Forum Activity for @dave-fulton

THE PAPERCLIP held together again today

Local and Regional Short Track Racing

Jimmy... funny you should mention Michigan. After a 1981 race there, someone threw Bob Jannelle and I each a coldbeverage. Bob was driving our rental car and we were just leaving the track premises. An officer made Bob pull out of line and Bob said something the officer didn't like after he requsted we pour out the two beverages. The officer then proceeded to make us take all of the luggage out of our trunk and empty the contents. We had aggravated him and he really did show us who was boss. I remember in later years we used to get a special sticker from Dick Beatty (also at Watkins Glen) that let us go out of the garage at MIS and onto the backstretch and out a special backstretch gate. I must say, I don't miss the traffic getting in and out of some of those places, especially if you were touch and go on making a plane flight. After I moved to Texas, I just started booking all my return flights for Monday morning. Your Bodine van story is a good one.

THE PAPERCLIP held together again today

Local and Regional Short Track Racing

I was once pulled out of the Martinsville exit line by one of Henry County's finest for being over zealous "making a hole." He made me wait about 30 minutes, then allowed me to re-enter the traffic flow. I also got locked in the turn one mens room one year when I hung around too long. Thank goodness there was an open window. Shouting "help" (or whatever I shouted) from the Martinsville mens room, in the rain, was not my finest hour.

THE PAPERCLIP held together again today

Local and Regional Short Track Racing

Johnny, Couldn't agree more with your assessment. It was an exciting event. The kind you'd like to attend in person.

Two observations and opinions here:

1) 2:00 pm is too late todrop the green on a500 lap Martinsville race at this time of year.

2) I thought the caution was used a little too liberally a couple of times when there was no imminent danger and a car was off and going about the time the yellow flew.

Martinsville Qualifying a wash... Sunday starters determined by points

General

Oct 29, 10:08 AM EDT

Rain washes out Cup qualifying & practice at Martinsville

By HANK KURZ Jr.
AP Sports Writer

MARTINSVILLE, Va. (AP) -- Rain has washed out Sprint Cup qualifying this weekend at Martinsville Speedway.

The starting lineup has been set according to the point standings, and that's especially good news for points leader Carl Edwards and No. 2 Matt Kenseth. Both have historically struggled on the smallest, oldest track in NASCAR's premier series.

With rain in the forecast all morning, track officials still hoped to hold qualifying in the truck series before the 200-lap race scheduled to start at 2 p.m.

Because it rained all day Friday, the Cup Series cars never made it onto the track for practice. The first practice Saturday was scheduled to begin at 8:30 a.m., but was pushed back because of persistent showers. NASCAR says practice will begin when the track is ready.

2011 The Associated Press.
updated by @dave-fulton: 12/05/16 04:02:07PM

Nexus Does Vegas

General

I have decided that I would be willing to represent Nexus Fuel Products "gratis" (that's no charge - a concept unknown until today) in negotiatons to name it the Official Fuel Additive Supplier of NASCAR in the hope that we would never again be subjected to a fuel mileage race.

Heard of any haunted auto race tracks or haunted auto race museums?

General

Jim, remember how the sky would turn that eerie shade of darkness and those storms would come in over the mountains from Irondale/Birminghamat Talladega? Scare the heck out of you. That place could give you the willies.

The Spartanburg - Talladega Connection

General

This interesting video was uploaded from South Carolina Educational TV in August 2011 discussing the racetrack that was built in Talladega, but originally slated for Spartanburg. David Pearson, Bud Moore, James Hyltonand Cotton Owens speak.

updated by @dave-fulton: 08/19/19 08:09:25PM

Prayers Answered - Missing 8 year old autistic boy found in Virginia after 6 days

General

Not racing, but the best "feel good" story I've heard in a long time.

At 2:00pm today, searchers found 8 year old Robert Wood, who suffers from severe autusim, in a creek at the base of a rock quarry north of Richmond after disappearing Sunday afternoon from a walk in the North Anna Battlefield Park, up near Wally Bell and not too far from King's Dominion Amusement Park. Prayer does produce miracles.

