Tom Higgins' Scuffs

Now, it's see you in September at fast Georgia speedway

So now Atlanta Motor Speedway gets a September date.

The Pep Boys Auto 500 is scheduled at the 1.54-mile track on Sept. 6.

That’s the Labor Day weekend date that was held from 1950-2003 by Darlington Raceway for the staging of the storied Southern 500. It’s a date that still should belong to the South Carolina track. However, that contention isn’t the gist of this column.

Since the opening of the Georgia superspeedway in 1961, NASCAR has scheduled the track’s second big time races each season in June, July, August, October and November.

And now September.

Why such shuffling at the facility which for many years was known as Atlanta International Raceway?

Officials at AMS lobbied to escape the November date because of often foul weather conditions that late in the autumn. Never mind that holding the season finale gave them the possibility of hosting the Sprint Cup Series’ championship-deciding event. They got their wish in 2002 when the final race was move to Homestead-Miami Speedway in Florida and Atlanta was given a weekend in October.

Last year they sought, and received, relief from racing in October, in part to avoid conflicts with Atlantic Coast Conference and Southeastern Conference football, Atlanta Falcons NFL football and the possibility of the Atlanta Braves being in baseball’s playoffs. Hence, this year’s Pep Boys 500-miler on the day-before-Labor Day.

The long-ago summertime shows at the speedway located south of Atlanta near Hampton, Ga., produced some memorable winners and incidents.

The earliest of the track’s “second time around” races was held on June 7, 1964.

Ned Jarrett, destined to win two championships and 50 races en route to several halls of fame, took the checkered flag. Driving a Ford fielded by colorful car-owner/crew chief Bondy Long, Jarrett finished four laps ahead of runner-up Richard Petty.

The race was marred by a savage crash by Doug Cooper. A tire blew on Cooper’s Ford on the 43rd lap, sending him into the guardail. Cooper ripped up 30 posts supporting the railing. Rather than red-flagging the race to a halt for repairs, NASCAR kept the field rolling for 47 laps under caution while the barrier was replaced.

NASCAR held a 250-mile race at the then-new Atlanta speedway on July 9, 1961, having scheduled the event only a week earlier.

According to the great stock car racing historian Greg Fielden, this came about when the U.S. Auto Club pulled its cars and drivers from an Indy-car race set for the speedway, citing “unsafe conditions.” USAC gave Atlanta president/promoter Nelson Weaver only 36 hours' notice before the teams were to check in.

NASCAR founder/president Big Bill France came to Weaver’s rescue and “slid” an event called the Festival 250 into the schedule of what was then known as the Grand National Division.

Fred Lorenzen dodged a 13-car crash on the first lap to triumph, driving a Holman-Moody Ford to a one-lap victory over Bob Welborn.

Fielden relates in his series of books that no drivers were hurt in the big accident. However, a wrecker operator, Robert Higgenbotham, was slightly injured when his vehicle flipped while he was trying to tow away damaged race cars.

From 1987-2000 NASCAR scheduled each year’s final race at the Atlanta track. Moving the finale back to Dixie after holding it in California since 1974, first at the 2-mile Ontario Motor Speedway, then at the Riverside Raceway road course.

Critics had wailed for years that a series born and nurtured in Dixie should have the race possibly determining its champion scheduled in the South.

Several titles were decided at Atlanta. The list:

1988 - Home state favorite Bill Elliott drives conservatively, finishes 11th and captures his only championship by 24 points over Rusty Wallace, who wins the Atlanta Journal 500.

1989 - Wallace finishes 15th in the Journal 500, to beat Dale Earnhardt by 12 points for his only crown.

1990 - Earnhardt finishes third to Mark Martin’s sixth in the Journal 500. Earnhardt takes the fourth of his eventual seven titles by 26 points over Martin.

1992 - Team-owner/driver Alan Kulwicki rallies from 30 points down to leader Davey Allison and beats Bill Elliott by 10 points for the championship, the closest margin in NASCAR history. Kulwicki triumphed by leading one more lap than Elliott for five bonus points. If Elliott had led the most laps, the two would have finished tied in points, and the title would have gone to Elliott on the basis of most victories during the season. Allison seemed to be en route to his first championship, but a wreck not of his making foiled his hopes. Sadly, both Allison and Kulwicki were to lose their lives a few months later in aircraft crashes.

1995 - Jeff Gordon had a tough race with an ill-handling car, but his 32nd place finish was good enough to hold off NAPA 500 winner Dale Earnhardt by 34 points. It was the first of Gordon’s four crowns.

