Racing History Minute - 1981 Daytona 500
Stock Car Racing History
Forum Activity for @dave-fulton
Racing History Minute - 1981 Daytona 500
Stock Car Racing History
TMC-Chase has a photo above of 1981 Daytona Sportsman 300 competitor Bobby Ballentine of Dorsey, Maryland attending a 2008 gathering of the Maryland Stock Car Hall of Fame, of which he is a member.
Ballentine was a fierce and respected competitor at Potomac, MD, Beltsville, MD and Old Dominion Speedway in Manassas, Virginia, among other tarcks.
Old Dominion, operated for many years by the Gore family held an annual September reunion until its demise under new ownership.
The www.LuvRacin.com site captured many photos of the 2011 Old Dominion Speedway reunion. You'll see a photo of Bobby Ballentine waving to the crowd and a shot of a familiar looking guy with a familiar looking '55 Chevy.
Rumor has it that the fellow above at the 2011 Old Dominion Reunion with Bobby Ballentine is now tooling about the countryside with a severely lacerated hand, still putting on displays in spite of his injury.
Racing History Minute - 1981 Daytona 500
Stock Car Racing History
After my Wrangler show car driver, Ricky Parham was killed in November 1983, I hired former NASCAR Winston Cup Series flagman, Chip Warren (he threw the checkers on Richard Petty at Daytona in 1979 following the brouhaha between Cale & Donnie) to take over the Wrangler showcar program. One of the first things I did when I moved to Dallas after buying the Wrangler Thunderbird showcar was to hire Chip to work for me at 7-Eleven as the Kyle Petty show car driver.
When the 7-Eleven program folded, Chip went back to work for NASCAR and spent many years as an official in the Busch Series.
Former NASCAR Winston Cup Flagman, Wrtangler & 7-Eleven showcar driver and Busch Series official, Chip Warren.
Racing History Minute - 1981 Daytona 500
Stock Car Racing History
1981 Daytona SpeedWeeks began our new Wrangler Jeans NASCAR program's first full year of sponsorship of 1980 Winston Cup champion Dale Earnhardt and my first time inside the Daytona garage. What a thrill.
Our showcar tow vehicle and trailer wouldn't be ready until Rockingham weekend, but the car we'd purchase from Osterlund Racing to use as a showcar was on the Osterlund trailer to have been used as a backup by Dale Earnhardt if needed.
There was a pre-race parade of visiting pace cars and show cars just before the start of the 1981 Daytona 500. Osterlund team manager, Roland Wlodyka suggested I drive that backup car in the pre-race parade and I fell over myself getting the car "staged" over in turn 4.
Unfortunately, the fan system on that vehicle had never been designed to sit idling in turn 4 at Daytona and then creep along at 35 mph.
By the time I got to the start/finish line the car was blowing water and steam out, the water temp guage was climbing quickly and I could hardly see out of the windshield. The only option I had was to pull out of line and haul butt around the "Big D" to cool that thing down and not blow it up right in front of the main grandstand!
Roland was none too happy with himself about having suggested we put the car in the parade lap, but I'd made a quicker partial trip around 1 & 2 hugging the apron and down the backstretch than I ever intended. It was the first and last time I ever "drove" on the Daytona track.
That old #2 blue & yellow Osterlund Wrangler Pontiac had a long career. It became our permanent showcar. In August 1981 the number was changed to #3 when we affiliated with Richard Childress. A lot of folks forget it was a Pontiac that Dale first drove for RC.
In the winter of 1981Robert Gee re-skinned that same car to be a 1982 Ford Thunderbird #15 when we affiliated with Bud Moore. That car still had a Pontiac motor in it, though, until it was reskinned again by Robert Gee with 1983 Ford sheet metal into the new body style Thunderbird that Earnhardt hated and called "the football."
Our Wrangler show car driver, Ricky Parham and his father were killed in a tragic accident on Thanksgiving afternoon 1983 on the Parham family farm in Oxford, NC. They had been riding trail bikes and hit each other head on on a trail in the woods.
For the 1984 season, I had moved to Dallas, Texas to manage 7-Eleven racing programs. I purchased the Wrangler Thunderbird show car for Southland Corporation to become a Kyle Petty #7 Ford Thunderbird show car. That car was like a cat. It had 9 lives.
The 1981 Osterlund #2 Pontiac that I "drove" at Daytona in Feb. 1981 making an appearance later in the year at Bristol. That's me holding my older daughter, Gwyn.
Same car now numbered as a #3 Richard Childress/Earnhardt Pontiac at Richmond in Sept. 1981 with my dad standing beside it.
Same car again, now reskinned as a Bud Moore/Earnhardt Ford #15 . Again my dad beside the car with the Wrangler man from TV commercials in Sept. 1982 at Richmond.
Memory Lane Museum in Danger?
