Chase and Bill Elliott on 212mph lap at Talladega

Chase Elliott wasn't around when his father, NASCAR Hall of Famer Bill Elliott (pictured with Chase, above), ran 212 mph at Talladega Superspeedway but he'll honor the accomplishment this weekend.

This week marks the 30th anniversary of Bill Elliott running 212.809 mph in qualifying for the 1987 Winston 500 in his legendary No. 9 Coors Ford Thunderbird (below). The record has withstood the test of time and Chase will help remind everyone of it by running a special design on his driving shoes for the GEICO 500.

"(Dad) still has a few of his Coors cars in the shop and I always think it's pretty neat to look at them and see how they were built and what they put into them and just how simple everything was," Chase said Friday at Talladega. "They just tried to simplify things as best they could. They were kind of in their own box with having the spoiler laid back as far as it could possibly go.

"Like he says, they just didn't know any better. They did it their own way and did really good at it. I think it's really cool and a great part of racing history in general. Obviously, I'm a little biased because of my dad."

Here's how Bill remembers it:

"You still had to do everything you could to make the car really uncomfortable to run fast," he said. "There were guys over there before qualifying taking the rear spoilers off, but you couldn't drive them. You had to have a little bit of downforce or you couldn't drive them, so you just had to get to that point where you took as much off as you could and still be able to make it around the racetrack."

Although he started on the pole, Elliott ironically suffered an engine issue in the race and finished 22nd. However, the lore of his incredible qualifying lap continues to live on.

"The fans went nuts," Elliot said of that day. "They loved it. They loved that stuff back then. The faster the better. We had worked so hard to get to that point that it was very satisfying from our end. We put a lot of effort into our speedway programs and already had really good power, so we were able to kind of marry it all together.

"I think the qualifying record at Talladega just kind of puts an exclamation point on our legacy. I'm talking about for our whole family – me, Dan, Ernie and my dad. We came out of nothing. We came out of a little town in Dawsonville, Georgia that wasn't even on the map. We were kind of like David and Goliath with what we did and what we accomplished."

NASCAR later implemented the use of restrictor plates to reduce the speeds at Daytona and Talladega. If given the chance, though, Chase Elliott wouldn't mind getting behind the wheel of his dad's old car.

"I don't know that I could handle it," Chase admitted. "But, I would definitely try, for sure. I'd love to give it a shot. But, I don't know that I would have what it takes to hold her wide open. That wasn't easy back then, those things. I remember Dad telling me stories. They basically kept leaning the spoiler back until he just couldn't take it anymore. And that was how they figured out when to stop. He kept pushing the limit until he couldn't drive it, which is pretty cool, really."