Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 29, 1990 TAG: 9004290111
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RANDY KING
DATELINE: MARTINSVILLE LENGTH: Medium
What's the matter, Bill? Got it straightened out yet, Bill? Going to win a race anytime soon, Bill?
"I hear that stuff all the time," Elliott said. "People constantly are asking me questions. I wish I could answer them, but it's really hard to explain.
"Hey, racing is a tough business. People just don't realize how much the sport has changed the last several years."
For Elliott, times have changed drastically. The stock-car world that used to shine brightly on the Georgia country boy and his fire-engine red Ford suddenly is locked in a blackened eclipse.
Not that long ago, Elliott was NASCAR's hottest thing on wheels.
Who can forget 1985 when Elliott blew everybody's doors off, winning a record 11 superspeedway events en route to a $2.4 million haul to the bank?
He slacked off to two wins the next season, but Elliott's good times continued in 1987 as he won six races. Then, in '88, came six more wins and the ultimate victory - Elliott's first Winston Cup championship.
The quiet man from the Georgia hills wasn't quite ready for the NASCAR penthouse, though.
"I had gotten thrown into all that stuff back in '85 and I really got some negative things on my side," Elliott said.
"People didn't understand I'm from a small town. I didn't know who to believe and who to trust. People are using and abusing you all the time."
As champion, Elliott quickly discovered the flip side of big-time stock-car racing. Instead of simply working on and driving the race car, Elliott found himself playing the glad-handing role of public-relations puppet.
The vacuum sucked up Elliott and swept away much of the fun of racing.
"When you first come into this sport, you've done nothing wrong," Elliott said. "But now if I don't talk to people, they say I'm an a------.
"But for anybody to come up and talk to me at the race track, they don't have any idea what I'm about.
"I've been known as a popular guy. So I just can't walk out that [track] gate when the day's over without being stopped by somebody. Others, though, can walk right out.
"I said sometimes that I don't know if I'm a PR man or a racer. You meet yourself in the air trying to do all these things."
Since his stay in NASCAR's penthouse, Awesome Bill has turned into Average Bill. He tailed off to three victories in 1989 and finished seventh in the points standings.
"Last year got off to a bad start with me getting hurt at Daytona [he broke his right wrist in a practice crash] and we never got things going our way," Elliott said.
This season has brought no relief. After starting the year with a third-place run at Daytona and a fourth at Richmond, Elliott has been missing in action for the past two months.
At Rockingham, N.C., he was involved in a wreck and finished 33rd. Then, Elliott ran an uncompetitive 12th at Atlanta, a place where he normally runs like a scolded dog.
He was a ho-hum seventh at Darlington, S.C., another place where he usually performs well. He spun at Bristol, Tenn., and finished 17th. Last week at North Wilkesboro, N.C., he finished a quiet 18th.
The fans, not to mention some other teams on pit road, cannot understand what is wrong with the No. 9 car. Neither can its driver.
"We're working just as hard as we ever did, but we come to the race track and it just doesn't show," Elliott said.
"Hey, I'm not the only one. The 27 car [Rusty Wallace] and the 17 car [Darrell Waltrip] have not been as good as they've been.
"Shoot, four or five years ago you could be off a little on the car and still run second. But it also used to be that nobody knew what this guy had under his car. Things have changed.
"The radials have changed things, and we've switched over to running a front-steer car at a lot of places. Racing is lot like flying a helicopter or anything else. You've got to know what you're doing."
Elliott said he doesn't want to sound like he is making excuses.
"You can stand around and make excuses all you want," he said. "You've still got to go out and do it on the race track.
"Sure, it's aggravating. It bothers me to some extent.
"I'd like to take a year off and get things together and come back, get my act together and come back to work. But in this sport, you can't do that.
"It's an endless season. The season goes on and on, and it doesn't seem to ever stop."
Take Saturday, for instance. After the final practice session for today's Hanes 500 at Martinsville Speedway, Elliott packed up and headed for a Saturday night sponsor's commitment at Pulaski County Speedway.
Elliott's assignment was simple. Show up, smile a lot, shake hands, sign autographs . . . and try to answer why Awesome Bill has become Average Bill.
by CNB