I was honored in 1997 to be in attendance in New York when my employer, Paul Sawyer (along with Bud Moore, one of the two greatest men I've ever met in auto racing) was presented the Buddy Shuman Award as NASCAR embarked on its 50th Anniversary season, as recapped in the Gettsyburg Times and Albany Herald:
Ford and Roush Racing have received a double blow regarding drivers with hopeful futures with Trevor Bayne revealing his M-S diagnosis and Travis Pastrana abnnouncing he is giving up on his NASCAR experiment.
Travis Pastrana leaving NASCAR after season finale
Nov. 11, 2013 6:16 PM EST
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) Travis Pastrana said Monday he's leaving NASCAR after this weekend's season finale Nationwide Series race at Homestead.
Pastrana announced his decision on his Facebook page. He cited a lack of sponsorship, a desire to spend time with his wife and new daughter and frustration over his struggles in NASCAR as his reasons for leaving the sport.
"It's tough to step back now and prove the critics were right, but unfortunately my results were not good enough to get the sponsors I needed to appropriately fund next season," Pastrana wrote. "My wife Lyn-z has been more than supportive of my foray into NASCAR, often times being my biggest source of encouragement and support. But as my wife had to take a step back from being a professional skater to let me chase my goals in racing, I too need to take a step back and look at my situation as a father and husband.
"The NASCAR schedule is grueling and takes enormous sacrifices from those you love to make work," he added. "With a lack of funding next year, now is my opportunity to sit back and offer support as she chases her goals."
The Pastrana's welcomed daughter, Addy, in early September.
One of the most popular action sports stars in the world and a 17-time medal winner at the X Games, Pastrana first tried NASCAR in 2011. He was scheduled to make his Nationwide debut that July, but broke his leg in an X Games accident two days before the race. It delayed his debut until last season, when Pastrana ran nine races.
He joined Roush-Fenway Racing this season and has four top-10s heading into Saturday's finale. He's 14th in the Nationwide standings and has a 21.4 average finish.
"I hate to quit and I hate to fail, but sometimes things work out as they should," Pastrana wrote. "I've never been able to figure out the finesse required in pavement racing and that is disappointing, but I'm looking forward to driving more rally and racing more off-road trucks and there will be some announcements on those fronts shortly! My wife is excited to get back to skating on the Nitro Circus Live Tour and I'm excited to spend some quality time with my girls."
Wish all the best for this talented and extremely likable young man.
Nov 12, 1:08 PM EST
NASCAR's Bayne says he has multiple sclerosis
By JENNA FRYER
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) -- Determined to learn exactly what caused his mystery illness 2011, Trevor Bayne made repeated visits to the Mayo Clinic over the last two years, asking questions about his health and medical history.
The youngest winner in Daytona 500 history wasn't sick and he wasn't suffering from any of the symptoms - nausea, fatigue, double vision and numbness in his arm - that had sidelined Bayne for five races in 2011.
He just wanted an answer.
Bayne finally got it in June when doctors confirmed that the 22-year-old Bayne has multiple sclerosis, a diagnosis he revealed publicly Tuesday.
"I think MS takes time to diagnose and, as a doctor, you don't want to jump right in and give a diagnosis to somebody," Bayne said. "I think a smart doctor is going to continue to do things. Obviously, it's a different kind of condition than something where you can just see it immediately, so over time they just evaluate you and the doctors just run a bunch of different tests."
Bayne, who was 20 when he won the Daytona 500 two seasons ago, will compete as scheduled at Homestead-Miami Speedway this weekend in the Nationwide and Sprint Cup Series finales. He will also run a full Nationwide schedule next season for Roush Fenway Racing and a partial Cup schedule for The Wood Brothers.
Bayne's younger sister, Sarah, also has MS, but he said the disease wasn't something doctors were particularly looking for when he was hospitalized in 2011.
"MS is not a hereditary or family kind of condition, so it's something that is an individual basis," he said. "They don't connect them at all because it's not a family kind of thing."
Bayne first felt numbness in his arm during a race at Texas in 2011, six weeks after his Daytona 500 victory. At the time, he assumed it was related to an insect bite on his elbow that had become irritated and developed a rash.
He was admitted to the Mayo Clinic three weeks later for nausea, fatigue and double vision. Bayne underwent a spinal tap, doctors ruled out Lyme disease, and ultimately discharged him with a diagnosis of an "inflammatory condition." It was never made clear if it was related to the insect bite, and Bayne said in later interviews he believed he was suffering from Lyme disease.
Now he's not sure, and says the 2011 illness "is what led to my eventual diagnosis this year."
"Obviously, I've been going to the Mayo Clinic regularly for checkups and evaluations, and they started checking on me and researching," he said. "We didn't have a diagnosis then, so this is what has led to the diagnosis."
MS is a potentially disabling disease in which the immune system attacks the central nervous system, which includes the brain, spinal cord and optic nerves. Symptoms can be mild, such as fatigue, or severe, including paralysis or loss of vision. There is no cure, but treatment can help manage symptoms and reduce the progress of the disease.
MS is not technically hereditary, but having a relative such as a parent or sibling with MS can increase an individual's risk of developing the disease over the general population. Studies have shown there is a higher prevalence of certain genes in populations with higher rates of MS, according to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.
Roush Fenway Racing President Steve Newmark said Bayne was dogged in his push for a definitive diagnosis.
"I think that it was refreshing that he actually got a diagnosis because there had been some uncertainty about what had unfolded previously, so I know it was comforting to him and that's why he pursued it so strongly," Newmark said. "The reality of it is if Trevor wasn't a race car driver and didn't have the means, he probably would never have been diagnosed at this point. It was through his determination of just regularly getting checked that it came to light."
