Tom Higgins' Scuffs

I'm Thankful For...

   Now, upon my 71st  Thanksgiving  Day, I am thankful for a myriad of many, many things.
   Among  them:
   I'm thankful, of course, for family.  My children, Chip and Heather, and the seven grandchildren they have given me.  Also, my sister Barbara, an angel on earth.  And for our immediate loved ones who have gone on, Pappy, Momma, sister Martha and brother Bub.
   I'm thankful for my wonderfully sweet friend Linda, the love of my life.
   I'm thankful for other fine friends, such as fellow motorsports journalists Steve Waid and Bob Moore and others too numerous to name.
   I'm thankful for all the men and women who have and are defending our country in the Armed Services, including late brother Bub, who was a Navy sailor in the Pacific Theater during World War Two.
   I'm thankful for relatively long life and being privileged to write about stock car racing for 50 years.
   For this career, I have several special thanks.
   I'm thankful for Big Bill France, the giant of a deep-voiced man who founded NASCAR in the late 1940s and stood solid as a block of granite to see the sanctioning body from formation to great fruition.  A lesser man couldn't have fended off all the challenges.

   I'm thankful for Big Bill's son, Bill, Jr., who proved just as foresightful and tough as his father, in succeeding him and leading NASCAR to it heights as an internationally popular sport.
   I'm thankful to the oldtime promoters like Enoch Staley, Clay Earles, Joe Littlejohn, Alvin Hawkins, Gene Sluder, Paul Sawyer, Harold Brasington, Bob Colvin and Richard Howard.
   I'm thankful for the pioneer drivers, men such as Lee Petty, Buck Baker, Red Byron, Junior Johnson, Curtis Turner, Herb Thomas,the Flock brothers, Bob, Fonty and Tim, and all the others who raced in rather dangerous conditions for pennies on the dollar compared to what today's stars earn.  They ran mostly for the love of competition and the notoriety.
   I'm thankful for the great winners and others who lost their lives on the track--Dale Earnhardt, Fireball Roberts, Joe Weatherly, Tiny Lund, Neil Bonnett, J.D. McDuffie.  My hope is that they are respectfully remembered forever.
   I'm thankful for getting to cover NASCAR during what I refer to as "The Golden Era," the 1960s,'70s and '80s.  Those decades provided some of the greatest racing, and drivers, the sport ever has known.  The list of the latter includes King Richard Petty, David Pearson, Cale Yarborough, the Allison brothers, Bobby and Donnie, Ned Jarrett, Fred Lorenzen, Dick Hutcherson, Buddy Baker, Darrell Waltrip, Geoff Bodine, Terry and Bobby Labonte, Rusty Wallace, Harry Gant, Rex White, Ricky Rudd, Dale Jarrett, Sterling Marlin, Marvin Panch, Wendell Scott, Ernie Irvan, the indominatble Dave Marcis, Jack Ingram, Sam Ard and deceased drivers Benny Parsons, Bobby Isaac, Jim Paschal, Tim Richmond, Alan Kulwicki and, of course, Earnhardt.
   I'm thankful for the colorful characters who added levity to the era--drivers Dick Brooks, Ken Schrader,  Jabe Thomas and James Hylton, the wise-cracking Grover Cleveland "G.C." Spencer,  team owner Junie Donlavey; crew chief David Ifft; and the brother driver/crew chief combo of Jim and Tommy Vandiver.  Thomas could have had a far more enriching career as a pickpocket.  He was infamous for slipping chicken bones into the driver uniforms of rivals during pre-race introductions.  Hylton once made a bet at Pocono that he would see how SLOW he could qualify.  He ran 40 mpn on a 2.5-mile track.  NASCAR fined him more than he won on the wager.  A promoter said of the Vandivers when they were breaking into racing on Carolina short tracks on Saturday nights, "They either finish first or upside down."
