Low man on the totem pole

Chase Elliott may be the youngest Daytona 500 pole winner in NASCAR history, but that doesn’t mean he has moved up the pecking order at Hendrick Motorsports.

If an HMS driver happens to have an opportunity to participate in a Goodyear tire test during an off week in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series schedule, Elliott already has been “volunteered” for the job — by teammates Jimmie Johnson, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Kasey Kahne.

“I get volunteered for tests that those guys don’t want to go do,” Elliott said during Daytona 500 media day interviews at Daytona. “If there’s a test on an off week, you’re probably not going to see Jimmie, Dale or Kasey go do it. They’re going to sign me up firsthand. What am I going to say?

“I’m not against it. It’s just funny. We were in a meeting the other day, and they talked about having a test sometime throughout the year, maybe one of the off weeks or something. It hadn’t (been) two seconds and Jimmie said, ‘Chase, sign him up.'”