Darn Brent,
I thought my daughter winning a grand the other day on the radio was kewl!
I've been a NASCAR fan since I was a kid. And before that I was a sports car fan deluxe.
I remember in the fifth grade giving a oral report on the Mercedes 300SLR. Tom McCahill as I recall was a writer in a magazine or two. He described the Mercedes this way. You could be driving a 57 Ford a measured hundred miles an hour and pass the Mercedes sitting on the side of the road idling. Before you had gone a mile the Mercedes would be in your mirror. Another mile and it would have passed you and be out of sight! Straight in line six cylinder motor with one hundred and eighty point one cubic inches and over three hundred horsepower. Sterling Moss and Juan Fangio drove that puppy and I envied them beyond measure. Sterling Moss gave the definition of racing that I've always loved. "Imagine being in the family sedan at sixty miles an hour on ice. That's what it's like for us in a race car at over a hundred on the track."
When Dale won the Daytona Five Hundred my wife and me cried. When he was killed we were building a pavilion. I had the radio on and when it got down near the end of the race I shut down the crew to listen to the finish. After the accident I turned off the radio and put everyone to go back to work and mentioned to my bud that Dale was dead.
He couldn't believe it. He wanted to know how I knew. I explained that I had been listening and watching NASCAR long enough to know how they acted when a driver was killed. Dale was dead. Bud called me on the way home that evening and told me that I was right. One of the those moments when being wrong would've felt more right.
My mother was my biggest fan when I raced local dirt track. One afternoon I was watching a NASCAR race. It was a short track like Dover or Rockingham. Dale was going through them like grass through a goose. Mom came walking in and sat down to watch. After a minute she pointed to the three car and told me that driver drove like I did. Needless to say when the moment comes for my life to pass by my face the birth of the kids will be followed by mom saying that.
I like Harvick and Stewart. I lived and died Dale. I'm coming around to Junior. He's reflecting a maturity his father hadn't ever managed to find on the track until the day he died. It might have been what got him killed.
I like Gordon's ability to drive. It just rubs me wrong that he can have that ability and all the opportunity too. Kenny Schrader is a favorite of mine but not because of his NASCAR prowess. I like the fact that he'd race grocery carts if they put a motor on them. He spends more time behind the wheel in competition than anyone alive that's in the big time. He races sprints, midgets, silver crown, modifieds, and I think if someone gave him a chance he'd race off road too.
Am I the only one alive today who remembers the Thunder series that summer on ESPN when that seventeen year old kid put everyone on their ear. Some kid named Gordon?
