After Chase Elliott suffered the unfortunate injury which ruled him out initially for the Vegas race, many wondered who would replace him. The answer came in the form of Josh Berry, the Xfinity Series driver for Dale Earnhardt Jr’s JR Motorsports who got in behind the wheel of Elliott’s racecar last weekend.

Post the Vegas race, though, it surfaced that Eliott would be missing out on action for at least six weeks, which led HMS to announce two substitute drivers for this duration in place of their star man.

Josh Berry on ovals, and IMSA driver Jordan Taylor, who is a sports car veteran as well as a key collaborator in the Garage 56 program, at COTA. “We’re focused on getting Chase back to 100%, so we’ll take however much time is necessary and make sure he has the best resources available,” Rick Hendrick said as per NASCAR.

But before a formal announcement was made on Elliott’s replacement, there was a lot of speculation about who could replace him, in which a lot of names came up. One name in particular which excited everyone was that of Jimmie Johnson.

Yet for Dale Earnhardt Jr, the probability of that possibility was quite low.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. didn’t think Jimmie Johnson could replace Elliott at HMS

Speaking in a recent episode of the Dale Jr. Download, Earnhardt Jr. admitted that during the recording of their show, they had no clue who was going to fill in for Elliott beyond Vegas. The JRM co-owner was hopeful it’d be his driver, Josh Berry, which it turned out to be.

But when his co-host Mike Davis suggested that a lot of people were wondering if it’d be Jimmie Johnson, Earnhardt wondered how could it even happen with all things considered.

“I wonder how that would happen, Jimmie being now the owner of Legacy Motor Club…Jimmie is an owner of another team, but it is Chevrolet so I mean, I don’t think it would be impossible for him to unlock the gates to get into that car,” he described.

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Junior hopes Elliott is aware of the repercussions of his decision to go snowboarding

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With Elliott’s absence from the team, there’s no doubt that Hendrick Motorsports and all their sponsors will take a big hit. This was something that Earnhardt Jr. felt Elliott should have a realization about.

He was hopeful that someone in Elliott’s camp is educating him on all the repercussions of his injury, of the races he is going to miss, and that there is someone who is making him aware of the falling dominos that were triggered by his snowboarding accident.

It’d be interesting to see how this situation develops with the #9 car because there are so many layers and complexities to this situation, be it from a championship standpoint, or a sponsorship standpoint, or many others.

But one thing’s for sure, someone like Chase Elliott being out for over a month will have a big impact on these kinds of situations in the future.

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