Bayne, who competed in his first triathlon last December, said he's not taking any medication and suffers no symptoms. He was diagnosed during a whirlwind three weeks in June in which he was married, making frequent trips to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota and won his only Nationwide race of the year at Iowa.
He said he needed time to accept and process the diagnosis, and chose now to go public with his disease because he's doesn't want to hide from it. Bayne is a devout Christian, and often gives motivational speeches.
"I think anybody that gets a diagnosis is going to sit back and think about it, `What does this mean? What does it mean to my family? What does it mean to me and my partners? Our team?' The more and more I thought about it, and the more and more I realized that I was fine, the more and more it sunk in that everything is going to be OK," Bayne said.
"Why not help other people through their struggles and point them in the right direction? For me, I feel like that's what I'm called to do, so why be silent about it and why just sit back on our heels and not do anything? I'm a race car driver, that's what I do, but it's not all of who I am."
That's some really interesting background, Jimmy.
Jim, I guess nothing is immune.
Ironic that just this morning I posted an article about Carrell Speedway, near Gardena, California - site of the first ever NASCAR race west of the Mississippi - that included this passage below:
Carrell Speedway was built by Emmett J. Malloy in 1940 on land owned by Judge Frank R. Carrell, a longtime justice of the peace and community leader in Gardena. Carrell was a member of the first graduating class of Gardena High School in 1907, and over the years owned a large amount of property in the area, including a share of Hollywood Park racetrack. (Judge Carrell died of a heart attack on Sept. 27, 1947, and hundreds turned out to pay tribute to him at his memorial service.)
Sandeep... that's Russ Thompson... I should be so young!!! And, it does look like it was just photographed yeaterday, doesn't it?
Average spped for 100 miles nearing 55 mph on a half-mile dirt track in 1951 was very fast.
An interesting article on the history of the half-mile dirt Carrell Speedway in Gardena, California, which hosted the "other" NASCAR Grand National race on November 11, 1951 and was the site of the first NASCAR race staged west of the Mississippi River. It was also the site of the Mickey Rooney film "The Big Wheel".
Carrell Speedway in Gardena
Carrell Speedway in Gardena, left, in undated aerial photo. Vermont Avenue runs diagonally through the center of the photo. The Vermont Drive-In, right center, opened in 1944, could make parking for either venue a challenge.
Carrell Speedway in Gardena was part of a whole circuit of local automobile raceways scattered around in the Los Angeles area in the first half of the 20 th century.
The half-mile dirt track stood near the corner of 174 th Street and Vermont Avenue. Though not far from the site of the more well-remembered Ascot Park, the two racetracks were not built on the exact same spot; the Ascot raceway was located south of Carrell, at 182 nd Street and Vermont in Harbor Gateway. (Because of its proximity to Gardena, track operators always referred to it as being in Gardena.)
Carrell Speedway was built by Emmett J. Malloy in 1940 on land owned by Judge Frank R. Carrell, a longtime justice of the peace and community leader in Gardena. Carrell was a member of the first graduating class of Gardena High School in 1907, and over the years owned a large amount of property in the area, including a share of Hollywood Park racetrack. (Judge Carrell died of a heart attack on Sept. 27, 1947, and hundreds turned out to pay tribute to him at his memorial service.)
Program for foreign races.
Carrell Speedway quickly became a hotbed of West Coast racing, hosting all kinds of events, from open-wheel racing to stock cars, sprint cars, motorcycles and foreign cars. It remained a dirt track until October 1948, when it was paved.
Some of the eras most popular racers competed there, including Johnny Parsons , Lou Figaro , Troy Ruttman , Marshall Teague and Frank Rebel Mundy .
In retrospect, perhaps the most famous driver to cut his teeth on racing at Carrell was 1963 Indianapolis 500 winner and current Rolling Hills resident Parnelli Jones , who writes about his days at Carrell in the early 1950s in his new book, As a Matter of Fact, I AM Parnelli Jones . Hell be signing copies of it at Barnes and Noble in Torrance on Wednesday, May 1, at 7:00 p.m.
Another famous person associated with Carrell Speedway was film star Mickey Rooney . He played scuffling mechanic-turned race car driver Billy Coy in The Big Wheel, which was released in 1949. The film was set at Carrell, and used a good deal of stock footage from races held there.
The nascent NASCAR racing organization was only in its third year of existence in 1951, but the fourth race of that season turned out to be historic in hindsight: The stock car race at Carrell won by Marshall Teague in his Hudson Hornet on April 8, 1951, was the first NASCAR race to be held west of the Mississippi River.
Racing continued to be popular during the early 1950s. Legendary racing promoter J.C. Agajinian, who went on to operate Ascot Park for decades, also managed Carrell Speedway for two separate stints, from 1947-1950, when he had a falling out with track management, and then from Dec. 1953 until the tracks closure on June 1, 1954.
The tracks closure was announced in April 1954, when W.L. Bolstad of the California Department of Public Works told track lease holders (and brothers) Bob, Ken and Dee Durr that the state had purchased the right of way going through the speedway site for construction related to the Harbor Freeway.
Track officials decided to hold a series of big races over the final weekend of its operation, including the fourth annual Poor Mans Indianapolis, a 500-mile NASCAR event featuring 55 late-model stock cars. (John Soares won $1,500 for his first-place finish in a field of 32 cars.) A final race featuring NASCAR hardtops was held on May 31, 1954, before Carrell Speedway went dark for the last time.
