a part-time schedule because of his age, his next race in a truck will be this Saturday at Rockingham, ironically where his legendary dad got his start in NASCAR, back in 1976.
At the time for a young Bill Elliott, it was a big move to be stepping out of local cadet and sportsman cars, into a Winston Cup race car. Bill had started racing cars, on a track at least, in 1972, not long after his 16th birthday. He ran his first race at the Middle Georgia Raceway, where he done alright, but not great, he was too inexperienced and went straight to the back to not hold back any of the faster cars. Just two years later Bill got his first auto win of any kind at Dixie Speedway, in Woodstock, Georgia. Although Dixie is known for being one of the best dirt tracks in the south, when Bill won there, it was known to be one of the finest 3/8 mile paved tracks in the south. Bill's father, George who was a businessman of all sorts owned and maintained racecars for several of North Georgia's leading drivers, including Jody and Biddle Ridley, Dan Lingerfelt, and Cabbage Pendley. When Bill started to claim wins at Dixie, he was driving a bronze-colored 1964 Ford Fairlane that had a decal-ed number that came off of George's building supply shop.He told Bill when he won his first race, then he would paint it, just like Jody Ridley's #98 Falcon, a feared car on the North Georgia racing circuit. When the Ridley brothers drove for George Elliott, Biddle ran 9, while Jody ran 98. Not long after Elliott started racing, Biddle stepped down to become Jody's full-time mechanic and crew chief, so naturally, Bill Elliott grabbed at the chance to take 9. Bill's first win came on September 7th, 1974, by the time the season had ended, he had 11 winning trophies from Dixie Speedway. You have to think, the season usually ended in late October or early November.....so, between September and late October, Bill had to have been one of the most dominate cars out there. When the 75' season rolled around, he again dominated like before, and at this point, he was in the late model division, the highest you could go on the local tracks. It was decided that he needed to go a step farther - Winston Cup Racing.
George Elliott grabbed at the opportunity to purchase a used Ford Torino that was used on the Winston Cup circuit. It was a 1972 model car that had been owned by Bobby Allison and raced by Richie Panch. The last race for the car before the Elliott's got a hold of it was the 1974 Alabama 500. The car was located at Roger Penske's shop in Michigan, so to make the trip, Ernie Elliott, Bill and life-long friend, David Sosebee borrowed one of George's lumber trucks and traveled to the shop. The first they done when the three got back to GA was to take it to the family's Ford dealership - Dahlonega Ford. The Elliott boys had a small workshop behind the dealership where they would tinker with old cars. Since they had brand-new, factory parts from Ford, the first thing they done was to update the body panels to 1976. The 1972-76 models of the Ford Torino were mostly the same with subtle changes, but NASCAR would only allow a racecar to be at maximum two years old. With their small team budget, they certainly couldn't travel all the way to California for the season-opener at Riverside and they didn't attempt the Daytona 500 either. So, the family's first attempt at a NASCAR Winston Cup Series Race was at Rockingham Speedway, the third race of the season. Out of 36 entered cars, Bill started 34th. However, after 32 laps into the race, the oil pump failed and he had to retire, earning the 33rd place finish. Richard Petty would go on to win that race. Out of Elliott's 8 starts in his debut year, four of them were for his father, and the other were for Bill Champion and the #10, with a best finish of 14th at Nashville.
If you look how his son, Chase, was raised up in racing, it's certainly a whole lot different than what Bill went through. Regardless, Chase is the future, he is what some say, the next Jeff Gordon. After all, it is expected that Chase will take over Gordon's seat, whenever he retires. We soon shall see....
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