2020 NASCAR Cup champ Chase Elliott encourages Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway supporters to finish strong

If anyone knows the importance of finishing strong its 2020 NASCAR Cup Series champion Chase Elliott.

Elliott has been a strong proponent for the effort to bring NASCAR Cup Series racing back to Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway and his message to those trying to make it happen is don't let off the gas before crossing the finish line.

On Tuesday, Mayor John Cooper announced he had agreed in principle to Bristol Motor Speedway's proposal to renovate Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway and bring a NASCAR Cup Series race back to the 117-year-old track for the first time since 1984.

The deal is not done. It must be approved by the Board of Fair Commissioners and Metro Council.

That is why Elliott, 26, a Dawsonville, Georgia native who began his racing career at the fairgrounds, is speaking out louder than ever in support of bringing NASCAR back to the fairgrounds.

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"I think everybody knows there are not many people that are a bigger fan than me of that place," Elliott said. "You're not ever going to build a racetrack that close to a city and certainly not that close to a city that's booming like Nashville is right now. If you don't make the most of this chance and trying to keep that place alive you're missing out on a major opportunity to have a great venue for long time."

Elliott was named NASCAR's most popular driver for the fourth consecutive year Thursday night at the Champions Awards Ceremony at Music City Center.

The NASCAR Cup Series ran 42 races at the Fairgrounds from 1958-84.

Twenty-five years after the Cup Series left, Elliott drove at the fairgrounds as a 13-year-old in a Late Model race.

Four years later, he won the All-American 400 Pro Late Model race there and this summer won the inaugural Camping World Superstar Racing Experience Series championship when he held off Tony Stewart, who finished second, and his father Bill Elliott, who was third.

The race put the fairgrounds back in a national spotlight. It was sold out, televised nationally and convinced Elliot more than ever that NASCAR Cup Series racing belongs there.

"My time there over the summer at that SRX race was just incredible; that was one of my favorite events of all-time," Elliott said.

"You could just feel the energy and people were fired up and excited and the place was packed. I know it doesn't seat 100,000 people but it was packed and the people that were there were pumped and that's the key. We've got to extract that excitement and that energy on another level with NASCAR there and I think it's very much capable of happening."

Renderings provided by Bristol Motor Speedway revealed a plan to expand capacity at the fairgrounds from 18,000 to 35,000.

A smaller capacity is something else Elliott is in favor of for NACAR Cup racing.

"If you have 35,000 in the grandstands and it's packed I think you're better off with that type of environment than you are with having the place too big and not able to sale it out consistently," Elliott said. "A packed grandstand looks better and I think everybody feeds off that energy better when that's the case."

Reach Mike Organ at 615-259-8021 or on Twitter @MikeOrganWrtier.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Chase Elliott supports NASCAR's return to Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway