Bill Elliott

Bill Elliot was born on October 8^th 1955, and grew up near Dawsonville Georgia where he was born. Bill is the youngest of three boys, and his father George just loved racing. Many generations of the Elliot’s grew up in the same area as he did right near Dawson. He has two children a son chase and a daughter Starr, Chase is currently into NASCAR as well. Elliot is known as Million Dollar bill, and is currently as part-time NASCAR driver for Wood Brothers Racing in the Sprint Cup Series. He holds a title in Talledega and Daytona International Speedway for the track record with speeds over 200mph. Both of these races he drove a Ford Thunderbird which contained an engine that was built by his brother Ernie. Since they have changed and mandated the use of restrictor plates, no one will likely ever beat his record. Also Bill holds the record for NASCAR’s Most Popular Driver Award which he won sixteen times. In 2002 he withdrew his name from the ballot, so he could not win this award anymore. However when he does decide to retire from this sport NASCAR is going to rename this award in honor of him. In 1976 he had his first race in the Winston cup series and he continued to race for the next five years with no corporate sponsors. However he showed that he could compete with some of the veterans in this sport, and ended up having his first top 10 finish in the Southern 500. Not only two years later he had his first top 5 finish, following second to race winner David Pearson. In 1980 in the National 500 at Charlotte he had his first sponsor from Harry Melling of Melling Racing. Then in 1983 in the final race of the season in the Winston Western 500 at Riverside, Elliot won his first Winston Cup. The next year Coors sponsored Bill and he won 3 races, 4 poles and even finished third in the championship. In 1985 Bill was the first NASCAR driver to be featured on the cover of sports illustrated, in honor of him winning the Winston Million. In 1989 following his championship season, he was in a crash during testing at Daytona where he broke his wrist, and had Jody Ridley fill in for him in several races. In 1991 his car replaced with blue from red, due to Elliot’s sponsorship changing to Coors Light! However the next following seasons got a little bumpy, where in 1993 he even had a winless season. In 1994 he only had one win which was at the Southern 500, and still finished 10^th in the standings. Elliot ended up announcing he was forming his own team with sponsorship from McDonald’s in 1995. From 1995-2000 he did not win any races, though he did get 2 top 10 finishes in the championship standings. Also during this time he was suffering from a broken leg which caused him not to compete in 7 different races! Then he took off in 2001 winning at Homestead in the Pennzoil Freedom 400 race, this was his first win in 7 years. Then he finished 13^th in the final standings, and had his last win in 2003 when he decided not to race full time anymore. He did announce later that year that he would be switching to part time driving the #9 car for Evernham. During his first part-time season he did manage to have some success, even placing at Indianapolis placing second and third place on two different events. In 2008 Elliot announced that he will be racing his final season as a Sprint Cup driver, however days later at an interview Bill said we will be at Lowes and do just a few more races. Bill finished 15^th place at Lowes Motor Speedway in the Daytona 500, which was his best finish in 2009. Then later that season he became the 7^th member of the 800 club with his 800^th career Sprint Cup start at Lowes Motor Speedway!