Speaking of songs about Fireball, here is one John Hiatt released a few years ago. Hiatt is a helluva songwriter for those unfamiliar with him. He's had some great hits such as Perfectly Good Guitar, Crazy Little Thing Called Love (recorded by Bonnie Raitt), Have A LIttle Faith In Me, Tennessee Plates, Drive South, Slow Turning, etc.
This one isn't EXACTLY about Fireball. Just that he's a bit of an influence for it and gets a mention.
Sad news from Franklin, TN. This morning, long-time resident and businessman R.C. Alexander passed away.
R.C. and his sons owned several dealerships near us here in Franklin and other parts of middle Tennessee. From a racing perspective, he fielded cars for his son Mike, Darrell Waltrip, Red Farmer, and others.
I'm quite certain RR member Russ Thompson could add a lot more info and photos here of R.C.'s time in racing at Nashville.
R.C. and driver Jimmy Griggs
And DW in R.C.'s Ford (one of Russ' photos)
All 3 photos sourced here: http://www.pbase.com/bigcav/late_model_racing
Wow! That's pretty bad. But this makes me think of how much bad luck has happened at Pocono. That wreck, Davey Allison is 1987, Jr and Steve Park in 2002. I can't really think of all the wrecks, but I do know that there are about 8 or so bad wrecks like that throughout the years.
To your earlier question about Alabama and the elephant mascot, I may have an answer for you. My son and I were in Tuscaloosa for a college visit just a couple of weeks ago. That very subject came up during our campus tour. SUPPOSEDLY its origins date back to the 1920s. Alabama's football team went to LA to play in the Rose Bowl. Many cargo trunks were purchased to ship all of the players' and team's gear. I don't recall the name of the luggage maker, but its logo was an elephant. Apparently the host hotel and sportswriters out there assumed Alabama's logo was the same elephant. Even thought it wasn't at the time, the team adopted it afterwards and it remains that way today. We may have been played by the student tour guide, but the story at least seemed plausible. In the end for me, maybe it won't matter since my son has decided he won't play to enroll at Bama.
You may want to check with the following papers I know they were around because they had a rookie reporter that followed each step you would take for a couple of years. He turned out some good articles though. I can not remember his name but check the archives of the following. The Times,Trenton or The Star-Ledger. Good Luck
Originally proposed the following as a blog here, but perhaps its better served as a discussion thread.
July 12 will be the 40th anniversary of Richard Petty's win in the Schaefer 300 at Trenton Speedway in New Jersey. I'm a life long Petty fan and several friends of mine and I are members of a self-appointed Schaefer Beer Racing Hall of Fame. (Many of our more recent Schaefer-related racing adventures are blogged here .)
I'm wanting to write a blog entry about the King's win on July 12, 1970 at the kidney shaped track.
I'm always on the lookout for new info on Petty history. But I'll tell ya - info on this race is very elusive. I have 2 photos provided by a friend who attended the race as a kid, but that's it. Google searches haven't
been much help beyond the finishing order. Even searching Google's newspaper and book archives hasn't yielded much.
This site has been a goldmine of fantastic photos, memories, anecdotes, etc. I'm hoping there is a vein of such information here about the 1970 race at Trenton. I'll appreciate any photos, stories, web links, you'd like to share. Feel free to contact me at my Racers Reunion page or post something at RR for all to see.
Would love to see photos,programs, ticket stubs, anecdotes/memories, etc. I'll be glad to source anything that comes my way in the blog.
Excerpted this chapter about Peanut from book titled Blue Ridge Chronicles:A Decade of Dispatches from Southwest Virginia .
