Actually Chase Elliott's first card is in 1997 Press Pass. He also appears with Dale Earnhardt in the Bill Purdon Artist Series.
Rookie cards are the first year of being in the top league of whatever sport you've chosen to play. There can be more than one depending on how many sets were released that year.
College and minor league cards are not RC, unless the card is part of a set for the major league. Except for NASCAR, because as Spaz said, we are different than the ball sports.
XRC is a concept made up by Beckett for the sole reason of discrimination against the Star company. However, the concept later did have something come along to be it. In 2000-01 NBA Legends, they included redemption cards for the 2001-02 rookies. This was done in several sets, most recently in 2007-08, at least for the NBA.it means that players have cards in sets before they joined the league...thus, an XRC.
Personally speaking, I do not consider a card a rookie card unless it was issued in the players first year. Taking a hockey example, Quinn Hughes debuted in the last week or two of the 2018-19 season. Jack Hughes was the number one draft pick and will debut in 2019-20. Both brothers will be getting their first cards in 19-20, and the hobby will consider them both rookie cards...but if I am lucky enough to get them, I would only consider Jack to be an RC. I believe I may be the only person to consider things that way. The only real difference it makes is if I enter RC into the note column on my Excel collection spreadsheet, which, for the most part, I don't even keep anymore because I've made them obsolete with the Cardboard History Gallery. (I used them mostly to tell me where to find a scan when I had them only sorted one way. Now I have every scan sorted by person, set or team so if I want to find something, it's easy)
VERY slow trading due to health problems. Not transferrable so safe to trade with, just moving is painful and can't always access the cards.
Cardboard History My COMC
New Collection Website: Cardboard History Gallery (Still under construction)
Tips on how to make your scans look like the card does in hand (No more washed out, fuzzy scans!):