Richmond "Action": Then And Now
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09/07/2016 Frank Buhrman |
I attended my first race ever at the old Atlantic Rural Exposition fairgrounds dirt track 53 (ouch!) years ago; since then I’ve attended somewhere around 70 GN/Cup races there over the years (along with even more events for other divisions), and (thanks to Dave Fulton) I worked as a “weekend warrior” for the public relations office at what’s now Richmond International Raceway for 25 years, so of all the places being a race fan has taken me, that race track on what once was the Strawberry Hill “plantation” has provided by far the most memories.
I learned a lot that first year or two: I learned not to wear light-colored clothes to a 250- or 300-lap race on a dirt track, especially if you were going to sit in the bleachers coming off the fourth turn. I learned that, if I’d been a bit smaller, I could have sneaked in through the drain culvert under the second turn, like I saw a couple of other fans do. I learned – by observation, mind you – that, if you were going to sit up in one of the big trees behind the backstretch fence, you needed to stay sober enough to keep your balance. The ambulance made a few trips back that way.
I learned that this was pretty darned good entertainment for $6 (covered grandstand), $5 (bleachers) or $4 (infield), and when the prices went up by a buck, I didn’t really mind.
I learned that the whitewashed wooden fence about the track wasn’t strong enough to keep a car inside; seldom was all of it intact at race’s end. I also remember climbing that fence during the State Fair to watch the Jack Kochman Hell Drivers for free, only to have one driver see if he could run close enough to the fence after each ramp stunt to scare us into jumping off – he succeeded a couple of times.
I learned that some good racing could be found outside of “Grand National” weekends. Paul Sawyer would hold a handful of other races at A.R.E. (as the track was called by many back then), and he always called them “Mid-Atlantic Championship” events; they were often held on Wednesday nights.
(A digression: Dave Fulton and I have complained constantly over the years that NASCAR and RIR insist the installation of MUSCO lights in 1995 marked the first time the track had enjoyed permanent lighting. That’s BS; the dirt track had permanent lights, and there are plenty of photos to prove it. It might not have been state-of-the-art lighting, but night racing was regularly held, and races rained out on Sunday were run on a weeknight a few days later, not with temporary lighting as they insist.)
By the time Sawyer decided to pave the track in 1968, I had also discovered Richmond’s Southside Speedway and knew racing could be pretty good on asphalt, too, and it turned out that some memorable events were held on the ½-mile (officially .542) paved fairgrounds oval as well.
A note about that era: NASCAR says the first Xfinity Series race at Richmond was run in 1982, but that’s only when NASCAR made a formal series out of what had been known as “Late Model Sportsman” racing (or just “Sportsman” racing even earlier). There are division champions going back to 1950, when points were accumulated via racing in local weekly events and traveling to special events for those cars at those same regular tracks (like the Bill Bogley Gold Trophy Race at Old Dominion Speedway in Manassas, Va.) or other locations (like the Permatex 300 at Daytona the afternoon before the Daytona 500). Richmond Fairgrounds Raceway, as it was known for a good part of that era, ran a number of those special events, increasingly as preliminaries to the GN/Cup races.
I didn’t get to as many races on the original paved track, because I had moved from Richmond, married and had kids during that period, but I recall a later reminder of the era: towards the end of the .542-miler, Paul Sawyer erected a massive (for the time) new stand just to the first-turn side of the original fairgrounds “main” grandstand. Courtesy of Mr. Fulton when he was holding special events there (for Wrangler or 7-Eleven), Sandy and I sat in those wonderful stands once. Then, when the current facility was built, those were (I think) the only stands from the old track not torn down. At the new Richmond International Raceway, they went from being the largest stands to the smallest, and with that comparison in mind, I looked at them in wonder.
Shortly after RIR was built I got the call from Dave asking if I’d be interested in volunteering there on race weekends. That led to 25 years of interviewing drivers in the pits (until the manufacturers took over that task), writing for the track website, serving as a back-up announcer/master-of-ceremonies in the Infield Media Center, and – eventually – working as kind of the office manager for the place, tasked more than anything else with keeping the two photocopiers working properly and getting help when they didn’t. Copier problems didn’t always bring out the best in me: Jimmy White, one of the nicest PR guys in the business, remarked for years that he’d seen a completely different side of me during one meltdown when both copiers crashed at the same time.
Most other memories, because of what I was doing, involved scenes other than the actual racing: Tony Stewart’s nearly endless victory lane celebration following his first Cup win (virtually all the media folks had gone home by the time he finally was ready for his winner’s interview/news conference; calling the then-retired Kenneth Campbell at home for background on the last Richmond racing fatality when we were afraid Jerry Nadeau was going to be the next one; holding an editorial meeting to decide what common decency required us to excise from Jimmy Spencer’s post-race remarks; sharing my counter space with Miss America for a taco supper.
