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LONG POND, PA – JUNE 01: Chase Elliott, driver of the #9 NAPA Auto Parts Chevrolet, and Jimmie Johnson, driver of the #48 Lowe’s for Pros Chevrolet, talk in the garage during practice for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Pocono 400 at Pocono Raceway in Long Pond, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images)
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LONG POND, PA – JUNE 01: Chase Elliott, driver of the #9 NAPA Auto Parts Chevrolet, and Jimmie Johnson, driver of the #48 Lowe’s for Pros Chevrolet, talk in the garage during practice for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Pocono 400 at Pocono Raceway in Long Pond, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images)
Chase Elliott has time and again expressed his learnings through the years of watching and communicating with NASCAR legend Jimmie Johnson. Now, just like Johnson, Elliott can proudly call himself a Cup Series champion.
But being a champion also carries a much higher amount of expectation and pressure to continually stay at the top. That is another major learning for Elliott from watching Jimmie Johnson. He realized the same when he saw Johnson get a lot of disrespect at times despite all his achievements.
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“I think about all the disrespect that Jimmie Johnson got towards the end of his career. It’s like everybody just forgot how great he is. Just because he might have had a bad race or a bad stretch of races,” Elliott said during a recent media interaction.
This showed Elliott that no matter the achievements, it takes just a bad run of form for people to ridicule a driver.
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BRISTOL, TN – APRIL 06: Jimmie Johnson, driver of the #48 Ally Chevrolet, prepares to drive during practice for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway in Bristol, Tennessee. (Photo by Donald Page/Getty Images)
Chase Elliott details a big takeaway from seeing Jimmie Johnson in NASCAR
“The lesson that taught me, no matter what you do, if you have a bad stretch or don’t do well, they’re gonna come after you about whatever you’ve done recently,” he added.
The newest NASCAR champion feels there is a flip side to that too. After being “trashed” for a long time, all it takes is a good stretch of races for all the praise and hype to return.
“On the flip side of that, if you have a good run, after being trashed for a year or something, everybody is gonna be hyping you up. Excited for you and gonna jump on the bandwagon,” the 25-year-old added further.
Legends. Make that 13 Cup championships for @TeamHendrick and Mr. H. pic.twitter.com/gI1gRDZL6x
— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) November 8, 2020
“It’s all about performance”
The star driver returns to NASCAR for his title defense. Now, Elliott perfectly understands that the praise and positive talk will continue only with consistency on the race track.
“It’s all about performance and whatever you’ve done lately. We want to push and continue to do good for ourselves. Push our team internally. And ultimately that’s all that matters to me and our entire group,” he expressed.
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FORT WORTH, TEXAS – OCTOBER 28: Chase Elliott, driver of the #9 Hooters Give a Hoot Chevrolet, enters his car to start the NASCAR Cup Series Autotrader EchoPark Automotive 500 at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, Texas. (Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images)
Jimmie Johnson‘s presence at Hendrick Motorsports helped Chase Elliott a lot since his entry into the Cup scene. Despite Johnson’s absence from NASCAR this season onwards, Elliott knows that he can always rely on the seven-time champion for more such valuable inputs.
READ MORE – REVEALED! Chase Elliott’s Classy New Helmets for the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series Season
