Today thediet version of Mountain Dew, tomorrow Tide with Bleach, Eastern Auto or some other abberration of an old DW sponsor? Let's see, the kid has also already had old DW sponsor Budweiser. Is there a pattern here? I'm sure The Legend will want a photo of a watered down Mountain Dew paint scheme.
Diet Mountain Dew on tap for Dale Jr.
The Associated Press
Wednesday, Sep. 21, 2011
CHARLOTTE, N.C. Dale Earnhardt Jr. will have the Diet Mountain Dew brand on his car starting with next year's Daytona 500.
The new paint scheme for NASCAR's most popular driver was unveiled Wednesday.
Diet Mountain Dew replaces the Pepsi-owned brand AMP Energy that has been featured on the car since 2008. AMP will remain on the car next season as an associate sponsor.
Pepsi is the primary sponsor for Earnhardt in 20 races each year. The National Guard has the other 16 events.
The Mountain Dew brand has a strong history in NASCAR. It was most notably the primary sponsor of Hall of Fame driver Darrell Waltrip during his 1981 and 1982 championship seasons.
Read more: http://www.thatsracin.com/2011/09/21/74530/diet-mountain-dew-on-tap-for-dale.html#ixzz1YdOlaHhb
From the op-ed page of the Charlotte Observer column "The Buzz", here's what one Carolina Panthers football fan wrote today that they were thankful for:
Bank of America Stadium: The only NFL stadium that provides NASCAR updates and sells collard greens. Thankful for both!
I miss my late father-in-law's fall collards.
Read more: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/09/21/2625350/the-buzz-anonymous-comments-from.html#storylink=misearch#ixzz1YdMEwqVq
G.C. Spencer
We lost the great "independent" racer, G.C. Spencer four years ago today on September 20, 2007. I snapped the shot of G.C.'s car #49 below in the infield at Bristol with my trusty Kodak Brownie "Hawkeye" following the March 1967 Southeastern 500, 44 years ago. Look how new the Bristol concrete grandstands stiil looked and there werestill mountains at Bristol. Oh... it was also still asphalt in the original banking configuration that gave us such great side by side racing at Bristol in the "olden" days.
G.C. racked up 55 top-5 finishes in 415 Cup/GN races before hanging up his helmet after the 1977 season. G.C. continued to field cars as an owner until he sold his equipment to Larry McClurein 1983 to form the team that became Morgan-McClure Motorsports fielding winning entries for Sterlin Marlin, Ernie Irvan, etc., with Runt Pittman building powerplants and Tony Glover turning wrenches. G.C. was Team manager for Morgan-McClure's #4 Cup cars for the team's first three seasons. R.I.P., G.C. We old timers still remember.
From the Kingsport Times-News Four Years Ago:
NASCAR pioneer G.C. Spencer dead at 82
By Jeff Bobo
Published September 20th, 2007 12:00 am
JOHNSON CITY NASCAR pioneer G.C. Spencer won so many short track races in the 1940s and 50s he literally caused some Midwest racetracks to close down because fellow competitors would stop showing up.
But the Jonesborough resident fell short of reaching victory lane in his 20-year NASCAR career, which included 415 starts in what is now known as the Nextel Cup.
Spencer, 82, died Thursday morning at the NHC Healthcare Center in Johnson City following a long battle with emphysema. Hed lived in Jonesborough since 1962 when he married his wife, Faye, a Johnson City native.
Spencer was born in Owensboro, Ky., and moved to southern Indiana upon being discharged from the Navy following World War II. He told the Times-News during an interview this past March that he ran his first race in 1946 on a dare after friends commented on his penchant for hot-rodding around town. After finishing second he recounted he thought to himself, Boy, this is easy.
Thus began Spencers dominating short track career that spanned more than a decade throughout the Midwest. He had no idea how many races he won but estimated it in the hundreds.
In 1958 he joined some racing friends in Inman, S.C., and initiated his NASCAR career. Admittedly, the move into NASCARs premier division was not as easy as hed expected.
I went to (NASCAR) races with them and watched them, and I thought to myself, Boy if I could just get me one of these cars I could dust these people, Spencer said. I found out later you couldnt hardly even run last with them when I finally did get a 57 Chevy. It looked easy, but it wasnt. When youve got Lee Petty, Buck Baker, Jack Smith and all that bunch, youve got your hands full.
