Chase Elliott has removed his name from consideration for the 2026 NASCAR Most Popular Driver Award, paving the way for Kyle Busch to posthumously win the award.
On Friday, Chase Elliott showed why he has become NASCAR’s most popular driver over the last eight seasons. Driver No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet has officially chosen to opt out of the event to crown the most popular driver this season in the NASCAR Cup Series. Reason? Give Kyle Busch, who passed away in May, a clearer path to winning the posthumous award.
Advertisement
Busch, who was featured on the card, never took home NASCAR’s Most Popular Driver Award.
If this gesture from Elliott feels quite familiar, the fact that his father, Bill Elliott, also removed his name from the card in 2001, which paved the way for Dale Earnhardt, a seven-hole NASCAR Cup Series champion who was killed in the last lap of the Daytona 500 that season, was awarded one season in the Hall of Fame career.
Bill Elliott has won the NMPA Most Popular Driver Award a record 16 times.
With Chase Elliott’s name removed from the ballot, this means that for the first time since Darrell Waltrip took home the award in 1990, there won’t be a driver named Earnhardt or Elliott taking home the Most Popular Driver Award in the NASCAR Cup Series.
Advertisement
Prior to the Coca-Cola 600 race weekend, Busch fell ill with sepsis and died suddenly at the age of 41. Busch, a two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion, was the winningest driver in NASCAR National Series history, as he had racked up 234 NASCAR victories across three National Series divisions.
Busch’s final NASCAR National Series win came at Dover’s Underwater Motor, a week before his unexpected death.
Fans waiting to vote for the 2026 Most Popular Driver are encouraged to visit the Most Popular Driver page. Fans can vote for one driver via a submission card with voting limited to five submissions per day, via email at NASCAR.com/mostpopulardriver or on the NASCAR Mobile App. Five votes per day are not limited to a single driver.
The post Chase Elliott removes name from Most Popular Driver Ballot In Honor of Kyle Busch appeared first on TobyChristie.com.