote a newspaper column about it, and sent a copy of it to Bill's camp in Dawsonville. So cool..I got a package back from them and it contained some Bill stickers and a one-line note- "That's the way the stencil came in."
I think he's too old to do well anymore, but good for him. Even when he was doing so well, he didn't seem to have a balance, the way the season is laid out. Bill likes to go fast. Real fast. The short tracks kept him from racking up points in the long run.Charter member of the Turd Nuggets
Comment
-
Re: welcome aboard awesome bill
Originally posted by nesaboI think Bill is on a recon mission for the wood brothers. :D
I might could pull out that article about Bill and the Winston Million on a dare.Charter member of the Turd Nuggets
Comment
Comment