(Photo courtesy of NASCARmedia.com/Todd Warshaw/NASCAR via Getty Images)

Jeff Gordon announced that this will be his final full-time year in the #24 Chevrolet and now we know that Chase Elliott will take over the NASCAR Sprint Cup seat in 2016.

Yesterday (1/29) Rick Hendrick and the four Hendrick Motorsports Sprint Cup drivers held a press conference at Charlotte Motor Speedway not that far from the team’s headquarters. Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jimmie Johnson and Kasey Kahne were all on the stage when team owner Rick Hendrick brought Chase up for the announcement.

Chase won the championship last year in his rookie season in NASCAR’s middle racing series that has been dubbed the XFINITY Series for 2015. NASCAR.com reports that Chase got the offer to move up to the premier series in stock car racing through a phone call from Rick.

“That’s a phone call I was not expecting that day. That is for sure. I didn’t know anything about Jeff’s announcement until that morning and to have Mr. Hendrick tell me that he wanted me to be that person to go in and drive that car whenever Jeff got done was just an unbelievable phone call — one that I was not expecting and something that I couldn’t have dreamt happening.”

Chase is the son of NASCAR Hall of Famer Bill Elliot. When Bill was told about his son’s move to the Sprint Cup series he said: “I mean, you hoped it, you wished it, but for it to actually happen, it’s like, ‘Wake me up. Am I dreaming or what?’ Chase has done a great job, and Mr. Hendrick has just … the man’s done everything he said he would do, and I have never met anybody with the integrity that man has.”

Chase will race five Sprint Cup races this year while trying to win the XFINITY Championship for a second year in a row in the car that is co-owned by Dale Jr. with Jr. Motorsports and is affiliated with Hendrick. Next year Chase will then become a teammate with his current XFINITY team owner Dale Jr. in the Sprint Cup series.

By: Buck Stevens