Spencer competed in NASCARs top division from 1958-77. Throughout that time he never acquired the coveted factory deal with a manufacturer, which was a necessity for any consistent winner in NASCAR. He was offered a deal with Ford prior to the 1965 season, his only full-time run for a championship.
When Fords chief rival Chrysler dropped out of NASCAR prior to the first race, however, Ford backed out on the deal with Spencer, telling him they didnt need him anymore.
That year he placed fourth in the championship point standings and finished second in three races each time behind eventual champion Ned Jarrett.
I believe if Ford had stuck with me in 65 I could have won the championship, Spencer said.
Spencer had seven second-place Cup finishes in his career but never won a race. He also helped several area drivers get their first starts in NASCAR including Bluff City racer John A. Utsman.
Spencer was the car owner for the majority of Utsmans Cup series starts.
I won the track championship at Kingsport in 1972, and G.C. came out to the garage and said, If I bought a car would you drive it for me at Daytona? Utsman said Thursday. Well I never dreamed of running at Daytona, but he gave me a chance, and Ill never forget it. He was a heck of a friend and a good guy, and to give me a chance like he gave me I would have never got to run any Winston Cup if it werent for him.
He was a real friend, and he meant a lot to me.
Spencer hung up his helmet in 1977 at the age of 51 and continued fielding cars as an owner until 1983.
In 1983 Larry McClure purchased Spencers equipment and formed the Abingdon, Va.-based Morgan-McClure Motorsports. Spencer hired on as Morgan-McClures team manager for three seasons before retiring from racing.
After racing he and Faye operated an antique business.
I saw G.C. a couple of weeks ago, and he certainly still had his wit and was as active as he could be, McClure said Thursday. He was a tough customer a tough guy that the racing community is going to miss. I know Im going to miss him sorely. Hes the reason Im in racing and have been in racing the last 25 years. He was a good guy and a good friend.
Spencer told the Times-News he probably stayed in NASCAR too long and spent money as a car owner that he should have saved. At the end of his life he and Faye were living mainly on Social Security and his Veterans Administration health benefits in a small house in Jonesborough.
Unlike every other major sport in America, there is no pension for retired NASCAR drivers. In his 20-year NASCAR career Spencer earned only $250,000, less than the lowest paid driver in this years Daytona 500.
I probably stayed in it too long, and I definitely spent a lot of money at the end that I should have held onto, Spencer told the Times-News in March. We came back from Daytona in 83 with a $4,500 hotel bill and didnt even make the race, and I said thats enough for me.
He added: Racing is a hard life, but I loved it, and thats what I wanted to do. You really have to love it because racing becomes your whole life. I didnt make a lot of money at it, but I did OK. Id do it all over again if I had the chance.
Appalachian Funeral Home in Johnson City is handling Spencers funeral arrangements.
That reminds me of the great Ford Pro Stock class drag racer, Bob Glidden, whose wife, Etta built his engines. When I was at 7-Eleven in the mid-80s, we considered having Etta build a Ford NASCAR motor for Kyle Petty's Petty Enterprises Thunderbird in 1984.
Pictures and copy from the Full Throttle website History of SW Virginia Racing:
http://www.vaautoracing.org/index.htm
Famed Engine Builder, L.O. Stanley of Meadows of Dan, Virginia
L.O. Stanley Trick Manifold
L. O. Stanley was Southwest Virginias most innovative engine builder. Born in Carroll County, Stanley opened his garage in the Meadows of Dan community in 1948. In 1950 he attended his first oval track race in Concord, North Carolina, and returned to tell his wife, I can build a motor that can outrun any of them. Within a year Stanleys first race car was competing. The famed Floyd County racer, Curtis Turner, drove some of Stanleys first stock cars. Stanleys engines were strong racing performers, and he later worked as an engine builder for the Holman-Moody racing organization in Charlotte, North Carolina, and for the Ford Motor Company.
Among his innovations, L. O. Stanley invented a cross-fire engine, in which two cylinders fire at the same time. In order to build such an engine, he had to turn his own crankshafts and rework practically every part of the motor. Stanley even had special pistons cast at a Marion (Smyth County) foundry. The cross-fire engine was eventually outlawed in racing. At another time, to skirt a rule limiting oval track engines to one carburetor, Stanley adapted a Ford intake manifold to hide two carburetors inside the motor.
Both drag racers and oval track racers used Stanleys engines, and two of his 420 cubic inch flathead engines survive today. L. O. Stanleys reputation in the Southeast stock car racing world became legendary, and the mechanic known as the man on the mountain is still remembered as the genius of regional engine building.
