Elliott Talks Racing At Akron School

By Dale Hubler, Times-Union Sports Writer

Tony Elliott talks about his car to Akron Elementary students on Monday. Photo by Dale Hubler, Times-Union

AKRON – Ask Akron Elementary fifth-grader Tiara Cochran who her favorite racecar driver is and she bolts out, “Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart, but of course Tony is my favorite.”

Of course Tony is her favorite. As in Tony Elliott, the current points leader in the Stoops Freightliner Sprint Car Series. As in Tony Elliott, Warsaw Community High School graduate and her uncle.

Elliott, along with his daughter, Courtney, and his mother, Sue Priest, came to Akron Elementary Monday morning to talk to third, fourth- and fifth- graders.

“We just wanted him to come and share his racing with us,” said Cochran, a go-kart racer despite being born without a right arm.

Elliott, who won the Hulman-Hoosier Hundred Friday at the Indiana State Fairgrounds in his No. 20 Silver Bullet car, answered questions from the numbers of races he’s won to what happens if he has to use the bathroom during a race.

Elliott, 38, who resides in Kokomo, got started in go karts at the age of 13. By 16 he was racing street stocks. At 17 he was steering a late model. And at the age of 18 he had his own sprint car, which he raced at Warsaw Speedway, much like his father Jim Elliott did before a motorcycle crash claimed his life in March of 1973.

Elliott, who won the 1998 United States Auto Club (USAC) Sprint Car Championship, has won 12 various speedway season championships.

In the Stoops Freightliner Series he leads Val Verde, California’s Jay Drake by 24 points. In 26 starts this year, Elliott has two checkered flags, 12 top five, and 17 top 10 finishes.

“Jay Drake is the only real competition,” Elliott said. “He’s the only one that can actually beat us. Third-place (New Castle’s Tracy Hines) is a couple hundred points behind.”

Cochran, who boasts that her birthday is the same as Jeff Gordon’s, is no slouch on the dirt either.

Cochran has been racing the Northern National Racing Series for three years. Winning 16 races, including eight in a row, her best season finish has been second. This year she finished seventh out of 30 competitors and was invited to a prestigious race Dec. 29 at the Coliseum in Fort Wayne. As Cochran said: “Only the top dogs get to go.”

Elliott has two races left in his No. 66 methanol-burning, Jeff Walker-owned sprint car to decide the championship.

“We’re leading the USAC points,” Elliott said. “We have two races to go – this weekend at Eldora (Ohio) and Oct. 22 at Winchester (Ind.) It’s pretty close (points race), actually it’s real close.”