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A non-stunner: Chase Elliott takes over for Dale Earnhardt Jr. as Most Popular Driver


NASCAR’s Most Popular Driver in the post-Earnhardt era was an obvious choice.

Chase Elliott took home the 2018 award Thursday night at NASCAR’s awards ceremony. Elliott is the first driver since 2002 to win the award who is not Dale Earnhardt Jr. Junior had a stranglehold on the award from 2003 to his final season in 2017.

The guy who won the award in 2002? Elliott’s father Bill, who has the most MPD awards of any NASCAR driver. Bill Elliott won five straight awards from 1984-88, 10 straight awards from 1991-2000 and then that final time in 2002. The last driver not named Elliott or Earnhardt to win the award is Darrell Waltrip in 1990.

Chase Elliott will likely keep the award for the foreseeable future. There’s no other active driver in NASCAR who has combination of broad-based appeal and direct tie to the past that he does.

You can watch his acceptance speech in the video above.

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Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports.

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