what's the deal with cowboy hats?

I know this is going to annoy me for the next twenty years so I may as well investigate it now. One of those Dillon boys has a fondness for wearing cowboy hats. The boy was born in North Carolina, and as far as I know, the state does not have a history of cowboys. It's as ridiculous as me wearing a space helmet in New York City because I think astronauts are pretty cool. I'm originally from the Northeast, nobody there wore buckles on their shoes because they were proud of their New England heritage. People from Virginia don't strut around in powdered wigs because most of our early presidents came from that state.

I know why Richard Petty wears his. He didn't enjoy the "hat dance" in victory lane. He started the habit before NASCAR was excessively commercialized and he's Richard Petty. He can get away with it. This young kid is going to have to do the hat dance whether he wants to or not.

I know why country stars wear cowboy hats. They're old and bald and they don't want to admit it. The rest of us buy a red sports car, but musicians have to look young because mostly young people buy music. This Dillon character is not old, and I don't think he's bald yet.

What makes a man from East of the Mississippi dress up like he's a six year old playing in the backyard? Why not a Daniel Boone coonskin cap? At least that would be authentic to your roots. Maybe a kilt. Junior has a whole Western town on his property and he obviously likes old John Wayne movies. But he doesn't ride a horse into town when he needs to pick up more Mountain Dew.

Do you have to borrow the cowboy culture because they took away the rebel flag and they won't let you display your own heritage? Please let me know if they try to take away Daisy Dukes. I'll join you on the front lines to fight that one.

I'm with you all the way on this one, Andy.

I know why we had Dale Earnhardt wear the hat in the 80s - we were promoting Wrangler western wear. And, Eddie Gossage is determined at Texas to hand out pistols, rifles and ten gallon hats at every race. Jeff Hammond has long been into that deal and there is a little rodeo culture up above the Mooresville area.

Personally, I hate those stupid hats. They once told me I couldn't enter a PRCA rodeo arena in Wichita, Kansas because I wasn't wearing a ten gallon hat. I told 'em it was fine with me. I didn't own a cowboy hat, I hated them and I hated rodeo and all of its nasty smells. I was only working the event because I had to. Our money was much better spent on stock cars than the bulls where the cowboys slept all day and didn't understand personal appearances.

Well, I wear a cowboy hat so I guess that really doesn't speak well for me. And I was wearing them before Richard Petty was.

Special exemption for Kings & Legends!!! Now, how do I unruffle any feathers I've ruffled?!

Well, I'm aware of that but didn't want to address it on a personal basis. Since you mention that you wore them before Richard, it seems to have even less bearing on the overall question. I have fair skin, so I've been a hat wearer for nearly forty years. For a time I had a fetish for fedoras but thankfully I grew out of it long before it became a hipster fad. Now I just wear a ball cap or a broad brimmed straw hat if I'm going to be outside for a long time.

But somehow Southern has become Western, and those are two different cultures and regions in my mind. As I said, I draw the line somewhere around the Mississippi River or more precisely, the state borders running from North Dakota down to Texas. The impetus seems to comer from country music, originally country & western. But there was a difference between Appalachian country and western swing. The trend seemed to have become more prominent in the Nineties when it became less a symbol of where you were from than how much hair you had left.

Now we've got some young punk who's neither bald nor a musician. It bothers the heck outta me that he's wearing a cowboy hat when he's a good 500 miles from the Great Plains. It strikes me as a phony image building exercise. I want race drivers not some polished media star. That hat is going to bother me every time I see it. It's going to bother me even more if they keep pushing this guy in my face as the next big thing. I could see Cale in a cowboy hat, but Austin ain't man enough yet.

The black hat looked pretty good on H.B. Bailey, both a Texan and a maverick through and through.

Richard's been wearing that hat since forever but I still don't think of it as "his thing". I've seen dozens of pictures of him without it and I don't think twice. But when he takes off those sunglasses, he's undercover. To me, the sunglasses are Richard's thing. He looked a lot better when he had the long sideburns to go with them though.

I've seen a pic of the King with a hat in 1969.

And he wore a less than conventional "cowboy" hat a few times in 73.

But I don't think of his wearing hats regularly until the early 1980s. I don't think it was avoid the "hat dance" because his trips to victory lane were so few by then. Instead, I think he started doing so to support Kyle Petty's Boot Barn and the western wear sold by Kyle & Pattie.

My feathers NOT ruffled my friend. You may need to talk with The King however.

I started wearing them in 1963 for real but had been wearing the cowboy hats as a kid for a long time because some of my heroes were cowboys.

Since nobody has mentioned it yet, as far as Austin Dillon and his cowboy hat - his name - Austin, as in the Texas city, and Dillon, as in Matt Dillon, the Sheriff of the classic western "Gunsmoke" TV series. His name is about as "Cowboy" as it gets, andthe hat is to play that upasa cowboy gunslinger racerimage. Nevermind that he's from North Carolina. You're thinking too hard. Don't do that! It spoils the image game.

Only 3 years old, but here's a terrific shot of the King & his hat in freezing weather at a private aviation facility in Quincy, Illinois in January 2011 as photographed by Phil Carlson for the Quincy Herald-Whig:

Wonder what the King thought of Kyle's head gear?

Motorsports Images and Archives photo

Lol Andy. Actually, my need to wear hats became even more pressing once my hair started to thin and it is easy to sunburn my scalp. When I'm on the beach with my grandsons, I actually wear a "do rag" to keep from burning. They don't know whether to consider me a motorcycle rider or a football player.

And I still want a Petty cowboy hat! haha.

Back in 2008 at Chicagoland, the week of the 50th Anniversary of Petty's first race, during driver intros, they all wore a Charlie One Horse Hat! pretty neat.

And when you win at Texas....

Kyle tried the more conventional route back in 1969 when he was about 9 years old. (Photo courtesy of Don Smyle)

And, before Awesome Bill, there was Wild Bill Elliott!!!

Andy, I'm just happy to be from where I'm from, but most of all I'm happy that we have such a great group of folks here who can have such fun with a subject about cowboy hats. Thanks for that post. It generated a lot of responses which is great.

Oh, and I am putting all of my cowboy hats up for sale at $5,000.00 each. Once they are all sold, I'll just stick to the caps with "The Legend" on the front. lol

every body know me in cowboy hat

Everybody knows you Ray, by the smile!!!

Racing starts this weekend. That should make me less cranky. I think you might donate one of your hats to the NASCAR Hall of Fame. It's not right that DW is the only Legend represented.

Don't know if Chase's hat has been "blocked" - but, he appears to be a chip off the ole block.

• And, a car owner I was involved with VERY (less than 2 months) briefly - J.D. "Boss Hog" Stacy :

Didnt Austin start with the hat deal after he won at Dallas in trucks and someone planted the 10 gallon hat on his head hat

In 1981 at Michigan, RR member, John Betts captured a young female NASCAR fan confined to a wheelchair holding her cowboy hat in her lap. She had exchanged it for a Wrangler baseball cap given to her by Dale Earnhardt on pit road.