Chase Elliott and Hendrick Motorsports unveiled Wednesday morning the throwback paint scheme the No. 9 driver will run for the Goodyear 400 at Darlington Raceway on May 12 (3 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
The scheme is a nod to NASCAR Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s 2014 Daytona 500 victory, in which he led 54 laps en route to his second victory in the “Great American Race” at Daytona International Speedway.
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Chase Elliott’s No. 9 UniFirst Chevrolet Camaro highlights the iconic red, white and blue scheme fans saw leading the field and in Victory Lane four times throughout the 2014 season, with wins in Daytona’s season opener, once at Pocono Raceway and later Martinsville Speedway.
The 2020 NASCAR Cup Series champion’s relationship with Earnhardt traces back quite some time, and Elliott first truly broke onto the NASCAR scene as a future superstar behind the wheel of the JR Motorsports No. 9 Chevrolet. He took over that ride full-time in 2014 — the same year Earnhardt won the 500 in this paint scheme — claiming the Xfinity Series championship that season.
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Elliott heads to the “Track too Tough to Tame” hoping to capture his first victory at the South Carolina facility. Chase Elliott has 151 laps led, four top fives and seven top-10 finishes through 14 Cup starts at Darlington. The closest that the Dawsonville, Georgia native has come to winning at the “Lady in Black” came in 2023, when he finished third in the month of May.
DARLINGTON: See last year’s classic schemes | Iconic throwbacks over time