Bill Elliott to Make NASCAR Comeback at Road America

The 1988 NASCAR premier series champion and hall of famer will be a rookie when he takes on Road America later this month.
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Bill Elliott plans to come out of retirement to compete in the Johnsonville 180 NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, on August 25. He’ll drive the No. 23 GMS Racing Chevrolet. The race will be Elliott’s first in any of NASCAR’s national series since 2012.

“When this opportunity came up from Mike [Beam, GMS Racing President], I had to jump on it,” Elliott said. “Chase [Elliott] has ran a handful of races for the team so I figured I would give it a shot at Road America. Beam and I have worked together in the past so it will be exciting to get back behind the wheel and bring back some old memories.”

Elliott’s son Chase, a driver for Hendrick Motorsports in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series and the 2014 Xfinity [then-Nationwide] Series champion, has driven the No. 23 in four Xfinity Series races this year. He drove the car to a second-place finish at Pocono Raceway in June.

The elder Elliott, who is the 1988 NASCAR premier series champion, has 43-career Xfinity Series [then known as the Busch Series] starts on his racing resume, resulting in a win, eight top-fives and 16 top-10 finishes. But the Johnsonville 180 will be his first race at Road America, so he’ll be considered a rookie for the event.

“We are thrilled to welcome Bill to the GMS Racing family,” GMS Racing President Mike Beam said. “Bill has many years in NASCAR,  and it’s going to be great to watch him come back, especially in GMS equipment. Bill and I worked together back in the day and had a lot of success so hopefully we can pick up where we left off and create some more great memories.”

Elliott competed in 828 Cup Series races between 1976 and 2012, running full-time in the series from 1983 through 2003. During that time, he won 44 races, finished in the top-five 175 times, and posted 320 top-10 finishes. He was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2015.