Chase Elliott’s ties to kids with cancer go beyond race car paint scheme

He checked on her. She checked on him. Webb took his hands and prayed for his safety.

“I wanted him to remember why he was doing all of this,” she said.

For nearly a decade, Elliott, a Georgia native, has invited young cancer patients at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta to design his race car, fire suit, shoes, helmet and gloves for one special race each season.

At Saturday’s race at EchoPark Speedway (formerly Atlanta Motor Speedway), 11-year-old Rhealynn Mills of Thomasville will see her own artwork on Elliott’s car.

And, like Webb and others before her, she’ll experience her very first NASCAR race, with behind-the-scenes access and a driver determined to make her feel like family.

The experience isn’t one-sided. Elliott says the kids he’s met through the program have given him as much as he’s tried to give them.

“Everyone that I’ve met, just the attitude that they’ve had, is extremely inspiring to me,” said Elliott, the 2020 Cup Series champion and seven-time reigning most popular driver.

The cousin that Chase Elliott never got to know

Roots of the program run deep.

Between Bill Elliott’s NASCAR Cup Series championship in the late 1980s and his son Chase’s title more than three decades later, there was a moment when another Elliott seemed poised to shine on stock car racing’s biggest stage.

Casey Elliott, Bill’s nephew, rose through the ranks in the early 1990s, showing the same promise and raw speed that made the Dawsonville family famous. He was on track to carry the Elliott name into NASCAR’s future — until cancer ended his career. He died in 1996 at just 21 years old, a few months after Chase was born.

“When you have close family that experiences something like that, it carries on,” Elliott said. “I just think back, ‘My gosh, what was this like? How in the world did they even get through this?’”

Credit: Children's Healthcare of Atlanta

Credit: Children's Healthcare of Atlanta

Thomasville youth navigates several surgeries

Rhealynn Mills, whose artwork will grace Elliott’s car this weekend, hurt her leg sliding into third base during a softball game when she was 8 years old. She kept playing, but the pain lingered. A trip to Children’s revealed she had osteosarcoma, a form of bone cancer. Chemotherapy followed, her leg was amputated at the hip, and tests confirmed the cancer had spread.

“We attacked it as we could, but at that point, we were sustaining life and didn’t know the outcome,” said Revana Mills, Rhealynn’s mother.

Rhealynn endured 19 surgeries, including procedures on her lungs. There were times when scans showed the South Georgia native was cancer-free, only for later tests to find it again.

“She hasn’t let it stop her,” Revana said.

Rhealynn has returned to the softball field, wearing a prosthetic. She loves to play golf and ride horses. She wrestles with her dad and older brother.

During long stays at Children’s, Rhealynn surprised her family with an artistic talent she hadn’t shown before her diagnosis. When the call came for Elliott’s “Design to Drive” contest, she sketched a car with a nurse on the hood. She added gold childhood cancer ribbons on the fenders and sides, a stethoscope, heart monitors and bandages. She included messages: “Cure Cancer” and “Helping Kids Like Me.”

Credit: Courtesy Hendrick Motorsports

Credit: Courtesy Hendrick Motorsports

Rhealynn says she wants to be a nurse when she grows up.

“They’re my favorite because they have my same attitude,” she said. “They know what I’m like, and they know all about me.”

Ansley Jones, a Children’s nurse who cared for Rhealynn, said she cried when she saw the design for Elliott’s car.

Jones held Rhealynn’s hand during treatment. Listened to her talk about her brother’s baseball tournaments. Watched her do a headstand on the bed a few days after her leg was amputated.

“She’s changed my life for the better,” Jones said.

Reunion this week spans yearslong relationships

Mary Webb, the young cancer patient who did the artwork for Elliott’s car in 2021, says Mills is joining a kind of club.

Ahead of this ninth edition of “Design to Drive,” Elliott, who drives the No. 9 made famous by his father, is hosting a reunion this week. Everyone who’s ever taken part is invited back for a gathering on Thursday. Some, including Webb, who grew up in Oconee County, will attend Saturday’s race south of Atlanta.

The program began in 2017 with kids designing shoes worn by Elliott and his Hendrick Motorsports teammates. It grew from there, with Atlanta-based NAPA Auto Parts giving up advertising space on Elliott’s car. Elliott credits his mom, Cindy, for helping expand the experience for families and making sure they’re comfortable at the race track.

Revana Mills became emotional when noting the Elliotts made it a point to invite Rhealynn’s 14-year-old brother, Kale, to Saturday’s race.

“He’s been just as affected during this as Rhealynn,” she said.

Auctions and raffles for items from the program has raised nearly half a million dollars for Children’s over the first eight years.

But for Webb, a rising sophomore at the University of Georgia whose latest scans were cancer-free, the real gift was the friendship she found.

After her prayer before that race in 2021, she jokingly asked Elliott not to wreck her race car. He did — but a few weeks later, an unexpected package arrived at her northeast Georgia home: the giant deck lid from the car she’d designed. It now hangs on her bedroom wall, surrounded by framed photos from the race and models of Elliott’s cars.

“It reminds me every day of the wonderful experience I had,” Webb said, “and how wonderful Chase and his family were to me.”