The Vanishing Redneck / The Vanishing Race Fan
Stock Car Racing History
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!
Forum Activity for @dave-fulton
Stock Car Racing History
The Vanishing Redneck / The Vanishing Race Fan
Stock Car Racing History
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 ?"
updated by @dave-fulton: 12/16/16 07:54:05AM
R.I.P. CECIL GORDON # 24
Stock Car Racing History
I bet I know who would know. Every time I see a post here on RR I usually think of a name in my old business card file. John McKenzie at Motorsports Designs was making the decals for the Pettys and later for many other folks.
When the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster occurred on January 28, 1986, I called John from Dallas to get a memorial decal on the Kyle Petty / Wood Brothers / 7-Eleven car. He immediately made a wonderful tribute decal and shipped them to me in Daytona where just about every car during 1986 SpeedWeeks ran it.
R.I.P. CECIL GORDON # 24
Stock Car Racing History
Jack, were you by any chance helping when Cecil's throttle stuck open in practice going down the backstretch at Richmond when he tore down the rail and fence tore up his car? I can't remember the year.
R.I.P. Cecil Flash" Gordon
General
Our member, Will Cronkrite has this terrific photo posted on his Mantiques Restoration Services site of a very happy night he celebrated with Cecil:
Novel Way to Earn Race Tix for Life
General
Jeez..... don't you think Jerry Gappens shoulda suggested to this couple a "racy" name for their new baby, like Louise, Ethel, Sara, Janet or Danica, lol?! And, I wonder what size bill Bruton Smith will send the couple for having the nerve to deliver on Speedway property? At least if Bruton moves one of his New Hampshire dates, it'll only "cost" him half as much!
Baby Born at New Hampshire Speedway
Sep 17, 2012
LOUDON, N.H. (AP) -- A New Hampshire woman and her baby are doing fine after the woman gave birth in the New Hampshire Motor Speedway parking lot.
Shawna Arnold began going into labor Friday and she and her boyfriend began driving to a hospital. But when she realized she was about to give birth on the way, they made a pit stop at the racetrack parking lot in Loudon.
Arnold tells a local tv station, that she and her boyfriend delivered the baby, named Katie, in their car. An EMT at the track then came to help, and the couple and the baby were taken to a hospital.
Speedway General Manager Jerry Gappens has awarded the baby two tickets to NASCAR races for the rest of her life.
updated by @dave-fulton: 12/05/16 04:02:07PM
Danica a 9th-15th Place Nationwide Driver Says McReynolds
Stock Car Racing History
An interesting summation of his opinion of Danica Patrick's and Cole Whitt's driving potential this week on SPEED by Larry McReynolds commenting on the departure of both Eurys from JR Motorsports:
I think their current driver lineup is running as well theyre going to run. In the Nationwide Series, Danica Patrick is probably as good as shes going to be. Shes going to run between ninth and 15th and maybe score a top five on a really good day. I dont care if you put Chad Knaus in as her crew chief. Shes going to run where she is running. As much as Id love to say she could run fender-to-fender with Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., Austin Dillon or Elliott Sadler, I dont think its there. Danica is great for our sport and Im excited about her running fulltime in the Cup Series. But she has run 51 Nationwide Series races, and thats a lot of races.
By the same token, Cole Whitt is going to run where he is running. He was thrown into the deep end pretty fast. I think hes between a sixth and 12th place driver right now. Thats where he ran with the Eurys, and thats where hes going to run without them.
JR Motorsports has some pretty good benchmarks to judge by. JR Motorsports is a Chevrolet team. RCR is a Chevrolet team, and theyre winning races and sitting second and third in the points, so its not a Chevrolet problem. JR Motorsports runs Hendrick engines but Turner Motorsports is winning races with Hendrick engines, so its not the engines. So, I think this is why they had to do something to try to make their race cars better.
updated by @dave-fulton: 12/05/16 04:00:58PM