Forum Activity for @dave-fulton

Another Bygone - Daytona Racing on the 4th of July

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Mike & Billy,

That heat and humidity was awesome at Daytona in July, wasn't it. Whenever I walked out of the motel my glasses would fog over. During my years at Wrangler I had to wear 14 ounce denim jeans, as did the crews for Osterlund, Stacy, Bud Moore and Richard Childress. After about two minutes out of the room you could feel the sweat running down your back and over the crack of your a__. My memory tells me that Daytona in July, Darlington on Labor Day and Talladega in August were the most brutal. However, I - unlike you two fellows - could duck into an air conditioned media center every now and then. I can't imagine having to work that Paul Revere race and the GN. Seems like Billy Hagan and Herschel McGriff's son-in-law (Marilyn's husband) used to get involved in that, too.

Another Bygone - Daytona Racing on the 4th of July

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I know we still have a summer event at Daytona, but to me it's never been quite the same since they moved the race off of the 4th of July. We used to have the Firecracker 400 on the actual date of July 4th, regardless of what day of the week it fell. The Speedway's publicity department used to bill it as "America's Largest Independence Day Celebration." The race actually started at 10:00 a.m. in the morning - in order to avoid Daytona'sinevitable afternoon thunderstorms. Seizing on the early morning start time, the Speedway used the advertising slogan, "At the track at ten, on the beach by two."

I guess the first Firecracker 400 I listened to on the radio was in 1964 when the Mopar hemis staged a furious battle for the win between AJ Foyt, Bobby Isaac and Jimmy Pardue, with AJ prevailing at the finish line.

Fourth of July at Daytona was more laid back than February Speedweeks. Those of us like me with families took our children to Daytona in July, but not in February. It was a real family feelaround the motel pools. The kids of drivers, media, sponsors, owners, crew members all played together. The beer in the lounges off those pools was always the coldest on the circuit. I remember the track security guards being sure that owner's wives like Bernece Wood and Betty Moore had really good parking spots at the fence facing pit road in what served asthe Late Model Sportsman garage compound in February. I also remember they used to bring a lot of good food to share.

On race day morning, I usually got out to the track around 4:00 a.m. to start hanging banners and the July 4th sunrise was always spectacular.

My most unforgettable July 4th Daytona race was In 1984. I was representing 7-Eleven and we were sponsoring Daytona's Twin 125-mile February qualifying races. Because of that, my wife and I had invitations to Bill France, Senior's private suite for the visit by President Ronald Reagan. The President gave the "Command" to start engines enroute while airborne. Seeing Air Force One setting down just behind Daytona's backstretchwith the electric blue and STP red #43 car in the foreground heading towards turn 3 would give any American goosebumps. It sure gave 'em to me. Years later, it would turn out that my future brother-in-law was flying Air Force One Security and was a particular favorite of Nancy's. Richard scoring his 200th win that day was icing on the cake. Doesn't get any more spectacular than seeing the King and Cale rubbing sheet metal heading to the yellow flag to determine the winner that 4th of July.

My wife and I were also fortunate to have an invitation to the private 4th of July picnic with the President in the garage compound. If I was ever around a million NASCAR races, the moment my wife and I always remember is when Bill France, Senior put his arm around Ronald Reagan and said, "What is this old man s__t they keep talking about?" Then from behind a curtain appeared Tammy Wynette who broke into her famous song, "Stand by Your Man" as she also put an arm around President Reagan. I rememberthe President eating KFC and the sad memory of Bobby and Judy Allison and the Pettys, Richard and Lynda -sitting with him, not knowing of the tragedy that lay ahead for both of those "First Families" of NASCAR.

When I think back to my most unforgettable races, that one is probably at the top of the list.

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

Driver Bounties - Are They Still Used Much?

