Thursday Night Thunder

 

I bid you welcome gentle readers, and our always cordial greeting to our assigned reader of all things NASCAR on this December morning. Your scribe hasn’t been too much into the rush of ideas for racing seasons to come. NASCAR, one might imagine, must be deluged with both logical and illogical thoughts on how to make the future better and bring fans back to the tracks.

One idea mentioned by Steve Phelps in his State of the Sport conference at Homestead was pairing weekends with IndyCar. That idea brought about a conversation with someone that would prefer to remain anonymous, but it didn’t warmly embrace the IndyCar idea. Instead, we both loved the idea of pairing, but with a very different open-wheel series… perhaps the World of Outlaws, or any or all of the USAC Sprints, Midgets and Silver Crown cars.

Years ago, starting in 1988, ESPN ran a series they called “Thursday Night Thunder”, hosted by Dave Despain and narrated by Gary Lee, Larry Rice and/or Steve Chassey. At a later point the program migrated to Saturday nights and became “Saturday Night Thunder.” It was speculated at the time, but never confirmed, that Ted Turner had taken exception to folks calling it “TNT”, though it aired on ESPN. The series presented an interesting mix of old established names such as Foyt and Bettenhausen along with youngsters named Gordon, Stewart, Irwin, Kahne, Leffler and many more.

The wonderful part of that is we learned to love those kids long before they even decided to go the stock car route instead of the IndyCar option. When they each came in turn to NASCAR, they brought along an established fan base of their own and were welcomed with open arms. That is something that isn’t happening at present, as we’re locked in and choked down by the Charter system that gives an opportunity to only a chosen few. NASCAR is desperately in need of something such as this to introduce the fans to new up and comers in their own element and not have to be dependent on being “noticed” or signed at age 12, to one of the “Mega Teams”, and we all know who they are.

These cars, in any configuration, on either asphalt or dirt, are fun to watch. Fans would once again see the kind of racing, complete with “Slide Jobs” galore, that once made NASCAR famous. All of the cars are small and really overpowered, producing tons of horsepower to move maybe a third of the weight of our bulky stock cars. I just happen to have a short video of the very first Thursday Night Thunder in 1988. By the time the show moved to Saturdays, it became more polished but I kind of like this first effort as the broadcasters got to know the racers and each other.

Since the cars can perform on varied surfaces, they could do dirt pairings at Charlotte, Texas and Las Vegas, each of whom have a dirt track on premises. There might be others of which your scribe is not aware, but just the idea of seeing the lightweights running in concert with the big cars is exciting to me, and I’ll bet there are many more fans out there who see the possibilities of really shaking up and improving the “Show” on any given weekend. This would also free up the Xfinity and Truck series to run independently of the Cup cars… something they desperately need to do to regain their identities.

What say you gentle readers? Does the thought of that sort of weekend pairing sound appealing to you? How about you NASCAR? Do you see the positive logic of building a fan base for the up and coming young ones from the USAC series or World of Outlaws before they come to NASCAR as unknowns? This scribe feels it of major import to reconnect with the building blocks that got us to the top, and this is certainly one of them.

We do have another video, this one from a rain delay at IRP in June of 1990. The last part is pretty much a typical rain delay, but the beginning has a wonderful intro to and discussion with a very young Jeff Gordon. It was things such as this that allowed us to know him long before he came to our NASCAR ranks. Wouldn’t it make sense to try another time what worked so very well in the 1990s?


***** PLEA FOR HELP *****

A couple of days ago, I received a request from a reader for any photos we could locate of his grandfather, Glenn Guthrie. Glenn was a racer in the Modified and Late Model divisions in the 1950s, 60s and 70s. His home was in Maryland, and he raced up and down the East Coast, as far north as New England. He was 1959 Modified National Champion.

If anyone reading this missive has any pictures of Glenn Guthrie, or knows of websites where such pics might be found, please contact me at the email link below. Grandson has been searching for some time, so the obvious large sites have been pretty well scoured. It’s a huge world of racing out there, and a monumental task to search for that needle in the haystack. The biggest problem is that folks back then didn’t take as many pics as they do today. It was expensive! Compounding that, most folks never bothered to label pics… they knew who was in them, and little thought was given to the time when they would no longer be here to tell us.

Your scribe keeps a wonderful website dedicated to serving the race fans in any way we can. I do that now by myself… at age 80… and have written on a weekly basis for almost 6 years now on that site. Between my greybeard staff and me, we have already kicked up a few from dusty corners, but would like more, so I turn to you my gentle readers. Can you help? I thank you in advance for anything you can send me.


That’s enough for now. I think everyone gets the gist of the Thursday Night Thunder thing, so let’s go right to our Classic Country Closeout as Christmas draws ever closer. This week we’ll hear Johnny Cash doing Christmas his way. Johnny’s rendition of “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” is my personal favorite. He gives that song something no one else does.

It stands today as a Christmas Carol, but was originally penned on Christmas Day in 1863 out of anger and despair at the wounding of his son and death of his wife, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It speaks of the atrocities perpetrated brother upon brother and friend upon friend in our own war between the states. It was set to music in 1872, and I honestly don’t know when Johnny Cash recorded it the first time, but since hearing him sing it, no one else does it as well. Please enjoy Johnny as he sings this old standard. (Complete words follow… not all are ever included in the Carol version)

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Till ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime,
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then from each black, accursed mouth, 
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth," I said;
"For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men.”

 

Be well gentle readers, and remember to keep smiling. It looks so good on you!

~PattyKay