Metcalfe, Mark Maker

   The hot-shot sports columnist for a major newspaper in the Carolinas had decided to grace Charlotte Motor Speedway with his presence, finally acknowledging that stock car racing  actually existed.
   It was raining hard the chilly autumn day in the 1970s that he came to the track during Charlotte's fall race week.  Because of the bad weather, few drivers or crew chiefs were around.
   No matter.  He wasn't there to interview them.  Instead, he planned to do a piece on Morris Metcalfe, chief scorer for NASCAR's top division, then called the Winston Cup Series.
   Only my pal Steve Waid and I were in the speedway's old frame press box when the columnist arrived to start composing.  He shook the rain from his jacket and umbrella, took a portable typewriter from its case (this was in the days before computers, remember), rubbed his hands to warm up and stared long and hard at the blank page of copy paper facing him.
   Then, he began typing.
   What happened next ranks as the most bizarre thing I ever saw in any press box.

   The guy wrote a paragraph, then yelled "You idiot!  That's not it!"  He ripped the sheet of paper from the typewriter, wadded it up and threw it away.
   During the course of the next 90 minutes similar scenes of self-deprecation played out, much to the amazement--and then the amusement--of Steve and I.
   Finally, the fellow screamed, "This story is impossible to write!"  He wadded up a final piece of paper and tossed it into a heap with the rest.
   He put his portable Olivetti in the case, phoned his office to explain that he had "writer's block today" and wouldn't be filing a column.  He left the press box whistling a happy tune.
   "I could never get by with that," I said.
   "Me neither," said Steve.
   However, we understood the plight of the guy, who left a pile of 56 wadded-up sheets of copy paper behind him.  I know it was 56 because Steve and I counted 'em.
   NASCAR's scoring system in those days was difficult to write about.  And although Morris Metcalfe was master of it, explaining exactly how it worked was another matter.
   All this comes to mind because Morris passed away  Aug. 30 at age 81, his scoring duties and the system he oversaw replaced a few years ago by high-tech gadgetry that enables NASCAR officials to determine the exact position of all the cars at anytime during a race.
   Metcalfe, who spent most of his life in Winston-Salem, working as a senior engineer for Western Electric, enjoyed telling how he first connected with NASCAR.
   "I drove over to the old track at Hickory and heard the P.A. announcer saying they needed scorers for the race," recalled Morris.  "I volunteered and happened to be the scorer for a driver named Dick Passwater, who won the race.
   "NASCAR returned the price of my ticket that day in exchange for me joining the group of scorers.  I thought this was a good way to spend weekends during summer and see races for free."
   Morris, a tall, slender fellow, eventually became the sanctioning body's chief scorer.  His spiffy uniform on race days was a black and white striped shirt like those worn by basketball referees, white slacks and shoes and a white cap with his title emblazoned on the front.
   Metcalfe stood in front of the scoring corps--two persons for each car--with his back to the race track.  As they logged each lap and the time it was completed, they held up the scoring cards and Morris marked the information into his log.  He couldn't look away for a second, and demanded that the scorers not be distracted, either.
   "He ruled that scoring stand with no-nonsense passion," recalled one scorer, who asked not to be named.  "He put fear into you about making a mistake.  It wouldn't have surprised me that if sometime Morris had pulled out a buggy whip and snapped it over our heads.  But I think the contribution he made to NASCAR during a period when it was undergoing major growth and new scrutiny was very significant."
   One blogger wrote a day or so after Metcalfe's death that  "there was never a scoring controversey in NASCAR during his tenure."
   This isn't correct.  There were some protests by competitors over scoring issues.
   Metcalfe and his scorers weren't infallible, in part because of the system they were required to use.
   A system so seemingly complicated and difficult to explain that it befuddled one of North Carolina's best sportswriters.
   He never did write that column, by the way.