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Noticed the other day where a $2,000 "Bounty" bonus was collected at South Boston for beating Philip Morris there in the weekly Saturday night show. Back in the day, postinga bounty on a particular driver's head was a fairly common occurence to continue to draw fans and bring in some "outside" drivers to a weekly track where a particular driver was dominating. "Up North", Thompson and Stafford Springs weekly tracks in Connecticut started paying so much "deal" money for Jack Tant and Clayton Mitchell to take their #11 Littleton, NC-based NASCAR Modified driven by Richmond's Ray Hendrick, that they started skipping their "hometown" tracks in Richmond and South Boston. Funny thing was, these same tracks paying the deal money for Hendrick were paying a bounty to any driver who could beat him. I guess that's just an example of old fashioned promoting at the weekly level by a couple of promoters who had pockets deep enough to go both ways. In any event, the fans got to see a larger variety of talent at their local track, even if their hometown heros were getting beat. Since most of the coverage we used to get of all the good weekly action is long gone, I have no idea whether this practice still prevails. Anybody know?
updated by @dave-fulton: 12/05/16 04:02:07PM

Stock Car Racing Named "Official" State Sport of NC

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I do remember your original post.This was the "formal" deal. Our Guv needed to get out of the capital.

Stock Car Racing Named "Official" State Sport of NC

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By acclimation... The noise meter broke.

Stock Car Racing Named "Official" State Sport of NC

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Now, can we name Richard Petty our official driver???

From today's Concord(NC) Tribune

By Ben McNeely
Published: June 21, 2011

Theres a state song, state flower, state bird and even a state dog.

Surrounded by schoolchildren and flanked by NASCAR Hall of Famers on Tuesday, Gov. Bev Perdue made stock car racing the official state sport.

The bill signing, held at Charlotte Motor Speedway Tuesday, signaled the end of a rough budget season for the Democratic governor, who had her veto of the state budget overturned by a Republican-controlled legislature.

In these depressing budget times, finishing the legislative session that weve just finished, its really cool to do something fun, Perdue said. You couldnt have kept me from coming here today.

The bill was the brainchild of fourth- and fifth-grade students from Lake Norman Elementary and Mount Mourne IB School in Mooresville. Its been in the makings for two years.

In fourth grade, we study North Carolina and the symbols of our state, said Sara Collin, a fourth-grade teacher at Lake Norman Elementary. The students discovered there wasnt a state sport.

The students considered basketball as a potential state sport, but during their studies, they researched the origins of stock car racing and NASCAR, said Dawn Creason, spokeswoman for Iredell-Statesville Schools.

For students Sierra Bice, 11, Derrick Easter, 11, Billy Witherell, 10, the process to get a state symbol made official was a learning experience.

We learned about the economic impact of it, the tracks in North Carolina, the state symbols and a lot of very interesting stuff about our state, Easter said.

With the help of N.C Rep. Grey Mills and others, the kids visited the General Assembly in April. Along the way, they visited many tracks across the state, including Charlotte Motor Speedway.

To either side of Perdue sat recent Hall of Fame inductees Bobby Allison and Ned Jarrett.

Well, its like being in the Hall of Fame, a real honor, Allison said. I had a feeling it was going to be big. In fact, the plea to my mother to sign the paper to where I could race when I was 17 was that, Mom, this is going to get good.

Motorsports in North Carolina is a big industry -- $6 billion big, according to the North Carolina Motorsports Association. More than 20,000 jobs directly and indirectly related to motorsports and most of them are centered in Cabarrus and Iredell counties. Ninety percent of the NASCAR race teams are located in North Carolina. And with the addition of the NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte, it solidifies the states hold on stock car racing.

I continue to say (stock car racing) was born and bred in this state, Perdue said. We believe that motorsports and NASCAR belong to the people of this great state.

While Perdue was in Concord Tuesday, more than 200 bills are sitting on her desk in Raleigh, waiting for her review.

The Associated Press reports the governor usually has about 30 days to review bills, but with the Republican-controlled General Assembly coming back to work in mid-July, Perdue will have less time to make her decision to either sign the bills into law or veto them to send back to the legislature.

Perdue has used her veto stamp a record seven times this year, including on the two-year budget plan. But the legislature voted to override her veto and make the $19-billion budget official.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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

Should Sponsors Own Race Teams?

