Looking Back ~ A View from the Rearview
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I bid you welcome gentle readers, and as always a warm
and friendly welcome to our assigned reader of all things NASCAR. A week with a
Holiday in the middle always messes with my mind. I have nothing written for
this week; it’s Wednesday and I have to have my car’s emissions tested and then
go register it before the State of Georgia comes and parks it. The car has
26,000 miles on it and the emissions are fine. It’s the trip down to the County
Seat that irks me. Anyway, I did some rummaging through my files and came up
with one I’m sure no one will remember, but it’s rather interesting. It would
seem your scribe was in a somewhat “crappy” mood while writing this. Time frame
is early autumn, 2004, so please read in that context.
We’ll start off today with a quote from the irascible
Junior Johnson, comparing racing as it was in his day with racing as it is
today. (This comes from in interview given at Bristol Motor Speedway several
years ago)
"Back when I
started we would drive the race cars from track to track. I would be gone for
two weeks from Virginia, up to New Jer
"It was a
very funny atmosphere where you traveled. I remember my brother would go with
me and we would be greasy and nasty where we just left the racetrack and I
would want to stop and he didn't want to go in a restaurant the way we looked.
Back then, there weren't all the motels; you pretty much had to live out of the
"Today, the
people have all the elaborate things like buses at the race track. They have
airplanes that go everywhere. The price of racing is probably around the $20
million bracket when you get around to it. Half of the stuff you don't
Obviously, Junior comes from a simpler time, when most
folks would have given up their birthright for the chance to spend a lifetime
doing what they loved to do and at the same time earn a living by doing it. He
and his contemporaries were more than willing to spend weeks on end roving from
track to track, most assuredly not with any sort of luxury involved, simply for
the chance to go racing. Tho
Admittedly, Junior would not have been a sponsor’s dream
as are many of the pretty boys of today. For sure, he wasn’t pretty, then or
now, and I’m sure he wouldn’t have made much of a corporate spokesman when it
came to public speaking, but the man was a racer. Over his career as a driver
and car owner, he amassed 139 wins, a total that leaves him second in the sport
only to Petty Enterprises.
It may appear to you that we’re going to spend the day
talking about Junior, but we’re not. His words were u
Though it’s been said repeatedly of late that “It’s all
about the money”, I suggest that it’s always been about the money. Big Bill
France didn’t put a lifetime into NASCAR in an effort to go broke, any more
than would the present regime. Drivers back in the “
Today (Friday) I read an article penned by a good
friend, advising that fans “Just get over it”, referring to the Chase for the
Championship format. At one time, that would have been an immediate burr under
my saddle but today I found my
I spent much of this morning scanning the news, which I
haven’t had a chance to do for a couple of days and saw a few more things about
which I really don’t care. On Thursday, they unveiled the new “Nextel Cup.”
It’s not a phone and it is surely not a cup. What it is, they say, is a pair of
checkered flags waving. Okay, if they say so! After some clo
Reading further, I found an article that states:
Safety Systems,
Inc., (SSI) released test results that demonstrate the company's RACE WALL
impact barrier offers significantly more impact protection than current
products installed on most NASCAR racetracks. The R.A.C.E. Wall ™ (Restricted
Air Controls Energy) was conceived out of the need to save lives and
subsequently lessen vehicle damage at the same time, "in following with
NASCAR's efforts to control the costs for teams competing in this ultimate
sport". The RACE Wall uses proprietary technology in conjunction with
specific materials, construction methods and "outside the box"
thinking to produce the second-generation soft wall.
Well, that’s nice. I spent over three years studying and
championing the SAFER barrier and someone claims to have built a better mou
As I read further, I found that someone at NASCAR just
realized that neither Bobby Hamilton Jr. nor
Lastly, I found an article saying that President George
Bush would not be throwing out the first pitch… excuse me, I meant giving the
command to start engines at NHIS on Sunday. It
Okay, so where is all of this taking us? Let’s go back
to Junior Johnson for just a minute. After discussing the differences between
yesterday and today, his final statement was that although he had an
opportunity to come back into the sport, he would not be taking it. Even though
he mentioned money
What we find spoon-fed into our living rooms each week
is not a sport and has little to do with racing. It is exactly what we hear it
referred to time after time; it’s a “show” and nothing more. The actual race
only
Junior is not the only one to leave racing of late. Over
the past year or so, I’ve watched with great sadness as
Well before the Daytona 500 this year, I wrote a column
that delineated all of the disappointments I’ve felt since the new regime took
over; along with the sorrow it brought to my heart, watching something I’d
cherished for so many years just fade into oblivion. That article, which can be
accessed here, http://www.racefansforever.org/a-voice-for-the-fans--nascar-doesnrsquot-love-me-anymore.html must have struck a chord with a
lot of folks, as it's still the most widely read article in my file and drew by
far the largest response it has ever been my pleasure to answer. Today I’m able
to
(Editor’s note:
The original link given had been dead since a server crash at Insider Racing
News in 2007 consigned every word I’d written there to the cyber scrap heap.)
By the same token and perhaps explaining my foul mood, I
have friends that live on Dauphin Island, one of the Barrier Islands in the
Gulf of Mexico. (Just south of
Something like this tends to put things in their proper
perspective in a hurry and I have to tell you that when one truly looks at “The
big picture”, racing is far down on the priority list and the “Show” doesn’t
come close to being on it.
(Editor’s note: My
friends on Dauphin Island, Chris and Sussi, were fine; most of the severe
damage was to the western end of the Island, and they are on the eastern side.
The following year, they would again cause me near heart failure when Katrina
came calling and they took the tour boat up-river to ride out the storm. Today,
both are still members of my Fantasy Racing group.)
I thought it would be fun to go back to the beginning of
the end and see just a bit of what thoughts were rolling out of my mind and
through my fingers to my gentle readers back then. Now, the predictions made in
other articles back then have all come to fruition; the crowds are gone; the TV
ratings are in the proverbial toilet, as is what’s left of a once proud sport…
and the water is swirling.
Today we’re offered demonstrations of Mixed Martial Arts
and other non-racing additions to the “Show” that must go on, even if it plays
to an empty house. In the depth of my mind, I hear over and over the closing
words offered by Don McLean in “Vincent” (Starry, Starry Night)… “They would not listen, they're not
listening still. Perhaps they never will.”
Time now for our Classic Country Closeout, which
continues to show those early TV Country shows with the stars of the decade of
the 1950s. I hope some of you enjoy these as much as I do. I know Jim does… he
only has to set one video, not 5.
Be well gentle readers, and remember to keep smiling.
It looks so good on you!
~PattyKay