First year for the category and I win it!!!! After sneaking my way into all kinds of magazines, from Scale Auto to Circle Track, I finally get the COVER on one this time. Well, there was that Tom Cruise R/C car on the cover of Racing Collectibles Price Guide, but it was in black and white. Be sure to check out the new April issue.Hey, this "retro" craze only took twenty five years to catch up to me so I think maybe I should just ride this hoss as far as it'll run 'cause you never know when the pendulum will swing back the other way. And I'm too old and set in my ways to learn to build tuners. LOL
Way to go big man....After many thousands of hours, you're beginning to get your rewards. Keep it going!Dargan
Awesome, Jerry! I guess this means the show/tow money just went up...lol
Do you have a web-site?
Thank you so much. It's so good to hear from my many many fans. Tim, not to worry, I made arrangements for a package deal on the maazines and the autographs for only$14.99. And don't worry about the four hour wait for the ten second "audience" with "the Ol' Redneck Hissownself". You can get a special "V.I.P. Pass" that allows grants you entrance into a special early signing Meet and Greet session. It lets you miss all the long wait and standing in line and is only $40 and that includes the autographed magazine and one picture taken with me at no extra charge. What a deal?Randy, I don't have a website as such, but my son let's me hang out on the official Speedway Photo. net site. Mainly because I started Speedway Photo Service when he was about six years old and I'll cut him out of the will if he doesn't let me play there.My section is called "Echoes of Thunder" and I've also got some galleries of both model and real race cars on there. Unfortuneatly today's photo isn't on there yet because he hasn't got the "April Fools Day" section up yet. LOL
Just like some of those "limited edition" diecast and collector cards, those tickets are strictly limitied........... to only the number that we think can actually be sold that we and get deposits for. LOL Ain't modern Nascar Marketing wonderful?Remember the one time when ,IIRC it was Russ Catlin didn't treat Fireball like a professional, a REAL one and not one of these poster boys for creative marketing we've got now?Along about '60 or so Russ found out about a Boy Scout troop that had adopted Fireball as their mascot. They had built models of his cars, followed his career and clipped race write ups from the newspapers and posted them at the Scout Hut. Russ invited them down to the track for qualifying on a day that Roberts was a cinch to win the pole and set a new record. He put them up in the tower and sent one of them down to the pits with a note telling him about them asking 'balls to wave to them on his qualifying run. When the boy came back on the verge of tears, he told Russ that he had barely glanced at the note and then wadded it up and threw it on the ground without a comment.Russ's memory went back to a conversation a few years back when he worked up the nerve to ask Fireball why he had such a good relationship with him and was not get along very well with most of the other press. Fireball had told him that it was very simple, both of them were professionals. He said that Russ knew better than to intrude on his "private time" before a race when he was preparing. He knew to wait until the "doing" was done before getting to the "talking". Russ knew that he had just broken one of his most important "rules of engagement" with Fireball.As Fireball started on his qualifying run, sure enough, there was not wave or any kind of acknowledgement, he was concentrating. But moments after that run, a new record, Fireball burst into Catlin's office and asked if he could meet the boys. Naturally Catlin said yes. A few minutes later Fireball came back into his office asking Russ if he had any programs that he could buy. The boys wanted his autograph and all they had was scraps of paper.A little while after he had left the office with a handful of programs he came back again to get permission to take the scouts down to the garage area to give them a closer look at the black and gold Pontiac he had just put on the pole.Not "put me on a pedestal" or "kiss my ring and bow before greatness" or even just plain "hide in the truck until the brats go away" like some of today's new guard. All he asked was to let him do his job to the best of his ability and concentrate on the job at hand. Once that was done it was time to take care of the fans who put the money in the purses and made his lifestyle possible.Sometimes I wish I could run a school for race drivers. Not to teach them how to drive but to teach them just how fortunate they are to be doing what they really want to do and to remember just who pays the bills and makes it all possible. Even with all the millions of dollars that the new breed of sponsors put up, without the ticket buying fans there wouldn't be any tracks for these modern day gladiators to wage their battles on. Only a very very few of todays racers understand that, it seems. And from what I've seen when meeting my childhood heroes, VERY few of the old guard don't get it.Just like the farmers, soda jerks, gas station attendants and the like who became the warbird pilots, tank drivers, battleship commanders etc that rose to the occasion in World War Two, the generation of mechanics, timbermen and whiskey runners that laid the foundation for the sport we all love will never be equalled and I feel blessed to have known some of them, be able to call them friend and having been able to see some of their exploits. first hand And that ain't got nothin' to do with either April Fools or what passes for stock car racing these days.
I feel exactly the same way about my advanced age. Everything I really like occured when I was young and some even before and I wouldn't have missed the racing or the music to be younger today. I am so hoping that we don't add a race to the schedule at my track for that Saturday. As of right now it is an off date. I am so looking forward to getting down there and seeing both my old friends and my new ones. I hope to have some photo discs done with a couple thousand pics of my model photography done to seel to help with the restoration and I'll make sure to save you one, autographed of course. LOL
Congratulations Jerry!