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Why "Awesome Bill" ?
Bill has been my favorite driver since the mid-1980's, when he roared onto the Cup scene with the Melling Racing # 9 Ford Thunderbird. He had been racing since the late 1970's in a variety of Elliott family-owned Ford's, at various tracks with verying degrees of success, before businessman Harry Melling bought the team and put a considerable amount of money into equipment and cars.
In 1985 the Melling Coor's # 9 Ford Thunderbird with Elliott at the wheel won the bonus money award known as "The Winston Million". This million dollar bonus had been put up by R J Reynolds as an incentive and payoff to any driver who could win 3 of the 4 major stock car races in a single season of racing. It had gone unclaimed for a number of years until "Awesome Bill" came racing. The Winston Million was won only one other time before the bonus format was changed to the "No Bull Five", and that was in 1996 by Jeff Gordon, 11 years after Bill Elliott won the first million.
In 1988, Bill Elliott and the Melling Racing # 9 Ford Thunderbird made history one more time, when at the end of a long, hard-fought racing season he won the 1988 Winston Cup Series Championship, narrowly beating out Rusty Wallace, by 24-points.
In 1991, Bill left Melling Racing and drove the Junior Johnson Budweiser # 11 Ford Thunderbird. In 1992 he had to settle for a runner-up season points finish to Alan Kulwicki in the Hooter's # 7 Ford, when Bill won the season finale race in Atlanta, but Alan led the most laps. The points difference between the Championship and second-place was a mere 10-points, the closest points battle in NASCAR history!
In 1995 Bill left Junior Johnson Racing to form his own team with Georgia businessman Charles Hardy. The primary sponsor for this team of # 94 Ford Thunderbirds, and later, Ford Taurus' was McDonald's, the fast-food restaurant giant.
By midseason 1996 Bill bought out his partner Hardy, and settled into being an owner/racer for Bill Elliott Racing. He had a number of up and down seasons, until finally in 2000, his primary sponsor, McDonald's, announced they would take their sponsorship money elsewhere, and not renew with Bill Elliott Racing for the 2001 NASCAR season.
By midseason 2000, after a fast start of racing which included a 3rd place finish in the Daytona 500, and a 3rd place finish in the Brickyard 400, and unfortunately, some not so good finishes, including a few unavoidable DNF's and 2 missed races due to personal injuries, Bill made THE announcement.
At the start of the 2001 season he would be at the wheel of a Dodge Intrepid R/T for the team owned by Ray Evernham, as their number 1 driver.
The good news was that Bill would still be on the track as a NASCAR pilot, where he belonged, in a car with the familiar No. 9, that he had taken to so many victory lane celebrations, earlier in his career.
Despite the announcement that Bill would leave behind his 20 - plus year relationship with Ford Motor Company and Ford Racing, he still won a "Ford Spirit" Award in 2000, and more importantly, he won the award as "Most Popular Driver" as voted on by race fans, for the 15th season. He won this award in spite of the announced changes, his 21st place in the points standings, and his plans to drive for Dodge, not Ford. This justifies the award as being for driver recognition, not make and model of the race car driven by the driver.