The background:
Dale Earnhardt had been miserable throughout 1983 in Bud Moore's Wrangler sponsored Fords. There were serious valve spring issues and Dale blew one engine after another. He also hated the new, aerodynamic Thunderbird. He called it "the football. " In late summer 1983 I went to Detroit and had a lunch meeting in the revolving restaurant on top of Cobo Hall by the Westin Hotel with Edsel Ford and Michael Kranefuss, the "new" Ford racing guy. The purpose of the meeting was to try to get some additional aid for Ford's engine program at Bud Moore's and to keep Earnhardt happy. Edsel Ford was cordial and one of the nicest men I've ever met. I also dined with him that evening at an exclusive French restaurant. Kranefuss seemed more concerned with things like the Zakspeed Roush racing effort with Klaus Ludwig and the Ford Probe and looked down on stock car racing. At lunch, Kranefuss very succintly stated that Ford didn't care whether Earnhardt continued to drive Fords or not. According to Kranefuss, Ford did not consider Earnhardt to be a"championship caliber" (his words) driver and thought his 1980 Cup Championship was a not to be repeated fluke. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, never have so many been so wrong about so few.
Shortly thereafter, arrangements began to be made to put Earnhardt back in his favored Chevrolets for 1984, reuniting with Richard Childress Racing, sponsored by Wrangler. Wrangler still had a year left on Bud's contract and would honor that last year. Childress' driver, Ricky Rudd was hired by Bud after some preliminary negotiations with Tim Richmond. Earnhardt absolutely hated the idea that he would be sharing the Wrangler sponsorship and advertising with Ricky. It was nothing against Ricky, Dale just didn't want to share. I can't even begin to imagine the conversation some years later when Richard told Dale he was expanding to a two car team.
Fast forward to December 1983. Time for the New York Winston Cup Awards Banquet in New York City. Wrangler's advertising agency of record who had concocted the original "One Tough Customer" campaign (Dancer, Fitzgerald, Sample)featuring Dale in Wrangler Jeans would need to produce some new, "softer" ads featuring both Dale and Ricky in the new "Live It to the Limit in Wranglers" campaign. We booked photo studio time in New York with a well known sports celebrity photographer for most of the day Friday preceding the banquet. Dale let us know he didn't want to do ads with Ricky, but he had a contract.
I arranged to pick up Earnhardt at the Piedmont Airlines luggage claim at Laguardia Airport. While waiting, someone tapped me on the shoulder. It was Earnhardt, or at least I thought it was. The man standing behind me, dressed in a coat and tie and grinning from ear to ear, had NO MUSTACHE! Earnhardt had completely shaved off his signature mustache to protest having his photos made in an ad shoot with Ricky Rudd. I was flabbergasted and I think Dale was hoping I'd start screaming or something. I didn't.
The only thing I remember about riding to the photo studio was Earnhardt asking the limo driver to "lock the doors." That was funny.
At the shoot, nobody let on that anything was the matter. However, one other thing was wrong. All of the Wrangler shirts we had were way too large for Ricky. The photographer solved that problem by using clothespins behind Ricky's back to make the shirts form fitting.
In those pre "photo shop" days, an ad agency studio artist air brushed wonderful mustaches on all of Dale Earnhardt's photos. If you ever see any 1984 season Wrangler ads with Dale Earnhardt and/or Ricky Rudd, Dale has an airbrushed mustache in all of them and Ricky has clothespins running up and down his back. Just another little behind the scenes peek at the off track action.
You may remember that Ricky's first ride in Bud's car aborted in his barrel roll off turn 1 in the season opening Daytona Busch Clash. After having his eyes taped open the following Sunday, Ricky ran the 500 andthe following week won at Richmond for Bud wearing a flack jacket to protect his ribs. During that Richmond race on the old half mile Ricky and Dale rubbed some serious sheet metal in those two Wrangler cars, beginning quite a rivalry.
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"Any Day is Good for Stock Car Racing"
updated by @dave-fulton: 12/05/16 04:02:07PM