One indelible image is from one of the years General Motors sponsored a race as the Chevy Looney Tunes 400, and there was a golf cart race around the pit wall (along pit road, then behind it) with Cup drivers racing and poor souls in Looney Tunes cartoon character outfits sitting alongside. During one hairpin turn, Jeff Gordon’s cart swerved a bit, and he fell out, leaving a no-doubt anxious Bugs Bunny (stupid costume smile and all) bouncing around until the cart rolled to a halt. Everyone involved with the event no doubt experienced instant nightmares of never working in racing or marketing again if Jeff actually got hurt during that stunt. Fortunately, he didn’t.
The days were long – usually 40-50 hours over a three-day period – but most of the people were super to work with, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss it a little, but as long as my mind works reasonably well, I’ll have the memories, and when my time comes, I might still see if there’s a way to have at least some of my ashes spread on that to-me hallowed ground.
(Frank’s odds ‘n’ ends)
A lot has changed. In 1963, only four of the 25 starters were listed with sponsors, including two Ray Fox/Holly Farms Chevys. Ten years later things have only changed a little: Richard Petty had STP by then, Junie Donlavey had Truxmore, and K&K Insurance had come along, but local heroes Bill Dennis and Lennie Pond had area Chevy dealers on the quarter panel, and the “where-are-they-now” contingent included Kar-Kare and Sta-Power Industries. By 10 years later, Miller Beer, Gatorade, Wrangler, 7-Eleven, Budweiser and other national entities had joined the fray, but a local like Midlothian Texaco could still sponsor an “independent” racer on a one-shot deal. After that it looks pretty much like today, except that most of the names have changed as corporate marketers have decided to take their millions elsewhere – remember Quaker State, Purex, Dirt Devil, Country Time, Raybestos, Kodak Film, Western Auto, Dupont, Mello Yello, etc.?
In 1963, only about 15% of the starting field consisted of drivers from outside the Southeast. In 2016, only about 20% were from that region.
In 1963, the official attendance was 15,000, approximately the track’s capacity then. NASCAR doesn’t release those numbers, anymore, perhaps because they’re getting too close to the “old days.”
I learned a lot that first year or two: I learned not to wear light-colored clothes to a 250- or 300-lap race on a dirt track, especially if you were going to sit in the bleachers coming off the fourth turn. I learned that, if I’d been a bit smaller, I could have sneaked in through the drain culvert under the second turn, like I saw a couple of other fans do. I learned – by observation, mind you – that, if you were going to sit up in one of the big trees behind the backstretch fence, you needed to stay sober enough to keep your balance. The ambulance made a few trips back that way.
I learned that this was pretty darned good entertainment for $6 (covered grandstand), $5 (bleachers) or $4 (infield), and when the prices went up by a buck, I didn’t really mind.
I learned that the whitewashed wooden fence about the track wasn’t strong enough to keep a car inside; seldom was all of it intact at race’s end. I also remember climbing that fence during the State Fair to watch the Jack Kochman Hell Drivers for free, only to have one driver see if he could run close enough to the fence after each ramp stunt to scare us into jumping off – he succeeded a couple of times.
I learned that some good racing could be found outside of “Grand National” weekends. Paul Sawyer would hold a handful of other races at A.R.E. (as the track was called by many back then), and he always called them “Mid-Atlantic Championship” events; they were often held on Wednesday nights.
(A digression: Dave Fulton and I have complained constantly over the years that NASCAR and RIR insist the installation of MUSCO lights in 1995 marked the first time the track had enjoyed permanent lighting. That’s BS; the dirt track had permanent lights, and there are plenty of photos to prove it. It might not have been state-of-the-art lighting, but night racing was regularly held, and races rained out on Sunday were run on a weeknight a few days later, not with temporary lighting as they insist.)
By the time Sawyer decided to pave the track in 1968, I had also discovered Richmond’s Southside Speedway and knew racing could be pretty good on asphalt, too, and it turned out that some memorable events were held on the ½-mile (officially .542) paved fairgrounds oval as well.
A note about that era: NASCAR says the first Xfinity Series race at Richmond was run in 1982, but that’s only when NASCAR made a formal series out of what had been known as “Late Model Sportsman” racing (or just “Sportsman” racing even earlier). There are division champions going back to 1950, when points were accumulated via racing in local weekly events and traveling to special events for those cars at those same regular tracks (like the Bill Bogley Gold Trophy Race at Old Dominion Speedway in Manassas, Va.) or other locations (like the Permatex 300 at Daytona the afternoon before the Daytona 500). Richmond Fairgrounds Raceway, as it was known for a good part of that era, ran a number of those special events, increasingly as preliminaries to the GN/Cup races.