Stock Car Racing History
The story below appeared in the Sunday, February 23, 2014 edition of The Charlotte Observer :
Merchants concerned about planned N.C. 150 widening
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Alex Beam in his Memory Lane Museum on NC150 west of Mooresville. The state plan to widening N.C. 150 in the Lake Norman area is worrying longtime businesses such as Big Daddy's Seafood Restaurant & Oyster Bar and Memory Lane Museum, because a median along the route from Mooresville to Denver would prevent left turns. Business owners complained to State Rep. Robert Brawley, R-Mooresville, who recently went to the secretary of the Department of Transportation with the concerns.
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A meeting on the widening of N.C. 150 will be held at 6p.m. Tuesday at Living Waters, 761 River Highway (N.C.150).
MOORESVILLE Visitors from as far away as Hawaii and California have stopped by Memory Lane Museum this year to view its automobiles dating to 1904 and race cars from throughout the history of NASCAR.
But owner Alex Beam worries about whether theyll bother to visit after the state widens N.C. 150 and puts a median along the 13.5-mile stretch from Mooresville to the four-lane N.C. 16 Bypass in Catawba County.
Memory Lane is 1.5 miles west of Interstate 77 Exit 36, which is how most car aficionados get to the museum. The median will prevent motorists from turning left into Memory Lane, forcing them to drive 1.5 miles west to Doolie and Perth roads to turn around, Beam said.
Beams private museum has become a Mooresville tourist attraction since it opened in 2001, drawing visitors from every state and numerous countries. Cars on display were used in such movies as Days of Thunder, The Color Purple, Leatherheads and Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.
Beam and several other N.C.150 business owners said the median will curtail trade at the 60 or more businesses that operate from Sams Club west to the N.C.150 bridge on the Iredell-Catawba county line. They want the state to build a left-turn lane as part of the $117million project to turn two-lane N.C.150 into a four-lane highway divided by a median.
Right-of-way acquisition is expected to begin in 2017, and construction is due to start in 2019, state Department of Transportation officials have said.
Concerned businesses include such longtime establishments as Big Daddys of Lake Norman Restaurant and Oyster Bar and newer ones such as Point Blank Range, an indoor firearms range near Beams museum.
It just doesnt make any sense, Eric Taylor, operations manager at Point Blank Range, said Thursday. I cant imagine a reason why this would be a good idea.
Point Blank Range gets 70percent of its business from Lake Norman-area residents who use Exit36 and turn left into the range, Taylor said.
Car washes, flower shops, people cant turn left into, Beam said of the planned median.
Beam and other business owners complained to State Rep. Robert Brawley, R-Mooresville, who took the issue to N.C. Secretary of Transportation Tony Tata.
As a result, officials from the state highway division that includes Iredell and Catawba counties have agreed to listen to the concerns at a community meeting at 6p.m. Tuesday at Living Waters, a Foursquare Gospel church beside Beams museum.
Just look at what happened to a small retail center at nearby Brawley School and Oak Tree roads when the state installed medians on both roads as part of Brawley School Roads widening, Brawley said. Two eateries in the shopping center closed..
Living Waters pastor Roy Young said he, too, favors the state adding a left-turn lane along the corridor. His church opened in 1996 and has 55 members.
But based on current and projected traffic volumes and crash data, a center median is likely in order to provide better safety and traffic operations, DOT spokeswoman Jordan-Ashley Baker said Friday in an email reply to the Observer. The specific locations of median breaks, turn lanes, signals and other details have not been determined, as the planning and design work for the project is just starting.
At a public workshop in November on its N.C.150 widening plans, the state included a corridor map in some of its exhibits that showed a study area and a typical cross-section, she said.
The typical was included to show a likely road segment, two lanes in each direction with a center median, Baker said. Some attendees believed the typical cross-section displayed would be what would be used the entire length of the project. This is not the case. There will be turn lanes at appropriate locations to provide left and U-turns along the corridor.
Beam and other business owners said they hope to get across the message Tuesday that peoples livelihoods are at stake.
There are so many different places where there should be left-turn lanes; they just need to put one all the way down, Beam said.
Marusak: 704-358-5067; Twitter: @jmarusak
updated by @dave-fulton: 12/05/16 04:00:58PM
Racing History Minute - Daytona 500 - 1980
Stock Car Racing History
Wonderful personal memories, Tim & Chase. Love the young TMC tee shirt photo!
Feb.24, 2014, Monday night guest, 2014 Daytona 500 Winner, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. will be on CBS Primetime TV Show Late Show with David Letterman.
Current NASCAR
I watched. Thought Junior did ok. Letterman, of course, is no slouch about racing knowledge, having owned an IndyCar team with Bobby Rahal for many years.
my thoughts on the 500
Current NASCAR
That you, Perry, for pointing out the scoring boxes used by Fox. Made me dizzy trying to watch them. Gave up.
I understand that even Fox News reported JJ won, then issued a retraction. What a bunch of pros... not.
Had to go work a C.A.R.T. race once at M.I.S. Could hardly decipher which car was which from 25 feet away.