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The various postings about Red Bull's future plans got me to thinking about whether racing sponsors should own race teams. I'm not particularly in favor of it, but that is how I was trained very long ago when I managed the Wrangler Jeans NASCAR programs. During a particularly trying period late in 1983 when we were trying to move Dale Earnhardt back to Richard Childress and were negotiating at the same time with Tim Richmond about going to Bud Moore's ride I was called into the office of Bob Odear, then Wrangler's President of Domestic Operations. He knew I had gotten pretty frazzled over the various wheelings and dealings. His comment to me that day was this, "Remember, Dave - we are NOT in the racing business, we are in the business of manufacturing and selling blue jeans. Dale Earnhardt, Bud Moore and Richard Childress are in the racing business." I think when you are out there in the middle of it day in and day out it may become easy to forget exactly what business you're really in. As a sponsor, it seems to me that you could really paint yourself into a corner by owning the team.

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

It Really Was Different Back Then

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This is where the "independents", i.e. non-factory teams stayed for the Richmond 1/2-mile dirt track races - Richmond Auto Court on U.S. 1 just north of track. It's been torn down for years.

It Really Was Different Back Then

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I know the older I get the more sentimental I am for the "old days" of stock car racing and I know that today's fans with all the tv coverage (as PattyKay has so clearly documented) just don't understand what it was like to have that occassional contact with the cars and drivers back in the day. I and my buddies were 16 in 1964 when we began going to a FEW races. We had started listening every week on the radio to any that were broadcast. This was how it went in my hometown of Richmond in 1964. It was a 62 race Grand National calendar beginning at Concord and ending at Jacksonville. We'd made it to thespring Richmond race won by David Pearson in Cotton Owen's #6 Dodge. That race started on Sunday afternoon and finished under the lights on Tuesday night after rain turned the 1/2-mile dirt track to mud. But we were hooked and thus we begana tradition that no longer exists - going from motel to motel the night before the cars were due to sign in so we could see who had come to town to race. For our September "fall" race, the cars came straight to Richmond from a dirt event in Hickory. On Saturday the Pearson/Cotton Owens car was at Southside Dodge, along with David. Richard Petty and car were at Lawrence Plymouth and Ned Jarrett and his Ford were at Richmond Ford. They still had red Hickory clay on them. The Richmond race was a one day show on Sunday - practice, qualify, race. After dinner on Saturday night we again went around to all the motels. Petty & Pearson, along with their cars on open trailers were at the Holiday Inn near the track. We would park and actually walk up to the trailers and cars. The crew would come out of the rooms whose doors were opened and talk to us. We were thrilled. Then we'd go to the much cheaper Richmond Auto Court. That's where Bill Siefert, Tom Pistone and most of the guys were. It was a bunch cheaper. When we went to the dealerships that September weekend, we could peer into the impound lots and see the next year's new car models ready to go in the showrooms. That was a huge thrill. Then after the race, the track gate was opened and in we went to talk to our hero, JT Putney. The last driver left was always Richard, who sometimes would go sit in the grandstand until every child had spoken to him and had gotten their program signed. Is it any wonder that man was loved by most fans regardless of what make car you drove or pulled for? These are the sorts of memories that are difficult to relate to today's fans. It's not just trying to describe Junior Johnson and Tiny Lund side by side coming out of Richmond's turn 4 throwing a roostertail of dirt into the bleachers, it's about those intangible feelings and times we know we will never relive andthat will never happen again. When I tell today's fans it was different then, these are some of the things I'm talking about. Today's 16 year olds can't sit down in a NASCAR Grand National car that Bill Champion just climbed out of. Does this make sense, or is it just old fuddy duddy stuff?
updated by @dave-fulton: 12/05/16 04:02:07PM

The fans and the sport has changed. Does it really matter?

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... There's a Rocket to fit your Pocket

... HeartBeat of America

... Better Idea

... Wide Tracking

... Driving Excitement