I didn’t get to as many races on the original paved track, because I had moved from Richmond, married and had kids during that period, but I recall a later reminder of the era: towards the end of the .542-miler, Paul Sawyer erected a massive (for the time) new stand just to the first-turn side of the original fairgrounds “main” grandstand. Courtesy of Mr. Fulton when he was holding special events there (for Wrangler or 7-Eleven), Sandy and I sat in those wonderful stands once. Then, when the current facility was built, those were (I think) the only stands from the old track not torn down. At the new Richmond International Raceway, they went from being the largest stands to the smallest, and with that comparison in mind, I looked at them in wonder.
Shortly after RIR was built I got the call from Dave asking if I’d be interested in volunteering there on race weekends. That led to 25 years of interviewing drivers in the pits (until the manufacturers took over that task), writing for the track website, serving as a back-up announcer/master-of-ceremonies in the Infield Media Center, and – eventually – working as kind of the office manager for the place, tasked more than anything else with keeping the two photocopiers working properly and getting help when they didn’t. Copier problems didn’t always bring out the best in me: Jimmy White, one of the nicest PR guys in the business, remarked for years that he’d seen a completely different side of me during one meltdown when both copiers crashed at the same time.
Most other memories, because of what I was doing, involved scenes other than the actual racing: Tony Stewart’s nearly endless victory lane celebration following his first Cup win (virtually all the media folks had gone home by the time he finally was ready for his winner’s interview/news conference; calling the then-retired Kenneth Campbell at home for background on the last Richmond racing fatality when we were afraid Jerry Nadeau was going to be the next one; holding an editorial meeting to decide what common decency required us to excise from Jimmy Spencer’s post-race remarks; sharing my counter space with Miss America for a taco supper.
One indelible image is from one of the years General Motors sponsored a race as the Chevy Looney Tunes 400, and there was a golf cart race around the pit wall (along pit road, then behind it) with Cup drivers racing and poor souls in Looney Tunes cartoon character outfits sitting alongside. During one hairpin turn, Jeff Gordon’s cart swerved a bit, and he fell out, leaving a no-doubt anxious Bugs Bunny (stupid costume smile and all) bouncing around until the cart rolled to a halt. Everyone involved with the event no doubt experienced instant nightmares of never working in racing or marketing again if Jeff actually got hurt during that stunt. Fortunately, he didn’t.
The days were long – usually 40-50 hours over a three-day period – but most of the people were super to work with, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss it a little, but as long as my mind works reasonably well, I’ll have the memories, and when my time comes, I might still see if there’s a way to have at least some of my ashes spread on that to-me hallowed ground.
(Frank’s odds ‘n’ ends)
A lot has changed. In 1963, only four of the 25 starters were listed with sponsors, including two Ray Fox/Holly Farms Chevys. Ten years later things have only changed a little: Richard Petty had STP by then, Junie Donlavey had Truxmore, and K&K Insurance had come along, but local heroes Bill Dennis and Lennie Pond had area Chevy dealers on the quarter panel, and the “where-are-they-now” contingent included Kar-Kare and Sta-Power Industries. By 10 years later, Miller Beer, Gatorade, Wrangler, 7-Eleven, Budweiser and other national entities had joined the fray, but a local like Midlothian Texaco could still sponsor an “independent” racer on a one-shot deal. After that it looks pretty much like today, except that most of the names have changed as corporate marketers have decided to take their millions elsewhere – remember Quaker State, Purex, Dirt Devil, Country Time, Raybestos, Kodak Film, Western Auto, Dupont, Mello Yello, etc.?
In 1963, only about 15% of the starting field consisted of drivers from outside the Southeast. In 2016, only about 20% were from that region.
In 1963, the official attendance was 15,000, approximately the track’s capacity then. NASCAR doesn’t release those numbers, anymore, perhaps because they’re getting too close to the “old days.”
Richard Petty takes the checkered flag for one
of the last races run on dirt at Richmond.
of the last races run on dirt at Richmond.
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The dual between Junior Johnson, seen here (I believe) at Darlington, and eventual winner Joe Weatherly made a permanent race fan out of this writer.
J.D. McDuffie and Tighe Scott recover from a tangle while eventual
winner Neil Bonnett cruises past during the 1977 Capital City 400
on the first paved Richmond Fairgrounds Raceway.
winner Neil Bonnett cruises past during the 1977 Capital City 400
on the first paved Richmond Fairgrounds Raceway.
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LeeRoy Yarbrough and Tiny Lund were among the drivers who encountered
what don't look like temporary light poles at Richmond.
what don't look like temporary light poles at Richmond.
In 1973, half the field piled up on the front stretch and Lennie Pond’s car was incinerated after last-place Baxter Price spun in front of the leaders. Those in attendance couldn’t believe there were no serious injuries from this one.
Here’s Harry Gant pitting in a shot that clearly shows the old covered grandstand
at Richmond, which finally gave way when the current RIR was built.
at Richmond, which finally gave way when the current RIR was built.
To the Victor go the spoils...