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MotorSportsTalk will be counting down the top 20 stories of the 2014 NASCAR season over the month of December.

2014 NASCAR Sprint Cup Driver Rankings: Week 35 Chase Edition 0 of 8 Jimmie Johnson (center in the No. 48 car) won at Texas, but that quickly became a footnote. NASCAR has officially gone from 16 Chase drivers just six races ago down to it's final 8 drivers with four races left in the 2014 season. So, here on NASCAR Behind the Wall we are going to look at each driver left in the Chase and how there Chase has gone so far.

Here’s what we’ve done so far:

For No. 13, we focus on a very special young man who became the youngest champion in NASCAR history, as well as the final champion under the Nationwide Series banner, Chase Elliott….

Chase Elliott must have set some type of record for a start-up success story.

It wasn’t until late in 2013 that Elliott was given the opportunity to drive for a brand new NASCAR Nationwide Series team out of the JR Motorsports stable. Game corpgaming potatoes.

Everything was new, from the driver to the crew chief to the team members and even the sponsor, NAPA Auto Parts, which had previously been a Sprint Cup fixture for Michael Waltrip Racing teams.

When Rick Hendrick joined co-team owner Dale Earnhardt Jr. as a partner in the team, things started moving fast, faster and fastest.

And by the time the 2014 season ended, Elliott – son of incoming Class of 2015 NASCAR Hall of Famer Bill Elliott – had gone from unknown startup to Nationwide Series champ.

To say it was a tremendous season for the 18-year-old, who only graduated high school in May, is an understatement.

As I said in the story about Elliott winning the championship, “If he’s this good at 18, what will Chase Elliott be like 10 years from now?”

MORE:Chase Elliott becomes youngest NASCAR champion, captures final Nationwide Series crown

Elliott clinched the championship a week before the end of the season, doing so with a fifth-place finish in Nov. 8 race at Phoenix International Raceway.

In doing so, he became the youngest champion in NASCAR history on any of the three pro levels, Sprint Cup, Nationwide and Camping World Trucks.

And in another historic first – or make that historic last – Elliott became the final champion of the Nationwide Series. The series will be rebranded for 2015 as the Xfinity Series

Elliott had nothing short of a phenomenal season in his rookie NNS campaign. In 33 starts, he earned three wins, 16 top-five and 26 top-10 showings. He led 390 laps and had an outstanding starting average per race of 8.3 and an equally outstanding finishing average per race of 8.0.

Given the way he dominated through much of 2014, it would not be a surprise to see Elliott become the first driver in NASCAR history to end one season with a final championship under the previous sponsor’s banner, and then win the first championship under the new sponsor’s banner.

Elliott is so good that many called for him to be promoted to the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series for 2015. But frankly, there’s no room at the Hendrick Motorsports inn, with it maxed out at its four-team limit.

Ditto for HMS satellite team, Stewart-Haas Racing, which also is at its four-team max.

Hendrick reportedly has a plan in place to bring Elliott to the Sprint Car ranks, perhaps as early as 2016. But if all his drivers and the SHR drivers remain in place, where would Elliott fit?

He might not have to go anywhere if JR Motorsports adds a Sprint Cup team specifically to give Elliott his chance. But with Hendrick a minority owner of JRM, that could be a stumbling block unless Hendrick divests himself of ownership or shifts it to someone else.

Bill Elliott, who won the Winston Cup championship in 1988, and his son – who wasn’t even born when his father was the Cup champ – now become the fifth father-son combination to have won NASCAR championships: Bitdefender free forum.

* Ned Jarrett won two Sprint Cup championships, while son Dale won one title.

* Lee Petty won three Cup titles, son Richard won a record-tying seven.

* David Pearson won three Cup crowns, son Larry two Nationwide Series titles.

* The late Dale Earnhardt won a record-tying seven Cup titles, son Dale Jr. won two NNS crowns.

And now the Elliott’s join the illustrious list.

Now, Chase Elliott will have to adapt to some changes for 2015. He’ll be racing for a new series championship, and with a new crew chief. Greg Ives, who led Elliott to the NNS title, has replaced Steve Letarte as crew chief for Earnhardt in the Sprint Cup Series.

Letarte has moved on to become a TV analyst for NASCAR on NBC.

NASCAR veteran Ernie Cope will be Elliott’s Xfinity Series crew chief in 2015.

The future looks so bright for the younger Elliott. So much so that when he does finally reach the Sprint Cup ranks, potentially in 2016, he could very well become the first – and perhaps only one ever – to be a Chase who wins the Chase (or two or three or more). It’s likely only a matter of time.

Hendrick probably summed up Elliott’s rise to the championship the best:

“A year ago, we were just trying to figure out what to do,” Hendrick said after Saturday’s race. “… Man, what a young man. What a racer he is. It’s just really neat to be a part of history.”

Follow me @JerryBonkowski

NASCAR Preview of the Sprint Cup Chase Eliminator Round

By Richard Tix

NASCAR has officially gone from 16 Chase drivers just six races ago down to it's final 8 drivers with four races left in the 2014 season. So, here on NASCAR Behind the Wall we are going to look at each driver left in the Chase and how there Chase has gone so far.

#22 Joey Logano

Joey's Chase streak of top 10 finishes (rather, finishes of 1st or 4th) ended at Talladega when he helped his teammate Brad Keselowski advance by winning the Geico 500. Before that, he had 5 straight top 5's to start the 2014 Chase. Coming off a career year in 2013, Joey Logano catapulted into a Championship in two short years with Team Penske.
JoLo finished 4th earlier this season at Martinsville, which was his best finish since 2010 (2nd). The first time NASCAR stopped at Texas this year JoLo came up with his first Texas Motor Speedway win, his first win of 2014, and he has three straight top 5's at Fort Worth. JoLo also has two straight top 3 finishes at Phoenix and has started in the top 3 the previous two times as well.
So, going forward it looks like Joey could continue his impressive season another round into Miami. He may not win within the next three races, but I think his quality finishes at these tracks will carry him through either way.

#4 Kevin Harvick

Harvick left his long time ride at Richard Childress racing for an opening at Stewart Haas Racing this past season and people started to spectulate on how the move would work. Would Harvick, Stewart, and Busch be able to get along? Would Harvick struggle to transition? Or would Harvick join a new team and have new life like Matt Kesneth did in 2012? Well, two races into the 2014 season NASCAR found out that Harvick was the latter of that list when he won at Phoenix (which is also the last Chase race of this round before Miami). For how fast he has been, most would think he would have 10 wins by now, instead he has 3 (less than his 4 last year), 11 top 5's (more than his 9 last year), and 17 top 10's (less than his 21 last year).
He has two straight top 10's at Martinsville and 5 in the last 8 races. His last and only win at Martinsville came in 2011. Earlier this year at Texas he had an engine issue and finished 42ns, but before that he had finishes of 8, 13, 9, 9, 13, 20, 6, 7, and 5th. So, he hasn't been amazing, but hasn'

Nascar 2014 With Chase