Over 6,000 searchers from as far away as Alaska had conducted a detailed search since Monday morning for the child. There was little hope he would be found alive. My wife and I had followed this closely. This could easily been one of our children or grandchildren. An amazing turnout of dedicated searchers.

http://www.wtvr.com/news/wtvr-robert-wood-found-alive-20111028,0,165629.story

updated by @dave-fulton: 12/05/16 04:02:07PM

Racers, Graveyards & Jawbreakers

General

From this Sunday morning's Charlotte paper:

Could be a call from the past
Disconnected phone mysteriously rings at home of Kannapolis man.

By Mark Price
By Mark Price The Charlotte Observer
Sunday, Oct. 30, 2011

A wall phone rings in Chris Harris' Kannapolis home, he answers, and the line is dead.

No big deal, until you realize he doesn't have phone service to the house.

"It was an aesthetic phone only, a cheap Walgreen's special I hung up to cover a metal plate on the wall," says Harris. "It's never been hooked up in all the time I've owned it."

But ring it did, he says. At first, Harris thought it might be some kind of power surge, but the phone company and the electric company denied it.

"It would awaken me... I'd answer, but no one was there. It was as if someone just put the phone down and walked away," he says.

It seemed purely coincidental to him that the ringing started shortly after his father, Marshall, died of cancer in 2008. But Chris Harris thinks differently now.

In his father's final years, the two spoke almost entirely by phone - four times a week - because Chris Harris' job with NASCAR kept him on the road.

He left NASCAR four months after his father died, and says he eventually noticed that the ringing coincided with moments he was preoccupied with how to earn a living. "If my dad were going to try and communicate, that would be the way."

Harris finally got frustrated with the noise in 2009 and put the phone in a closet. The ringing stopped, he says. But just recently, he hung it back up over that metal plate, just to see what would happen. It hasn't rung. Yet.
Chris Harris has a disconnected phone hanging on the wall at his home in Kannapolis. It started ringing after his father died in 2008. Robert Lahser - rlahser@charlotteobserver.com


Read more: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/10/30/2734358/could-be-a-call-from-the-past.html#storylink=misearch#ixzz1cGtHZ67U

Racers, Graveyards & Jawbreakers

General

With Halloween just around the corner, I figured we could use a graveyard story. My NASCAR Grand National racing hero back in the mid-60s was JT Putney, an "independent" Chevy driver from Farmville, Virginia who lived in Arden, NC, an Asheville suburb. Between stints as a corporate pilot for Southeastern Aviation, JT drove for Herman "The Turtle" Beam in his number 19 Chevies, having replaced Cale Yarbrough when Cale left for the #27 Fords of Banjo Matthews, another Arden based business near the Asheville airport.

The Late J.T. Putney

Each year NASCAR conducted what was termed the "Northern Tour." Races were run in such placesas Oxford, Maine; Bridgehampton, NY; Islip, NY and Fonda, NY among other venues. Big winners of the "Northern Tour" included drivers such as the late Billy Wade for Bud Moore and Bobby Allison in his independent Chevelle #2.

My hero, JT Putney was entered in the 1966 Fonda event, but instead of a hero, he wound up being a goat. Here's one account of JT's Fonda exploits by Steve Shaw as recounted in a column chronicling the 10 Stupidiest Moments in NASCAR History ( up to the time of the column ):

6. Graveyard Shift-J.T. Putney, Tiny Lund-Fonda Speedway, 1966-

Putney had started second, and quickly jumped to the front, leading the first 31 laps. However, on lap 32 he spun off of turn two. The tiny 1/2-mile dirt track didn't have an outside retaining wall on the turns, so he spun over the banking. Putney regathered his car into control on a service road that led from the Erie Canal to the backstretch. Oddly enough, the road went through a graveyard, which is where Putney drove through before returning to the track. But by returning to the track, he drove straight in the path of Tiny Lund, who t-boned Putney, and also took out Bobby Allison and Lyle Stetler. Putney not only took out four cars in his bonehead maneuver, but he was KO'd by a punch from Lund. Lund had approached Putney following the incident in the garage area, and knocked Putney unconscious with a right-cut to Putney's jaw. NASCAR officials fined Lund $100.

One of JT Putney's 1966 #19 NASCAR Grand National Chevrolets

Anybody else have a NASCAR graveyard story for Halloween?

updated by @dave-fulton: 12/05/16 04:02:07PM