The Vanishing Redneck / The Vanishing Race Fan

Last night, immediately after the New York Giants Professional Football Team (as sports announcer, Howard Cosell called them in the early years of Monday Night Football to irritate "Dandy" Don Meredith - former Cowboys QB teamed with Cosell & Frank Giford in the ABC booth) had scored for the second time on their second possession against our hapless Carolina Panthers here in Charlotte, I muted the television volume and picked up my wife's Southern Living Magazine .

Thumbing through the newly arrived October 2012 issue, my eyes suddenly caught an illustration of a fellow in a CAT hat. As a good race fan, I immediately thought "BURTON" - either Ward or Jeff , take your pick. The illustration was accompanying a one page "Legendtorial" - type missive by Pulitzer Prize winning author, Rick Bragg.

How could an article titled THE VANISHING REDNECK not require my full attention? I turned off the television picture of Giants piled on Panthers and began to read. After all, I had once made my living peddling Wrangler Jeans to redneck race fans. I later sold 'em Slurpees, Big Gulps, cigarettes and beer at 7-Eleven Stores. When I began attending weekly Friday night NASCAR races at Richmond's Southside Speedway in the 1960s, the folks seated all around me were "city" rednecks who'd just gotten off their shift at one of the area's numerous cigarette factories, the DuPont plant or perhaps Reynolds Metals where they'd spent the day making Reynolds Wrap for my mom.

Many of these these Southside Speedway "city" rednecks had pints of liquor in their jacket pocket. They sat in groups, depending on which driver they pulled for. Lord help you if you cheered for Ray Hendrick, Runt Harris or Ted Hairfield while seated in the section occupied primarily by Sonny Hutchins fans. On the chilly April nights early in the season, they'd wear those red or green and black checked flannel caps with ear flaps.

When I moved to Wilson, NC to work in 1970, the race fans at Wilson County Speedway were primarily "country" rednecks. They actually had a red neck from spending the day in a tobacco field. Their CAT hat or John Deere hat hadn't been bought at a Cracker Barrel Old Country Store restaurant, it had been earned by doing business with the local farm equipment dealer.

Didn't matter to me if I associated with "city" rednecks or "country" rednecks. These were all pretty straightforward folks who had their priorities in order and by gawd they all sure did love to see a good stock car race. I guarantee you that rednecks made great race fans. I wasn't born a redneck, but I sure embraced the culture.

As I read on into this article, I could almost feel myself substituting "race fan" everywhere the author had written "redneck."

I thought about the products the racing sponsors used to peddle to race fans - beer, cigarettes, motor oil, jeans.

I can't imagine all those "city" and "country" rednecks who used to surround me at the track texting or tweeting from their grandstand seat or their perch atop an old school bus in the infield. They were too busy watching great racing to be bothered and distracted. They didn't need a diversion.

NASCAR no longer reaches out to the audience who once surrounded me at the dirt track when Little Joe put a whipping on the field or at the 1/3-mile weekly show where my local heroes took the night off from their "paying" job to beat and bang a little for an appreciative audience.

The more I read this article titled, THE VANISHING REDNECK , the more sure I was that it could easily be rewritten and titled THE VANISHING RACE FAN .

Take a little read and see what you think. By the way, Chase, that wasn't you driving that fancy pickup just outside Nashville in the article, was it??!!

Can't you just picture Ward Burton in the very last sentence wearing his CAT hat and coming along to jiggle the right " WAAR ?"

One, I'm not sure I've spent $70,000 in TOTAL for the vehicles I've owned in my life - much less one.

Two, I assure you no vehicle in which I'm riding - either as a driver or a passenger - shall be playing Carrie Underwood. If I ask Jesus to Take The Wheel, I'll need him to do so just long enough for me to throw her CD out da winder.

But I do remember cruising the streets in my youth in my hand-me-down, high mileage 1965 Dodge Dart with mo' money tied up in my stereo than in the car. Ohhh yeahhhh. A CRAIG AM/FM auto-reverse cassette deck, an Audiovox amp/7-band equalizer, and Jensen 6x9s in the back. Cranking 38 Special's Wild Eyed Southern Boys. A definite teenaged urban redneck.

My faith is intact! Thanks!

Only thing I care about Carrie is that her husband, Mike Fisher, is a heckuva hockey player for our Nashville Predators. But since the players and the owners are once again squabbling about more money than most of us will ever see in our lifetimes COLLECTIVELY, I'm done with him too.

Crank up some Donnie Van Zant! And naw man, don't push that Dolby C button. Makes the sound too muffled.

It's a southern point of honor

You got a get right in on the action

You can hear the outlaws holler

Fight for the lady in black

And she's just one in a million

But she's all I need tonight

'Cause she loves those

Wild-eyed southern boys

Wild-eyed boys

Wild-eyed southern boys

Check what Stock Car Racing magazine was advertising on the first page of its June 1969 issue - Genuine 8-Track Tapes - 3 for $5.95, lol!

And look what $5.95 got you the year before - 1968. We ought to send 'em an order!

Seems like the King was good for at least one cheesy jacket ad per decade.

Here is the 1972 version - and price actually went DOWN.

And here is the 1983 Union 76 version. Oooh, love me some poly ... not.

Columbia Music Club. Been around forever. 8 tracks, vinyl, cassettes, CDs. I remember the RCA/BMG version too - but their selection was never quite as good as Columbia.

I remember kids in my 1966 freshman dorm getting hooked on the Columbia Record Club, then getting in deep water when it was time to pay up.

I OWNED this jacket. I bought it a little later on though, maybe 1970. It was mail-order and may not have had the Champion patch, but I think it did. Red, with the racing stripe and the same pockets. It was some deal where you buy the jacket and for a few bucks more they sold you a couple of embroidered patches to put on it. I think it was a Coca-Cola promotion. I loved that thing and wore it for a couple of years. I drove just like Richard Petty when I wore it too. Unfortunately, none of the pictures of me wearing it are easily found.

That was the great thing about those promotions. You put it on, got in your car and you WERE the hero!