By Andrew Clarke
Date posted: 3 September 2026
Chase Elliott enters NASCAR’s new-look Chase this weekend with a championship on his mind, but there is another prize at Darlington Raceway that carries a significance well beyond points.
He wants a Southern 500.
The Hendrick Motorsports driver has won a NASCAR Cup Series championship and more than 20 races, but victory in one of the sport’s great traditional events remains missing from his CV.
“I would just love to check that box,” Elliott said ahead of this weekend’s Chase opener.
“The Southern 500, Darlington as a racetrack and the challenge that that is, it just has a lot of my respect.
“I think that’s a really cool event and just one of those races that you want to check off, if you can. I would love to do that.”
The field gets away in the inaugural Southern 500 at Darlington in 1950. A remarkable 75 cars started NASCAR’s first 500-mile stock car race, beginning a tradition that would grow into one of the sport’s great crown-jewel events. Image: GettyImages
Why the Southern 500 matters
There are NASCAR races, and then there are races which define careers.
The Southern 500 belongs firmly in the second group.
First held in 1950, the race helped establish Darlington Raceway as one of the foundations on which modern NASCAR was built.
Darlington was NASCAR’s first major paved superspeedway and the inaugural Southern 500 became the sport’s first 500-mile stock car race.
It quickly developed into one of the races every driver wanted on their record.
The Daytona 500 became NASCAR’s biggest event, while Charlotte’s Coca-Cola 600 developed its own reputation as a brutal endurance test, but the Southern 500 earned its place alongside them as one of NASCAR’s traditional crown jewels.
Its significance comes not simply from age, but from where it is held.
Darlington was selling the scale of its new event from the beginning, with this promotional car advertising the Labor Day 500-mile race at Darlington International Raceway. The inaugural Southern 500 in 1950 helped establish the circuit and the race as pillars of NASCAR history. Image: GettyImages
The track too tough to tame
Darlington Raceway is unlike almost anything else on the NASCAR calendar.
The 1.366-mile oval is famously asymmetrical, with its two sets of corners carrying different shapes and radii.
That forces teams into a compromise because a car which works perfectly through Turns 1 and 2 may not behave the same way through Turns 3 and 4.
The abrasive surface adds another complication.
Tyre wear is significant, the quickest racing line migrates towards the outside wall and drivers routinely run within centimetres of the barrier searching for speed.
Get it slightly wrong and the right-hand side of the car receives one of NASCAR’s most famous badges of honour: the “Darlington stripe”.
It is why the circuit’s nickname, “The Track Too Tough To Tame”, has survived generations of cars and drivers.
A Southern 500 victory therefore carries an extra dimension.
It is not simply about surviving 500 miles. Drivers must manage tyres, changing track conditions, traffic and one of NASCAR’s most unforgiving racing lines for almost four hours.
Bill Elliott celebrates his 1985 Southern 500 victory at Darlington with the $1 million Winston Million cheque. The win completed victories in three of NASCAR’s four nominated crown-jewel races that season and earned ‘Awesome Bill’ a new nickname: Million Dollar Bill. Image: GettyImages
A special Elliott connection
There is also considerable family history attached to the race for Elliott.
His father Bill Elliott won the Southern 500 three times, including one of the most famous victories of his career in 1985.
Elliott arrived at Darlington that year having already won the Daytona 500 and the Talladega 500, giving him the opportunity to claim NASCAR’s Winston Million.
The bonus offered $1 million to any driver who could win three of four nominated major events during the season.
Elliott delivered at Darlington, defeating Cale Yarborough and Dale Earnhardt to win the Southern 500 and collect the enormous bonus.
“Awesome Bill from Dawsonville” had another nickname by the end of the afternoon: “Million Dollar Bill”.
More than four decades later, Chase Elliott would dearly like to add his own name to the Southern 500 winners list.
Championship Chase starts at Darlington
There is considerably more at stake this weekend than family history.
The Southern 500 opens NASCAR’s 10-race Chase, adding championship pressure to an event which hardly needs help creating drama.
Elliott believes getting away strongly will be important, even though one poor race does not necessarily destroy a championship campaign.
“If you have a slip-up this weekend, you better be able to win,” he said.
“You better have the ability to win and do it often to climb out of a bad race or two.”
Elliott has also admitted Hendrick Motorsports has endured an inconsistent spell after showing considerable speed earlier in the season.
He believes the gap between struggling and running at the front can be much smaller than results sometimes suggest.
“You’re never as far off as you probably think you are,” Elliott said.
“We had a great start, I thought, to the season. We had a lot of performance in the opening month, month-and-a-half.
“We kind of had a summer stretch that we didn’t want to have to see. But we did, and we’ve seen both sides of the coin.”
Darlington would be quite a place to rediscover that early-season form.
Winning the Southern 500 would give Elliott an ideal start to his championship campaign.
More importantly, it would give him something that will still matter long after the points have been forgotten.
A victory in one of NASCAR’s true crown jewels.
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