Chase Elliott on his 'Back to the Future' thoughts and why he prefers to stay private: 12 Questions

The winner at Martinsville last month, Chase Elliott is currently fifth in the NASCAR Cup Series standings. David Jensen / Getty Images Share full articleEach week, The Athletic asks the same 12 questions to a different race car driver. Up next: Hendrick Motorsports driver Chase Elliott, NASCAR’s eight-time Most Popular Driver Award winner, who recently won the Martinsville Speedway race. This interview has been edited and condensed, but the full version is available on the 12 Questions Podcast. 1. Do you typically arrive for things early, late or on time, and why? Generally, I’m on time. Totally depends on where it is, how far away it is, how many moving parts are involved, what the logistics are like. The more moving parts, the more chances there are for things to go wrong, so I’m probably going to give myself more time. I strive to be on time. How early I am definitely plays a role based on those things. 2. What is the pettiest thing that annoys you during a race weekend? When people walk up to get you to sign something and they stick their Sharpie in their mouth to open the cap, and then hand (the Sharpie) to you. I’m like “Ehhhhh…” That one always really … that’s a tough one. It happens a lot. And I’m like, “Man, I have a Sharpie,” but the color I have is not sufficient, so then we’re grabbing a (different) one. That one for sure is not ideal. 3. What is something you’ve learned to stop explaining to people? Probably most things, honestly. I’ve tried to do a better job over the years of listening. I can learn way more listening than I can interjecting my opinion that might not be even qualified to talk about whatever the subject might be. If it’s a close friend and they’re genuinely interested in something … I feel qualified to talk about, then sure, let’s get into the details. But for the most part, I think you’re better off listening. 4. If you could go back to the early days before you reached NASCAR, what is one different decision you wish you had made? For the most part, those early years were a lot of fun. Racing Late Models and the short track era from around 2009 to 2013-14 was really a lot of fun. When you look back, it was like, man, a lot of great lessons, I got to work with a lot of great people. Those years led to some opportunities down the line, so it’s hard to look back and say I’d change something. The hardest loss was having that Snowball Derby taken away (due to a 2013 disqualification) — that really sucked. I’d love to have that whole situation back; it could have very easily been avoided. Outside of that one, those were great years. And then really, the NASCAR thing started directly after that. 5. What is it like to be in a debrief after a bad race? It’s probably not what you think. It’s not fun, but it’s what makes Hendrick Motorsports really strong. We get a lot out of those “honesty hours.” If things are OK and going along, it might be tougher to really say, “We need to be better here and here.” But when you have a bad day, especially company-wide, all bets are off. Everyone is totally honest about every negative thing that was less than ideal. That truly makes us better. If I’m spelling out all the negatives and the other three guys are doing the same, we have a great opportunity to make the company better as a whole. It’s very honest. Some people in the room probably don’t want to hear some of the things we have to say, and sometimes, I don’t want to hear what I’m being told, either. But that’s OK, because ultimately it makes us stronger. 6. I’m asking each person two wild-card questions: One about the past and one about the present. In terms of the past, what era of NASCAR are you most curious about how the car would have felt to drive? I’ve always been intrigued by the late ’80s and early ’90s, seeing pictures of my dad’s cars. I see the pictures hanging on the wall, so that’s what I have pictured in my mind. One thing I’ve thought about is today you have all the technology and all the things we’ve learned. We went through the eras of coil binding and the skew stuff that was going on. You used to always hear guys talk about, “That car was the best car in the shop,” and it’s like, “Man, I wonder how many times those guys messed up, not knowing they were coil binding a left front spring or had a rear-end housing that was bent and had the tail over to the right” and they didn’t know any better — but that setup was it, right? There was such a large window where you could hit something like that and not know any different. So I think about that a lot: Using one of those tricks that we know today? Heck, you could have won every race there was between 1985 and 1990 if you knew. Like if you were in “Back to the Future” and you could just take one secret back to that time. Yeah, exactly. One secret would take you a long way through those eras, and there had to be times when guys were (accidentally) doing some of those tricks we learned down the road — and they just didn’t know it. 7. In terms of the present, how much of your personal memorabilia have you collected? Do you keep firesuits and helmets? I keep most of it, and I know where it is, but I don’t have it hung up somewhere special. I do like to keep helmets and have those on display. I also like to trade helmets around with other drivers. I like flags, especially checkered flags; a great representation of a win, obviously. Some of the other stuff, I know where it is, I just don’t have it out. 8. If you could get any driver’s helmet in the history of motorsports, whose would it be? The really cool thing is most of the answers I would give, I already have them. Like Kasey Kahne, Tony Stewart, Jimmie Johnson. One really cool one was Travis Pastrana. We traded helmets, and he gave me a moto helmet. That was cool for me because I grew up watching that whole action sports era. If my helmet collection ended right now, I’d be super happy with all of it. 9. When things aren’t going well, do you prefer people leave you alone or check in on you? It depends on the person. If it’s someone I’m going to be really close to after racing, then probably so. That’s someone I want to hear from regardless. If that’s not the case and we’re not on that type of level, then probably not; I’d like to be left alone. But that list is pretty small of who I’d want to hear from. You have that core group you want to hear from and talk to, regardless of what’s going on. 10. What is something about yourself that would surprise people who think they “know” you? Probably most things, honestly. I try to keep to myself. I don’t find it productive. People who do actually know me probably do know most everything about me; they know me pretty well. There’s all kinds of things I do that I never had any idea I did. Like, “Oh yeah, you went here and did this or that.” I’m like, “What? Where did you pull this from?” They’re like, “I heard it from so-and-so over at so-and-so’s place.” I’m like, “Oh OK, guess I went and did X, Y and Z the other day then and had no idea.” I hear about stuff like that a lot, which is kind of funny. 11. What is something you laugh about now that was absolutely not funny at the time? Going back to the Snowball Derby thing — I say “laugh” lightly. A little. It still hurts. The way that whole thing went down (with the wrong type of weight mistakenly placed into the car), I can find some humor in it now, how easily it could have been avoided. Looking back, it’s a good lesson in listening to your dad. Not so funny at the time, and I still wish I had that weekend back, but I can see the humor in how it all went down now. 12. Each week, I ask a driver to give me a question for the next interview. Last week was Daniel Suárez and he wants to know what kind of impact your dad and family had on your racing. What kind of advice and support did they give you, especially from when you first started racing? I would say 90-plus percent of everything I do comes from lessons, advice or examples I’ve learned from watching someone in my family, from being around the sport. I grew up around it, and this has been the central point of what everything has revolved around for as long as I can remember — what the schedule is and where we’re going this time of year. So more things than not, both on the track and away from the track, too. My dad was never pushy about this at all. No one in my family was in the slightest. But I’ve learned a ton from all of them, whether it be Dad or Uncle Ernie. This is what our life has been for as long as I can remember. Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Jeff Gluck has been traveling on the NASCAR beat since 2007, with stops along the way at USA Today, SB Nation, NASCAR Scene magazine and a Patreon-funded site, JeffGluck.com. He's been hosting tweetups at NASCAR tracks around the country since 2009 and was named to SI's Twitter 100 (the top 100 Twitter accounts in sports) for five straight years.