1,000 Greatest Drivers: Bill Elliott

His equipment advantage in the '80s and disadvantage in the '90s basically cancel each other out.

This took a long time to pare down because as usual I overwrote (this started at over 1,400 words) and I had to cut a lot of material to hit the high points. Elliott had so many high points that I ended up entirely cutting all mention of his 1987, which was possibly an oversight. I really wanted to find a way to mention the fact that Elliott had a 24 Hours of Daytona class win in 1987, which is not something I think a lot of people know, but there was no way I could really fit it in there without it being awkward, particularly since I decided to gloss over most of his years other than 1985, 1988, 1992, and 1997 and I had to cut a lot of the material I had written for all of those years as well. Nonetheless, I do think I included all the essential material here, even though I hated having to cut the line about Elliott winning all but one full-time season where he drove for someone else, which I think is one of the most notable aspects to his career.

As I admitted in the last paragraph, I do sometimes wonder whether Bill’s driving or his brother Ernie’s powerful engines played a bigger role in Elliott’s success in the ‘80s. For all the praise Elliott gets for his win in the 1985 spring race at Talladega, that car was so unbeatable I suspect a lot of people could have won in it and when you have that much of a horsepower advantage, it’s debatable how much skill is involved with that. Nonetheless, Bill did win without Ernie even if he was more awkward in a lot of those years and even though he was often awkward outside superspeedways. I guess I’m not going to say Bill was overrated, but I do think his ‘80s is somewhat overpraised while his ‘90s is a little underrated as it seemed to some extent he rose and fell with his cars more than a lot of other drivers, but I’m not going to deny his greatness and I still did rank him #2 for 1985. But I guess what I’m saying is it’s seriously time to talk about Ernie Elliott for the NASCAR Hall of Fame, and I never see him being mentioned even though he was both Bill’s crew chief and engine builder and probably as successful in those roles combined as Waddell Wilson was, and he’s already in.

It took me so long to edit this down that I ended up missing Elliott’s birthday by like a minute. Oh well.