Those Were The Days...

   NASCAR Nextel Cup drivers nowadays make LOTS and LOTS more money than their predecessors.

   For example, Jimmie Johnson, the series' new champion, earned $15,770,125 in 2006, winning five races en route to his first title.

   In 1978, Cale Yarborough won 10 races in his drive to the second of three successive championships with a team owned by Junior Johnson.  Counting the champion's bonus, or "point money" as it was then known, Yarborough's purse amounted to $530,751.

   That's approximately one-30th of what Johnson collected with his Hendrick Motorsports team.

   However, in some other ways, Yarborough and his peers during what I consider stock car racing's "Golden Age," from the early 1970s through the mid-1980s,  had it better.

   Still once again for example, their off-seasons were much more laid back.

   They had a far greater amount of time to pursue things they enjoyed doing, like fishing and hunting.

   Today's drivers get a couple or so weeks for vacation, but many days during December and January are owed to appearances for sponsors and more days are devoted to intense testing.

   Greg Biffle and Kyle Busch ALREADY have tested at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

   I imagine the current crowd often yearns for a day like Buddy Baker experienced  in December of 1975, a year which proved one of his best, producing four victories.

   Buddy, a popular, jovial giant of a guy and among the hardest chargers NASCAR has known, and I were invited to drive down from Charlotte for a day of hunting at rural Ellerbe, which is just a few miles from the sadly-departed N.C. Motor Speedway.

   Our quarry: quail.

   Frost still whitened the ground when we arrived and met our hosts, Ralph Webb and Wayne Lowdermilk, both now deceased.

   Ralph was the brother of N.C. Motor Speedway co-founder Elsie Webb.  And Wayne worked at the track during the weeks leading to races, doing everything from mending guardrails to picking up incoming celebrities at airports.

   Both Ralph and Wayne owned some of the best bird dogs ever to lope through a field in the Sandhills of North Carolina.

   Buddy and I had hunted birds with both men before.  However, we especially anticipated this outing because they had sent word the spring of '75 had produced a fine crop of quail.

   "The most coveys I have seen in quite some time," Ralph had said.

   He wasn't exaggerating.

   Hardly 10 minutes after Wayne let two dogs out of a box on the back of a Jeep from which we were hunting, they went on point.

   Buddy and I, with shotguns ready, eased our way through the brush, approaching from behind the pointers, which were frozen as stiff as statues.  "This is the kind of scene you see on outdoors-related calendars," I thought to myself.

   With a stunning suddeness that makes a man's adrenaline gush, a covey of perhaps 20 quail blasted into the air.

   We sent lead flying after them, and four birds went down.

   I think Buddy, one of the best wing shots I ever hunted alongside, bagged three of them.

   He was ebullient as the dogs brought the birds to us.  "Wow, I've been needing something like this!" said the driver whose victories in '75 with a team owned by Bud Moore included a sweep of the two 500-milers at Talladega and triumphs in the 500s closing the season at Atlanta and Ontario, Calif.

   We returned to the Jeep and drove on, hunting the field edges.

   Our route on a beautiful spread of property owned by Ralph Webb took us by one of his many farm ponds.  It essentially was covered shore-to-shore with wild ducks.

   "You boys might as well take some of them, too," said Wayne.

   We left the Jeep out of sight of the pond and made our way to the base of the earthern dam.  Buddy and I crawled up the dam and poked our heads over the top.  The nearest ducks saw us and took wing.  We fired, and three mallards went down.

   "Duck soup!" I shouted.

   The shooting, of course, sent the other ducks, numbering maybe 250, into flight.  The whirring of their wings as they fled remains one of the most memorable sounds of my life.

   On we went, and the dogs pointed again.

   Same routine, approach from behind them.  This time, though, an interloper interfered.  A rabbit burst from the brush beneath Buddy's feet.  A surprised Buddy jumped about two feet in the air, but recovered in time to get off a shot.

   Add a hare to the harvest.

   After a break for lunch, the hunt continued.

   We were driving down a dirt road when Wayne noticed something shaking the limbs at the top of a tall oak tree.

   "That's the biggest fox squirrel I've ever seen!" he exclaimed.

   "I've gotta have it," said Buddy.

   He alit from the Jeep about 200 yards from the tree and made his way behind brushy cover to within shooting range.

   Add a fox squirrel to the bag.

   Fox squirrels are almost twice as large as their more familiar cousins, gray squirrels.  And no, there aren't any fox genes in them.  The critters are not widely found, but among the places they do inhabit are the N.C. Sandhills.

   They vary widely in coloration, from black and white to reddish to gray and brown.

   Most hunters lucky enough to take a fox squirrel have it mounted as a trophy.

   More coveys of quail were pointed through the afternoon, and we approached our daily limit as regulated by the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission.  We had a bunch of birds, as Ralph and Wayne had joined in the shooting.

   "Let's bust one more covey and call it a day," said Ralph.

   Almost on cue, the dogs pointed.

   But it wasn't birds this time.

   To our astonishment, a whopper of a whitetail deer rose from a bedding place in the field.  As my ol' game warden of a father used to say, "Its rack looked like a rocking chair turned upside down."  It was a 12-pointer, at the very least.

   Wayne, the driver, had a rifle resting alongside the console next to his seat.  He was the only one among us to have a chance at getting off a shot.

   Wayne jumped from the Jeep and, firing away in rapid succession, expended  almost all his ammo as the big buck bounded with amazing speed toward a thick pine forest 150 yards away.   Not surprisingly, Wayne missed.

   Buddy and I accused Wayne of experiencing "buck fever."  We threatened to cut off the tail of his shirt, a tradition among deer hunters when a cohort shoots and misses.

   However, we reconsidered for three reasons:

   First, he was our co-host.

   Second, he had help treat us to what Hall-Of-Famer Buddy Baker still ranks among the greatest off-season days of a colorful racing career covering three decades.

   And third, Wayne still held that rifle and he had a couple bullets left...