   I'm far beyond thankful to have chronicled the career of Earnhardt, perhaps the most intriguing person other than Billy Graham I've ever met.  He alternately could be cooperative, contrary, funny and warm and then frustratingly cold. There was one constant: Dale Earnhardt always was excitable.  I agree with others more knowledgeable than me in stock car racing that he rates as the greatest driver ever.  There may never be another combination like Earnhardt and his team owner, Richard Childress.
   I'm thankful to have seen the rise of Jeff Gordon as a great NASCAR champion.  From the days, when as a kid, he was driving the Baby Ruth car in what's now the Nationwide Series it was obvious that Jeff was headed to superstardom.
  I'm thankful to all the great team owners who fielded the cars: Petty Enterprises, Holman & Moody, Hendrick Motorsports, Richard Childress Racing, Junior Johnson & Associates, the Wood Brothers, Raymond Parks, Leo Jackson, Robert Yates, Harry Ranier, Joe Gibbs Racing, Jack Roush, Roger Penske, Felix Sabates and Walter "Bud" Moore, the World War II hero of the D-Day Invasion of Normandy to free the world from Adolf Hitler's Nazis.  Also, I'm thankful for the talented crew chiefs: Dale Inman, Waddell Wilson, Ray Fox, Ray Evernham, Chad Knaus, Jeff Hammond, Tim Brewer, Harry Hyde, Herb Nab, Leonard Wood, Smokey Yunick, Ernie Elliott, Larry McReynolds, Andy Petree, Kirk Shelmerdine, Gary Nelson, Buddy Parrott, Jake Elder, Richard Broome, ad infinitum.
    I'm thankful to Bruton Smith, who turned Charlotte Motor Speedway into a fan-friendly showplace, and forced other track owners to do the same.
   I'm thankful to the former Charlotte track executive, Humpy Wheeler, whose wild imagination transformed races from just events into spectacular productions.
   I'm far more beyond than thankful for Junior Johnson, and not just because he chose me and Steve Waid to co-author his biography.  Junior had a reputation during his driving career and for some time while he was a greatly-successful team owner, as a rough-and-tumble character.  This traced to his days in the 1950s as a moonshine-producer and legendary hauler.  It's a much undeserved characterization.  Johnson, in fact, is the gentlest, kindest, most generous men I've ever met.
  I'm thankful for common sense NASCAR officials such as Les Richter, Lin Kuchler and the late Dick Beaty, whose "gotcha phrase" when someone was caught cheating was, "Do you want to tell me about it, or do you want me to tell you about it?"  Some choice, huh?
   I'm thankful for Mark Martin.  He is the cosummate professional as a driver and the ultimate gentleman as a human being.  Mark has finished second in the point standings toward the driving championship four times, once because of a controversial penalty that cost him the title.  Next season, ultra-successful team owner Rick Hendrick is providing Mark with a ride that hopefully will bring him that long deserved crown.
   I know, as a journalist, I should be impartial.
   But I'll be very thankful if in 2009 at this time I can be writing about that.
   Finally, if the fog of time and the advance of age has led me to omit someone or a team that deserved mention, I apologize.
   I am thankful to all who are NASAR fans and readers.
   I'll  be thankful if  you have the happiest of holdidays.
   Sincerely,
   Ol' Tom

Jimmie Chases Cale

   Jimmie Johnson is chasing Cale Yarborough, and he's on the verge of catching him.
   Huh?
   Wait a second!  Didn't Yarborough, who is in practically all the motorsports halls of fame, retire as a  driver in NASCAR's top division in 1988?
   Sure enough.
   Johnson isn't racing Cale on the track, but in the record book.

