A Profile of Bill Elliott, Part Two

In October, 2011, Speed TV has been broadcasting "The Day: The 1992 Hooters 500." The documentary covers in detail the events and personalities involved in what history has recorded as aguably the greatest race ever in NASCAR's top series.

Of course, one of the largest roles on that dramatic day was played by Bill Elliott in Junior Johnson's red Budweiser Ford, as his bid for the season-long championship fell just short despite winning the race. Although Elliott saw that championship slip away on the banks of his home racetrack in Atlanta, many fans and media members thought the momentum of the Johnson-Elliott alliance was just getting started, and that championships down the line were waiting to be claimed. It was not to be.

Here is the conclusion of a conversation with Bill Elliott...

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Many people were looking for one big reason why Elliott's performance in Junior's cars dropped off, but Elliott feels there were a number of contributing factors that combined to create the slump.

"There were several reasons," Bill explains. "NASCAR had changed when Gary Nelson came in. In the latter part of '92 we were constantly changing body parts and pieces and doing this and doing that. Then Mike came in. At the time that I had been in Dawsonville, I had driven a Banjo Matthews front steer car and Mike had worked on it. Since then Mike had worked on different stuff, and it all has a different feel. You're trying to get the feel you want out of a particular car, and that makes all of the difference in the world.

"That's why people on the outside looking in at this sport need to try to understand that it's hard enough to maintain a competitive deal, but if crew people change, if certain things change, it's hard to maintain a perfect consistency every week," Elliott sums up.

The news that Bill Elliott would leave the Melling team to drive for the legendary Junior Johnson was easily one of the year's biggest stories in 1992.

With the subtleties of stock car handling plaguing the team, the Goodyear-Hoosier tire competition during the 1994 season was just another headache -- one that Elliott feels brought additional risk to Winston Cup racing.

"Racing is a dangerous sport regardless, but the better they get the tires the faster you run the corners and the margin of risk continues to escalate," Bill states. "You've got to give up that margin of safety from the standpoint of how much faster you're running. You're pushing everything to the limit."

Regardless of the higher speeds in the wake of the "tire war," 1994 was a season when Elliott was once again a familiar sight running at the front of the pack. Numerous strong showings finally paid off with a return to victory lane as Bill Elliott ended a 52 race losing streak by winning the Labor Day classic at Darlington.

"If you can be competitive in each and every race, be able to stay on the lead lap and stay running competitively, I feel like I've had a good day no matter where I finish," Elliott notes. "Just like when we won at Darlington -- that's the fifth time I've had a victory there. We led some, and we weren't the best car and we weren't the worst car -- but we were right in there among the best cars. You put yourself in a position to win when you do that.

"Mike and I working together," is another reason Bill cites for the renewed success. "Everybody's working together like a team. I think that's what it takes. We came back this year. I was a little disappointed in the first part of the year, but we're really running strong in the second half. This really is a great bunch of guys, and they've worked hard. We've had our ups and downs but it's all come together."

Though everyone's all smiles in the promotional materials, the alliance of car owner Johnson and driver Elliott was a troubled one.

But not for long -- the troubled pairing of Junior Johnson and Bill Elliott came to a close with the end of the 1994 season. And for Bill Elliott, 1995 will mark a return home to Dawsonville with a new race team owned by Elliott and Georgia automobile dealer Charles Hardy. Bill will still drive a red Ford Thunderbird, but the number will be 94 and his sponsorship will go from beer to burgers as McDonald's comes aboard. How did the new Dawsonville deal come about?

"Well, we'd been in the planning stages for a while," Elliott begins. "I was weighing out my options as far as where to go. Junior never really asked me to stay, and had never talked to me about staying. So I knew that was one option that was out. I had several other options to go other places, but I thought 'well, why should I do that? Dawsonville is what got me to where I'm at today.'"

Brothers (left to right) Dan, Bill, and Ernie Elliott enjoy the first flush of Winston Cup success with father George (far right).

Joining Bill in the new venture are his brothers Dan and Ernie, giving the team a makeup that calls to mind the 1980's glory days. But family loyalty isn't the only thing Bill Elliott has going for him in 1995.

"Some of the guys who didn't want to stay with Melling when I left came with me onto my Busch Grand National team," Bill notes. "They stayed together and continued to work together, and I think there's a lot of merit in that. You have to understand that this is not a new team -- a majority of the people that work there have been on other teams. They understand it and I think it is a realistic goal to go for a championship."

The new Dawsonville team made several starts in 1994, with drivers including Bobby Hillin and Kenny Wallace warming up the seat for Bill. Wallace drove the car to a strong ninth place finish in Talladega's DieHard 500. With performances like that already on the books, what will be the biggest challenge for the new team?

"Knocking all the rough edges off," Bill says. "Getting started and acclimated and running all of the races and just getting the basics like the car setups. Most everywhere you go, the first time around I feel will be a testing ground, but by the mid-point of the season we ought to be able to get a direction and then be able to go do what we need to do from that point on."

One thing that won't change with the new team is Bill Elliott's status as one of Winston Cup racing's most important figures. With everything from high prices for autographs to strikes marring the images of other professional sports, Winston Cup drivers face enormous pressure to maintain a near-perfect image.

"This sport has gotten so popular that regardless of where you go you get bombarded. It used to be that you could get away from it to some extent," Bill recalls, "but now it's grown so popular that no matter where I go or what I do I'm constantly under a magnifying glass. And that's the problem -- if I have a bad day or I'm not feeling good or whatever, the fans get mad at me. You try to accommodate people, you try to do a lot of things, but there are certain times when you just can't do it. The more popular this sport gets, the harder it is to leave yourself accessible to everyone. When people come up and you're in the middle of your last practice and you're changing springs and changing shocks and trying to get everything worked out, I can't deal with people coming up to me and asking for things. If you get me out away from the racetrack where I can take care of the people, then I think I do an extraordinarily good job.

"People don't understand that I've never liked to be in front of a group of people," Elliott continues. "I'm a shy type of person by nature, I grew up in a small town, and if I had to stand up in front of a class of three or more people in high school, I couldn't do it -- I could not do it. And I've been forced into a situation where because all I ever wanted to do was drive a race car, now it comes to the point that here you are -- now you're a role model for a lot of different people, which I never wanted to be. All I ever wanted to do was drive a race car."

The demands on Elliott's time have grown as Winston Cup racing's popularity has grown, but the drivers aren't the only ones whose jobs have become more stressful with the addition of more races and more fans.

"The crew guys are under so much pressure," Elliott notes. "28 to 30 races is enough because I'll tell you what, these guys are away from their families so much. I've been fortunate enough to be able to kind of have my family with me a lot of times, but still it gets so hard on everybody. There is so much pressure."

But for the teams that can deal with and overcome that pressure, the rewards in NASCAR Winston Cup racing can be great. With a strong, new team in a growing sport Elliott seems ready to spring from Dawsonville with a renewed vigor. If everything goes especially well in the new season, would winning a million dollar bonus mean as much now as it did in 1985?

"Well," Bill Elliott laughs, "a million dollars in '85 goes a lot farther than a million dollars in '95!"

So what do you think? Are there characteristics that today's most popular driver, Dale Earnhardt Jr, shares with Bill Elliott? If both were at the peak of their careers at the same time, who would win the hearts of the fans? Your comments, please...