In the eyes of the fans and media, a driver's behavior will eventually cause people to stop caring how justified a driver is in their frustration, and care more about what said driver does with that frustration and temper. And at that point, he's seen as a polarizing "hot head", like Harvick was, Busch at one point, Logano.
We are seeing that very shift happen in real time after Chase's dooring of Larson. He's lost the benefit of being "justifiably upset" at this point in the eyes of a lot of the fandom and the media.
What some Elliott fans haven't quite warmed up to yet is that Chase Elliott, the MPD is the hothead of today's cup series. He just is. He's the temper throwing hothead of today. Like Tony, Harvick, Logano etc before him. He's had enough run ins. He's that guy.
And it's absolutely great and potentially so great for the sport.
I love it.
Chase can't stand a lot of his competitors. Some of his competitors can't stand him. He's already polarizing now.
Imagine if he leaned into this? NASCAR's MPD becomes the villain of the sport? With his gift of sarcasm and trolling the media?
Man would that be so so fun.
Chase has already said he and Kyle moved past it, and he took the blame. But man, who cares?
Chase Elliott going full villain would be absolutely fantastic. I would hop aboard the fan train at that point.
He already has mastered ****ting on the media.
Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk