Car number and sponsor / owner connections
Stock Car Racing History
Have to ask our own RR member Jimmy Johnson if it was just a coincidence when Jeff Finley carried QuicShine 99 sponsorship on his #99 ARCA ride.
Forum Activity for @dave-fulton
Stock Car Racing History
NASCAR BANQUET IN CHARLOTTE
Current NASCAR
I think you're spot on, Bill, about the current France family leadership wanting to distance itself from the south. One of the first real tasks Bill, Jr. let Brian handle when he was "in training" in California with Dennis Huth and Ken Clapp in the mid-80s, was to arrange for radio commercials to promote the Talladega track. Brian immediately fired the Alabama agency producing spots using Eli Gold (by that time considered an Alabamian) and hired a California agency and talent with disastrous results.
The original New York Banquets (I attended the first in December 1981 - 1998) were very classy and dignified. The first year (1981) it was held in the Waldorf's Starlight Ballroom, then in the Grand Ballroom in following years. Originally hosed by Barney Hall and later by Bob Jenkins when ESPN began televising, they were very well done affairs without the stupidity of a host who knew nothing about NASCAR.
Bill, Jr. and RJ Reynolds wanted the Banquet in New York because that was where most of the CEOs were located, as well as most of the major ad agencies. It was never to gain national media exposure, as some have written. All of the CEO and agency wives encouraged their husbands to attend. I can attest that my wife enjoyed the New York shopping excursions with other NASCAR wives. The City was beautiful at that time of year and we always had a wonderful time. It certainly beat the February 1981 Banquet in an ancient, deteriorating, dumpy, musty, smelly old Daytona Beach hotel dining room when Dale Earnhardt received his first Cup Championship trophy.
Those New York Banquets were mostly about sponsors and securing and keeping the money flowing into NASCAR and about the wives. I never went to one I didn't enjoy. I can assure you that my wife, Joyce, seated to my right in this 1985 New York Banquet photo below, always had a lovely time and enjoyed herself. That was important to Bill France, Jr. He liked to keep the wives happy. Smart man.
I can't say that my wife always approved of some of our other activities/antics at the Waldorf-Astoria, such as teaming up with the late Chris Economaki to serenade the patrons of the Zebra Lounge! That is her disapproving "smile" you see in this photo below.
At the very first New York Banquet in 1981, I had a Wrangler table up front. Bud Moore, our new car owner for 1982 and wife Betty were seated with us. Tim Richmond arrived without a date or a seat. Dale Earnhardt asked if I'd let Timmy sit at our table. Somewhere in my photo archives I have that picture, of me sitting between the late Dale Earnhardt and the late Tim Richmond - great friends and fierce competitors - at the inaugural 1981 New York Waldorf-Astoria NASCAR Winston Cup Awards Banquet. In my feeble old mind, that photo is priceless. As Johnny Mallonnee would say, "Memories."
If you remember, in 1998, to celebrate its 50th Anniversary, NASCAR and ESPN collaborated to produce "NASCAR's Night in Hollywood" - hosted by actor, Don Johnson, another stupid choice as an emcee for a NASCAR function.
It was an important night to me, because my employer and friend, the late Richmond promoter, Paul Sawyer was presented the NASCAR Founder's Award that night by Bill France, Jr. to recognize his contributions to NASCAR's first 50 years. I would have preferred a more dignified event than one that featured Don Johnson trying to crack jokes and Morgan Shepherd on roller skates.
However, with all that said, I think Tom Higgins' proposal that Patsy has posted is much superior than what happens currently in Las Vegas. First and foremost, I'd like to see the dignity return to the banquet.
History's Parking Lot
Stock Car Racing History
The article I've scanned below appeared in the Wednesday, December 5, 2012 Community News section of The Charlotte Observer newspaper . If you know my background, you can see why it caught my eye.
updated by @dave-fulton: 12/05/16 04:00:58PM
Winston Cup road course transmissions (late '80's--early '90's)
Stock Car Racing History
From what I read, sounds like the company (now called Jerico Performance Products) first started selling transmissions around 1980. They are manufactured in Concord, NC, near the Charlotte Motor Speedway. Copying from the company web site, Jerico's origins date to a snowmobile accident by a drag racer:
How Jerico Came About...
Every successful entrepreneur has an interesting "start-up" story to share. One of the best is told by Jerry Hemmingson, whose Jerico Racing Transmissions may be the only company that owes its existence to a snowmobile accident.
Prior to that fateful day in 1972, Jerry Hemmingson had been a part-time drag racer and a professional snowmobile racer, driving full-time for a factory team. That promising career came to a painful, premature end in his home state of Minnesota when a competitor's snowmobile crashed into Jerry's side, breaking his shoulder and shattering his elbow. Worse, the radial nerve in Hemmingson's right arm was severed. Consequently, this right-handed racer's "good" hand no longer worked at all.
"So, I learned to work with the other hand," he explains, matter-of-factly. two years and several unsuccessful operations later, Hemmingson's right elbow was still broken, but his NHRA Modified Production Mustang was back at the drag strip -- still equipped with its four-speed manual transmission. Though power-shifting was extremely painful, Jerry found that he could still pull the shift lever into second and fourth gears with his damaged right hand. However, because his radial nerve and arm muscles didn't work, he could no longer push the Ford Top loader into third gear. Anyone else might've switched to an automatic transmission -- or found another hobby. Not Hemmingson: "I hooked a bungee cord from the firewall to the shift lever, and it pulled itself into third gear!"
Satisfied that he could still drag race competitively, Jerry decided to complete the Pinto-bodied NHRA A/Gasser that was under construction at the time of his snowmobile accident. He simultaneously enrolled in a rehabilitation program that would teach him the fundamentals of pattern work and metal casting. For his first class project, Jerry designed and produced a lightweight, aluminum Tailhousing for Ford's heavy Top loader four-speed. Next came an innovative, all-aluminum transmission case that opened from both the top and bottom. "The car had to weigh 2150 pounds to fit the class," he explained. "Initially, I made these parts to save weight."
His first season back, Hemmingson shattered both ends of NHRA's national A/Gas record -- and broke transmissions with alarming regularity. So, one piece at a time, he started replacing internal components with custom parts that he'd designed on a computer and machined with his own equipment. By 1978, Jerry was manufacturing complete gear sets out of billet steel. Among other benefits, his unique slider-and-tooth combination ended this handicapped driver's difficulty executing the two-three gear change.
During the five years that Hemmingson continuously held NHRA's elapsed-time and mile-per-hour records, his Modified eliminator competitors developed the usual two reactions: First, they protested his unique transmission -- unsuccessfully. ("We were always legal," insists Jerry, laughing. "They figured I shouldn't be able to shift it that quick, especially being handicapped.") Later, they began lining up at his pit area, asking to buy his spares. Thus was Jerico -- a contraction of "Jerry and Company" -- born at the race track, in the back of the Hemmingson's trailer.
Winston Cup road course transmissions (late '80's--early '90's)
Stock Car Racing History
First time I ever saw or heard of a Jericho was when our Winston West 7-Eleven sponsored team of George Jefferson/Derrike Cope and their T-bird showed up with one at Riverside in 1984. I remember a lot of Cup crew looking at the car as Derrike explained the no clutching shifts.
1969 Texas 500
Stock Car Racing History
Wow... you are on top of every aspect. It had not dawned on me that the clubhouse color was Petty Blue, lol!
1969 Texas 500
Stock Car Racing History
Chase, y'all's club house in the background oif the first photo needs a little decorating touch!