While NASCAR won’t be making a decision soon, it seems that Chase Elliott will be granted a waiver for his injury.
The 2020 Cup Series champion had an unfortunate injury while snowboarding in Colorado. He suffered a fractured tibia and has undergone surgery successfully.
The bad news is that there is no specific date for his return to racing. And since he will miss a number of races, there are questions as to whether he will get a waiver so that he will be eligible to compete for the championship this season.
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Well, it seems that he is more likely to get a waiver than not. Reflecting on the situation, NASCAR senior vice president of competition Elton Sawyer said on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio:
“We’re still in the very early stages of this, and I can’t emphasize this enough, our focus as an industry is to make sure Chase gets healthy,” . “We’re looking at the process to date as we gather more information. (When) he’s medically cleared to come back, then I wouldn’t see any reason that he wouldn’t be granted a waiver. But we’ll go through that process and make sure we’re checking all the boxes.”
NASCAR granted a waiver to Kyle Busch in 2015 after he missed 11 races due to an injury in the Xfinity Series. Also, Tony Stewart was also granted a waiver for an injury outside NASCAR competition.
“Very similar situation to Tony Stewart a few years back,” Sawyer said. “Tony was injured in (the California sand dunes) in the preseason, and the waiver wasn’t granted until, I believe, April, and then he was cleared to come back racing at Richmond that year. So, we’ll go through the due diligence. We’ll work closely with our folks as well as the folks at Hendrick Motorsports to, again, get Chase back as quick as possible.”
After Elliott’s injury, NASCAR professionals have voiced their opinion, one of them being Richard Petty, who said that it shouldn’t matter whether Elliott is injured on the race track or outside it, he should be granted a waiver.
But after Sawyer’s interview, it seems that it is only a matter of time before Elliott is granted a waiver.