That Google News Archive is an amazing place. Things you've forgotten and things you never knew just pop right up when you least expect it. Such was the case for me a moment ago.
While looking for some info on my old eastern North Carolina stomping ground at Wilson County Speedway , an amazing piece flew up in my face. It was a 1975 Associated Press report of all the many folks gathered in Raleigh, North Carolina speaking AGAINST the ERA - Equal Rights Amendment - at the time one of the biggest stories in these United States.
What jumped right off the page at me was WHO was being quoted in the story. It was none other than Patricia Howell . Many women know Pat as the gazillion $$$ author of hundreds of best selling "Romance Novels."
But in 1975, Pat was married to my old friend (deceased) Jerry Howell. Jerry was employed by General Electric in Goldsboro, NC and was also an excellent motorsports photographer on the Cup circuit, as well as the motorsports writer for the Goldsboro (NC) News-Argus . Jerry, for a short period of time, also promoted the famed ghost track, Wilson County Speedway - "Gem of the East."
Pat, an outstanding journalist in her own right (she was president of the National Motorsports Press Association when I joined in 1981) , was handling the now defunct Wilson track's public relations in 1975.
You'll see that Pat is quoted as saying the "liberals and radicals are trying to rob women of their pedestal." She goes on to say (paraphrasing) that being disciminated against helped her to achieve.
If you never knew Pat, she was a "tour de force." Picture the late blonde 1960s Roller Derby queen, Joanie Weston of the San Francisco Bay Area Bombers and you can picture Pat.
Joanie Weston - Roller Derby Queen
PATRICIA HAGAN HOWELL- NASCAR Journalist, ERA Opponent, Best Selling Author
Our RR member, NB Arnold was very good friends with Pat and Jerry Howell. He worked with them, traveled with them and stayed with them. I'd be very interested to know if NB ever heard Pat talk about women's rights and racing? Politics, women and racing usually make for very strange bedfellows.
I never dreamed that the place that hosted dirt track Grand National racing in NASCAR's "Golden Era" and brought us weekly competition by fellows like Wayne Andrews, Al Grinnan, Mutt Powell, and Chubby Thompkins once got its name in the papers by having its spokesperson oppose the Equal Rights Amendment in a speech to the North Carolina Legislature. You never know what you'll trip over when you follow auto racing.
And, how can it be possible that 38 years have passed since 1975? That was the year Joyce and I bought our first home in Wilson and the year our first daughter was born at Wilson Memorial Hospital. I can see, just like it was yesterday, Al & Mutt going down into turn one side-by-side in a cloud of dust at Wilson on a summer Saturday night in 1975 - neither giving an inch - just like Denny Hamlin and Joey Logano. Now they're both gone.
I bet Pat Howell could write a darned interesting Danica Patrick story if she ever decided to just once more wear her racing hat!
Patricia Hagan
Author profile
born
Atlanta, Georgia, The United States
genre
Romance
About this author
Aka Patricia Hagan Howell.
Pat is the published author of over forty books of romantic fiction. Several of her titles have appeared on the New York Times Bestseller list. One of her books, "Ocean of Dreams", is based on her own shipboard romance when she met her former husband, a Norwegian engineer.
She is also a former Radio/TV Motorsports Journalist, covering NASCAR Grand National Stock Car Racing. Her work has won many awards by the National Motorsports Press Association.
Pat has cruised the eastern and western Caribbean extensively, as well as the Greek Islands, the fjords of Norway all the way to the North Cape, and has made several transatlantic crossings.
She prefers traveling single, because it gives her more opportunities to meet and make new friends. While she admits going solo is not for everyone, she says for her it is perfect, because she is an outgoing person, and, being a writer, enjoys meeting new "characters."
The only thing she does not like about traveling is having to leave behind her best friend and companion, Krysy, a 14-year old Wire-haired fox terrier
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"Any Day is Good for Stock Car Racing"
updated by @dave-fulton: 03/16/19 11:37:25AM
