Dale Talked Turkey

   The spring wild turkey season now is open in both Carolinas, and with it returns a warm memory of Dale Earnhardt.
   If Dale was alive, I know where he'd be, especially with an open date this weekend on NASCAR's big-time schedule.
   He'd be in the woods, camouflaged from head to toe, trying to trick a big ol' tom gobbler to within shooting range.
   From boyhood, when he hunted with his father, Ralph, himself a stock car racing champion, Dale was an ardent outdoorsman.  His favorite game were deer and quail.
   And then Dale Earnhardt discovered wild turkey hunting.

   It happened in early April of 1984, right before the Northwestern Bank 400 at now idled North Wilkesboro Speedway.
   Friends had been urging Earnhrdt to try the sport, but he declined, usually explaining that he didn't have the patience it takes to be a successful turkey hunter.
   Finally, at age 32, he relented and became hooked, an addiction only other turkey enthusiasts understand.
   "As much as I like to hunt, I always passed on turkeys," he explained at the time.  "Part of this was because the month-long spring season conflicted with so many races.  Plus, there was testing to do and sponsor committments to take care of in getting the racing season going.
   "Then, during the winter, I was over at the home of Lee Slater, my next-door neighbor on Lake Norman near Mooresville (N.C.).  Lee is a taxidermist and great hunter and fisherman.  I saw mounts of some of the turkeys he'd bagged and Lee showed me the different kinds of calls he'd used to bring them in.  He described how hard it is to fool an ol' gobbler.  He wondered aloud If I could do it.
   "Looking back, I realize it was Lee's way of challenging me to try.  You know me.   I don't turn down challenges.  I borrowed one of Lee's slate box calls and started practicing on it, getting tips from him all along."
   Between the Valleydale 500 at Bristol (Tenn.) and the North Wilkesboro race Earnhardt went to land he'd leased for hunting purposes in Chester County, S.C.
   "I walked deep into the woods before daylight," continued Earnhardt.  "I got situated at the spot I'd picked to hunt, with a good-sized pine at my back and an old blown-down cedar in front of me.  I was wearing camouflage from my cap to my boots."
   Earnhardt clucked a couple times on the slate call.
   "From my right there was a responding gobble," he said, his eyes widening.  "I could tell the turkey was on the ground and coming toward me.  My stomach jumped up in my throat.
   "I decided to gamble and make the slate box cluck one more time.  But I made a scratching sound, and I knew that the turkey to my right was spooked and lost to me.  It's incredible how smart and suspicious they are, and how they can pick up on the slightest little warning.
   "I was starting to cuss mysef when from the left I heard a gobbler that was farther away.  He was coming down the ridge."
   Relieved to get a second chance, Earnhardt resumed clucking and the bird approached.
   "I'll never forget the sight," said Earnhardt. "Here he comes around that blown-down cedar.  His tail is fanned out and his head is thrown back to impress that sweet thing he's getting ready to have some romance with.
   "Right then, raising that shotgun, is as excited as I've ever been."
   The turkey, which Earnhardt carried out of the woods slung over his shoulder, was a fine one.  It weighed 18 pounds, sported a 10-inch beard and one-inch spurs.
   "I've won big 500-mile races, bagged a 12-point buck and caught a 25-pound striped bass on light tackle," declared Dale.  "But the biggest thrill and sense of accomplishment that I've ever known came the particular moment when I got that turkey."
    This probably changed the instant Earnhardt got the checkered flag to finally win the Daytona 500 in 1998, one of his 76 victories en route to tying Richard Petty with seven driving championships.
    However, for the rest of his life, which tragically ended on Feb. 18, 2001 in a last-lap crash during the 500 at Daytona, one of Dale Earnhardt's very favorite topics of conversation was about how he "talked" that turkey off that ridge.
   It meant so much to the still widely-mourned champion that if the exact spot in the Chester County woods could be pinpointed, I wish someone would put a marker there.