Those Show Car Drivers and Other Unsung Racing Folks
General
Most of us realize by now that it takes tons of folks to stage NASCAR events and most of them are unsung personnel, such as shop personnel, racetrack personnel, NASCAR personnel, media, PR, marketing, sponsors, manufacturers, equipment suppliersand on and on. Its takes more than a driver, car owner and track promoter to stage an event.There's folks constantly on the road like our Jimmy Johnson constantly spreading the word.I'd like to salute all those showcar drivers and the goodwill they create. Today there must be a gazillion showcars out there, many managed by big marketing firms.But, there was a time when there weren't many. I don't know if that Winston #1 car originally driven by T. Wayne Robertson was the first, but it went a lot of places. I have a very, very special memory of my first showcar driver, a wonderful "kid" named Ricky Parham who worked for me for 3 years before succumbing to injuries sufferred in a heart rending accident on Thanksgiving Day, 1983. When we started the Wrangler Jeans Dale Earnhardt program we knew we immediately wanted to put a showcar on the road to help market our sponsorship. We went to the expert, RJR and Wes Beroth there recommended Ricky to us. In February 1981, Ricky began hauling the Osterlund-built #2 Pontiac in a big, ole heavy trailer pulled by a blue and yellow Chevy Suburban. The car changed to the #3 Childress Pontiac showcar in August and in 1982-1983 both "old"style and new style #15 Bud Moore T-birds pulled by a Ford van. Ricky's home was Oxford, NC, north of Durham and that was his home base for us. Ricky and most other showcar drivers earned their pay with long hours, lots of miles and being a representative of our company to race fans and potential race fans. There were lots of interesting happenings along the way. We had a very unique copyrighted chevron paint scheme on the Wrangler car. When we arrived one year at Talladega we found that theHarry Ranier/Cale Yarborough/Hardee's team had copied our copyrighted paint scheme (albeit in orange and white)right down to the last little line on the chevron. We promptly sued and they were forced to change that scheme. However, they had a Hardee's showcar there at the Winston 500 and they wanted to put it in the prerace parade lap. I'll never forget T. Wayne Robertson telling them there was only room for two showcars and they'd have to draw straws. T. Wayne made sure neither the Winston car or Ricky's Wrangler showcar got the short straw. That was reserved for the Hardee's car, which was returned to the garage and parked. Ricky worked for me the 1981, 1982 and 1983 season. He asked if he could have a few days off at Thanksgiving, 1983to visit his family in Oxford, NC, which he did. My family and I were out of town that Thanksgiving weekend and when I returned late to my Greensboro home, I had a phone call from my former assistant program manager, Bob Jannelle telling me Ricky had been in a terrible acident. After Thanksgiving dinner on his family's farm outside Oxford, Ricky and his dad went riding through the woods on their trail bikes. Ricky's dad decided to return to the house, but when Ricky didn't return after a while, went back out on his bike to look for him. A hunter found them on the wooded trail where they collided on their bikes head-on in a curve. They were both transported unconscious to Duke Medical Center. Ricky's dad didn't make it long.Immediately following his father's funeral, Ricky's mother returned to Duke Medical Center and made the decision to remove Ricky from life support. I was at the hospital and remember being unable to speak to Wes Beroth for the tears when we were told of the decision. The day they buried Ricky from that little country church outside Oxford, they had to put loudspeakers in the parking lot. A casual NASCAR fan passing a half mile away on I-85 would never have imagined how many NASCAR drivers and track personnel were inside that little church. They had come from all over to pay respect to a super good guy. It only got sadder from there. Ricky had a room at the Oxford Holiday Inn and we had to get Wrangler stuff from it, as well as get the showcar rig and car back to Greensboro. I also had to immediately hire another showcar driver and I was fortunate to find Chip Warren, a former Cup flagman and who many of you will remember later as the NASCAR official holding the stop/go paddle at the end of pit road. When I moved to Dallas to manage the 7-Eleven program, I was later able to hire Chip to tow our Kyle Petty showcar.
While living in Dallas, the Cabbage Patch doll craze beganand we couldn't find any for our two daughters. However, dear Mrs. Parham, Ricky's mother found two in Raleigh and sent them to us. For many years when we'd visit my wife's family in Wilson, NC and mine in Richmond, VA, we'd stop (especially my wife and daughters) to pay our respects to the mother of my first showcar driver, one of those unsung racing folks who make it all go round.
updated by @dave-fulton: 03/22/17 07:48:45PM
