Put the remote down and walk away slowly and no one will get hurt

By Bob Henry
ThatsRacin.com Editor

When I landed one of my first real jobs after throwing in the towel on the bands I’d played with way back when, the cheap motels, roadhouses and two-lane highways in Econoline vans, I thought it was going to help me get closer to one of my other loves. And it worked, to a point.

I became a warehouse and delivery guy in my very early 20s for the biggest auto parts company in town. In addition to the steady paychecks, I got to meet and eventually work with a lot of guys who ran at our area’s dirt tracks and drag strips. I’d always been a car guy and while it also meant I was the designated wheelman in the band days, that didn’t really satisfy the car Jones for me.

But I took the job in the late fall, so my getting to know more of the racers got off to kind of a rocky start.

In my first or second week, when I found the invoice for some brake shoes and cylinders that were bound for Buddy Odom’s shop just off Eighth Street, I couldn’t wait. Odom was one of the top guns at the three-eighths-mile clay track out on Highway 19. His modified was pretty innovative for the time and place and, even if he was horribly nearsighted – or maybe because - he never saw any reason to back off before the next guy as they approached a turn at full tilt.

I didn’t run, but walked pretty briskly back to the warehouse, pulled the goods and headed for the half-ton GMC truck I’d been assigned. And I drove – at the legal and posted speed limit, of course – out to Buddy Odom’s Garage.

As soon as Buddy signed for the parts, I introduced myself and started yammering about racing, telling him, among other things, that he was the man. Never mind the expression wouldn’t even be uttered in a golf tournament gallery or anywhere else for another 30 years.

As nearsighted as he was, Buddy Odom was also a helluva deer hunter. He looked at me as squarely as he was capable over the top of his thick old glasses, put a hand on my shoulder and told me this: “There’ll be plenty of time for that next spring. Right now, we’ve gotta go get some deer.”

And it occurs to me that if Brian France and his lieutenants ever met Buddy Odom, the straight-shooting dirt tracker must’ve had far less impact on them than he did on me. Because here it is, less than a week before Thanksgiving and the NASCAR season is only now approaching its end.

Why, I never ...

It would be easy to jump on the bandwagon and say something cute and even semi-nasty about the longest season in pro sports. You know, like the NASCAR season isn’t finally ending, it’s being put out of its misery.

That’s the popular route for a lot of weary NASCAR fans this late season. If you believe some of the posts on ThatsRacin.com’s forums and other boards, along with the rants of many callers on popular racing radio programs, NASCAR is S-O-O-O-O over. Or those folks are S-O-O-O-O over NASCAR.

Funny though, isn’t it, how the same people are back the next week, commenting on the most recent NASCAR race they’ve vowed never – ever - to watch?

I know, too, how fine a line I’m walking here. I regularly read the forum posts vilifying anyone who writes anything that even remotely sounds like any kind of defense of NASCAR, the Chase, the car of tomorrow, TV ratings, race attendance or any related topic.

And that’s fine. Opinions, noses and many other anatomical features are things we all have. And we appreciate the debate and sharing of opinions on our boards.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

Yes, NASCAR has changed. A ton.

So, too, have the most other professional sports I follow, the place I work, my wife and daughter, the two best dogs on the planet and a lot of other people, pets and things that matter to me. And I haven’t touched a bass guitar in - literally – years, even if I do still occasionally grab the six-string acoustic from its resting place next to the windowsill in the living room. Which is to say that, yeah, I’ve changed, too. A lot.

Racing wasn’t my first love, but I figured out early on that my heart picked up a beat or two when I heard revving motors and spinning wheels. I found that I got a little more interested when the conversation turned to cars in general and racing in particular. Didn’t matter all that much what kind of racing, either.

I suspect if you’re still reading (thanks again, Mom), you’re that way a little, too.

Has NASCAR disappointed us? From time to time, yes. Do we agree with every decision the company’s leaders have made? That would be a firm no.

Let’s think about that parallel with work again for a minute, or holy matrimony, parenting and/or any of those other things that come under that heading of what we generally call life.

Has NASCAR provided us with some of our favorite, even most cherished memories? Yep. (I still get a huge kick out of hearing some poor guy who’s just won a race proclaim in Victory Lane how that checkered flag was the biggest and best darned thing that ever happened to him. And I hafta be a tad envious of that fly on the wall when he and his wife get back to their half-million-dollar motorhome to work out their understanding and definition of “best ever.”)

Does NASCAR currently put on the best racing show in these United States, maybe even the world? That’s debatable, but the NASCAR show is routinely very close to the top.

And might this NASCAR Nextel Cup season be followed next year by a better one from our varied points of view? I don’t know, but it might be worth watching to see.

So is it time to back away from the edge a little and maybe even start looking forward to January? Preseason testing will start at Daytona very early in that month and the shortest offseason in professional sports will just about be over.

We never know. It might not be perfect, but it might not be all that bad. And it could even range from decent to pretty darned good or all the way to great.

You know, the stuff of memories.