   When Johnson takes the green flag Sunday in the Ford 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway in Florida, he'll be going for a third straight driving championship at NASCAR's  leading level.
   Yarborough is the only other driver in the sanctioning body's history, dating to 1949, to take three titles consecutiverly,  achieving the feat 1976-78.
   Johnson holds a 136-point lead over Carl Edwards entering the long season's finale.  Johnson needs only to finish 36th or better to clinch the title.  Or 38th or better if he leads a lap, earning five bonus points.
   Three championships in a row is a record that many involved in NASCAR and those that follow the sport generally figured never would be matched.
   This and the seven overall titles taken by Richard Petty.  The late Dale Earnhardt tied Petty, winning seven as well.
   "Three in a row is remarkable," says Waddell Wilson, a  widely-respected, retired crew chief and engine builder.  "Considering how many good drivers there are, and also all that can go wrong to spoil a season.
   "It's something that Jimmie and Rick Hendrick justifiably can be very, very proud of doing."
   Hendrick is owner of Hendrick Motorsports, a mega-operation based in Harrisburg, N.C., which fields Chevrolets for Johnson's team, led by crew chief Chad Knaus.
    Pride is a ditto for Yarborough and legendary former team owner Junior Johnson, no relation to Jimmie. 
   "It might have been even more outstanding 30 years ago when Cale and Junior won three straight," continued Wilson, who once worked with Yarborough on the Ranier Racing team.  "Look at all the hall-of-famers Cale was racing against in those years--Bobby Allison, David Pearson, Buddy Baker, Benny Parsons, Bobby Isaac and Richard Petty.  To me, this magnifies what Cale did."
   Jimmie Johnson is a 33-year-old Californian from El Cajon who now lives in Charlotte.
   Yarborough, 68, grew up in little Timmonsville, S.C., and still resides there.  He crawled under the fence at Darlington Raceway as a 10-year-old to watch the inaugural Southern 500.  He now owns a variety of businesses in the area around Florence, S.C.  He later was to count five Southern 500 victories among his 83 triumphs, fifth-most alltime.
   Jimmie Johnson lists 40 wins, including seven in 2008 toward another Sprint Cup Series trophy.
   Cale was 36 when he claimed his first championship.
   "I knew when I hired Cale to drive for me in '75 that we were going to be champions together," says Junior Johnson, who sold his racing operation in 1995 and now raises cattle on an expansive farm in the Brushy Mountains of North Carolina, not far from where he was born.  "We had the same philosophy as drivers: FULL BORE!  And I knew Cale was as courageous and tough as they come.  He got every single horsepower out of his cars."
   Junior Johnson won 50 big-time races during his colorful career.  And he took three more points titles with Darrell Waltrip driving in 1981, '82 and '85 after Yarborough left the Johnson ride following the 1980 season.
   Junior for sure  proved a visionary in signing Yarborough for the team based in Wilkes County, N.C.
   In 1976, '77 and '78 the outfit mostly made it look easy in winning Winston Cup Series crowns.
   In '76 Yarborough won the championship by 195 points over Petty, clinching the crown merely by starting the season finale at Ontario Motor Speedway in California, a track that no longer exists.  He won nine races and posted 22 top five finishes in 30 starts.
   Yarborough triumphed by a whopping 386 points, again over Petty, in '77, clinching with two races to go.  That season he again won nine times and had 25 top fives in 30 events, finishing every race he started.
   The Junior Johnson & Asscoiates team won even bigger in '78, coasting home 474 points ahead of Allison, going to victory lane 10 times and notching 23 top five showings.  Again, the clincher came with two races remaining in the season.
   Such runaways eventually led NASCAR to inaugurate  "The Chase" format in 2004.  Under this setup, only the top 12 drivers in the point standings qualify for championship contention over the last 10 races.
   It has led to some exciting "squeakers."
   Kurt Busch took the '04 championship by only 8 points over Jimmie Johnson.  Tony Stewart won in '05 by 35 over Greg Biffle. 
   Jimmie claimed his first title in '06 by 56 points over Matt Kenseth.  And Johnson won once more in '07 by 77 over teammate Jeff Gordon, who is part co-owner with Hendrick of Jimmie's team.
   "Jimmie has a better cushion this year," observes Junior Johnson, "and it sure looks like Cale is going to have to share that three-championships-in-a-row record.
   "But you never know.  Remember 1992?  Alan Kulwicki came out of nowhere in the season's last race at Atlanta to overtake my driver, Bill Elliott, as well as Davey Allison.  Alan won the championship by just 10 points.  Anything can happen."
   That's racin'.

   -30-