We've Lost 3 NMPA Joe Littlejohn Award Winners This Week

There have been three separate postings on RacersReunion this week chronicling the deaths of Benny Phillips, Dr. Joe Mattioli and Harold Pearson. It has been a very sad week with the loss of three men who gave so much to stock car racing.

For those who don't know, each of those three men shared one distinct common trait... they were each one of a handful of people and organizations to be presented the yearly Joe Littlejohn Award by the National Motorsports Press Association since its inception in 1970, with the inaugural award going to Joe Littlejohn himself.

Joe Littlejohn Award

The Joe Littlejohn Award is presented each year to a person or persons, or an organization, in recognition for outstanding service to the National Motorsports Press Association. The recipient is determined by the president of the NMPA. It is named after the former track owner from Spartanburg, S.C. Littlejohn is credited with two career NASCAR starts, but raced extensively before the formation of NASCAR.

Year Recipient

1998 Drs. Joe & Rose Mattioli, Pocono Raceway

1988 Harold Pearson, Richmond Times-Dispatch

1977 Benny Phillips, High Point Enterprise

1970 Joe Littlejohn

I was fortunate to have known all four men, having been introduced to the late Mr. Littlejohn by Bud Moore in 1981. Not only was Mr. Littlejohn a racer and track promoter, he donated the space and rooms at his Green Street Motel in Spartanburg for the inaugural convention of the Southern Motorsports Press Association, which later became today's National Motorsports Press Association.

Mr. Littlejohn put Ricky Rudd and myself up at his Spartanburg motel in late 1983 when we were in sensitive negotiations to move Ricky to Bud's team and Dale Earnhardt to Richard Childress. You'd see Mr. Littlejohn in a motel restaurant early on race day mornings, looking like a lost soul from a retirement village, but he never missed anything going on. Two South Carolina Highway Patrol Troopers in uniform always accompanied Mr. Littlejohn and acted as his drivers/bodyguards.

My wife, Joyce and I got up to pay our breakfast bill very early one morning in Talladega, but the cashier told us that the "Old gentleman" who had just left had already paid. That was Joe Littlejohn.

I count it a true privilege to have known all of the men I note above and to have watched them give of themselves for the cause of bettering stock car racing. Let's hope there are many more deserving Joe Littlejohn Award winners waiting in the wings to help our beloved sport in the future.

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"Any Day is Good for Stock Car Racing"
updated by @dave-fulton: 12/05/16 04:02:07PM

I just saw a very nice tribute/opinion piece by Mike Harris about the three losses we suffered this past week on the site RacinToday.com.

In case you don't know the name, Mike is the retired former Associated Press Motorsports Editor and head racing writer who began those duties in 1980. Our time around the Cup circuit paralleled each other. When Mike began, he was headquartered in New York's Rockefeller Center and living in New Jersey. Before he retired from the AP, Mike convinced them to let him file out of Raleigh, NC and he and his family moved to wake Forest, NC, where he continues to live.

This is Mike's piece:

It Was A Week Of Loss For Racing
Mike Harris | Senior Writer, RacinToday.com

Sunday, 29 January 2012

Its been a tough week for old motorsports writers. Not only did we lose two of our longtime colleagues, Harold Pearson and Benny Phillips, but now comes word of the passing of Joseph Doc Mattioli.

All three of these men played important roles in my auto racing education and all three became friends.

Harold Pearson was part of the in crowd in NASCAR when I first showed up at Daytona in 1980. He was a good friend of recent Hall of Fame inductee Tom Higgins, then the dean of stock car sports writers, and his close corhort, Steve Waid, also a Hall of Famer in my book.

These guys knew just about everything there was to know about what was then a southern sport. They knew the drivers, crew chiefs, car owners and most of the secrets. To become a functioning writer in those days, you had to get to know the insiders and, somehow, become one of them.

Harold Pearson, who worked for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, was one of the first of that crowd to accept me as a colleague and give me the kind of guidance that I needed. He was a fine writer and, beyond that, Harold was fun to be around.

Benny was sports editor of the newspaper in High Point, N.C., when I met him. By then, he had earned his reputation as a fine journalist and a man who knew everyone who was anyone. But a friendlier, more

helpful guy you could not find.

He not only pointed this rookie in the right direction to find important stories, but he made sure to introduce me to the people I needed to get those stories.

Then there was Doc Mattioli, founder and owner along with his wife, Dr., Rose and chairman of the board of Pocono Raceway.

A powerful man who was determined to remain independent as the France familys International Speedway Corp., and Bruton Smiths Speedway Motorsports Inc., bought up more and more of the tracks at which NASCAR raced.

Doc always said the track was his and Roses legacy to their family, which to this day is integrally involved in running the successful racetrack in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania.

The early days of the Pocono track were not promising. It seemed even higher powers were against its success as race weekend after race weekend was drowned out by incessant rain. But Doc never wavered _ at least not publicly. He insisted the tracks day would come and persevered until it did.

He even chose to go against convention and run his races for years with no title sponsor.

That way, we can do whatever we want with our events without somebody trying to tell us how it should be done, Doc told me several times. Against all odds, the track still belongs to the Mattioli family and still retains two Sprint Cup dates the lifeblood of the track even though others have tried to convince NASCAR to take away one or both of those races. The major reason for those two facts is Doc Mattioli, who fought to the end to make sure that did not change.

During the tough times, Doc would get onto his bulldozer and work on the Pocono grounds himself. During one rainy season, I found him out in a parking lot, directing traffic and ferrying people from their cars to the grandstand under a huge umbrella, saying in his familiar booming voice, Dont worry, this is going to clear up.

He was an opinionated cuss, but also a lovable person who always remained a friend, no matter which side of the controversy you were on.

So, Harold, Benny and Doc, a sad farewell to all. You wont be forgotten by those who knew you.

Mike Harris can be reached at mharris@racintoday.com
Mike Harris | Senior Writer, RacinToday.com Sunday, 29 January 2012

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"Any Day is Good for Stock Car Racing"