1996 - Driving with a cast on his injured left hand, Terry Labonte managed a fifth place finish to beat Gordon for the title by 37 points. Terry’s brother, Bobby, won the NAPA 500 and the two shared a post-race victory lap together.

1997 - Gordon again experienced trouble, but was able to finish 17th and take the crown by 14 points over Dale Jarrett and 29 over Mark Martin.

Will another championship ever be decided in November at Atlanta Motor Speedway?

Could be if the track’s majority owner, Bruton Smith, gets his way.

Smith is pressing NASCAR hard to have the season finale returned to Georgia in future seasons.

Kelly's 'Thunder' well worth a look

Bobby Allison didn’t want the ride.

    When highly-successful road racing team owner Jack Roush decided to start a NASCAR Winston Cup Series venture in the late 1980s, his first choice as driver was Allison.

    However, Allison, a highly popular veteran who was destined to win 84 races and a championship en route to numerous halls of fame, declined the offer.

    Allison was with the well-established Stavola Brothers operation, and he didn’t want to join a start-up team.

    But Bobby suggested the name of a young driver to Roush:

    Mark Martin.

    How Martin came to Roush’s team, a move that was to make him one of the most beloved drivers among fans in NASCAR history, isn’t widely known.

   The story is revealed in a marvelous new book, “Manmade Thunder” (By Godwin Kelly. Dakini Publishing. 315 pages. $49).

   Kelly has been the motorsports beat writer for the Daytona Beach News-Journal for 27 years.  All the NASCAR knowledge and the contacts he’s made during these almost three decades of reporting comes to the forefront in this book.

   The chapter on Martin is an example.

   Here, with Kelly’s permission, is an excerpt:

   “The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (as the circuit is now known) is all-consuming, exemplified by the first two stops on the coast-to-coast tour.  Since 1982 the series has launched at Daytona International Speedway with the Speed Weeks program — it’s a grueling, two-week ordeal that builds to a Daytona 500 crescendo.  It is a nail-biting, nerve-wracking, anxiety-building sequence of stock car events that can turn men into emotional mush.  There’s single-car qualifying, then two 150-mile qualifying races called the Gatorade duel, and if you make the cut, you get a grid position for the 500…

   “After the 500 in Daytona Beach, Fla., it’s on to the other side of the country, to Fontana, California, where the second race of the season now is positioned on the Sprint Cup schedule.  Five days after spending nearly two weeks in Daytona, the teams and drivers report to Auto Club Speedway for another 500-mile event.  Drivers don’t just sit around the house and watch television between races.  There are commercials to shoot, sponsor events to attend, media obligations to fulfill, and other assorted duties that come with the title of Sprint Cup race driver.  These  fellows in the colorful driver suits are pushed, pulled, summoned, tugged and sometimes dragged to a variety of duties that have absolutely nothing to do with race cars, racetracks or racing.  It is a non-stop grind…

   “Mark Martin made that commitment to racing.  He got on one knee and proposed to the sport as a teenager, then took his vows at the altar of speed as a young man with wild ambitions, but low expectations.  His was a struggle.  He had to prove his worth, validate his credentials, before realizing his dream of becoming a full-time NASCAR driver.  Car owner Jack Roush, who was new to the stock-car racing sport himself,  liked Martin’s work ethic and resiliency.  They joined forces in 1988 and stayed together through thick and thin, joy and despair, until the conclusion of the 2006 season.  Roush talked about the longevity of the partnership, rare in NASCAR Country.
 
 “’I’ve got one brother, and Mark and I are as close personally as my brother and I,’” Kelly says Roush told him in 2006.  “’The fact that we’ve been able to stay in this business 18 years, and Mark has been willing to drive my car and negotiate for continuation of that relationship is my proudest accomplishment…’”

   Kelly then relates how Bobby Allison played such a pivotal role in getting Roush and Martin together.

   Continues Roush in the book:

   “’Of the guys (drivers) I talked to, Mark was the one who was most interested in knowing how often I would test, who would work on and around the car, and how many tires I would buy.  We sat down and in about four hours we talked about the program and how it would work, about my goals and objectives, but never talked about money.  We shook hands.’”

   “And from that moment to the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway in November, 2006, Martin gave Roush his all, every day, 100 percent, nothing left on the table.  After almost two decades of making every Sprint Cup race, Martin was mentally exhausted from the wear and tear of the circuit.  He wanted out—not outright retirement, but to race on his terms.  He didn’t want to be chained to the schedule.  He left Roush and over the 2007-2008 seasons drove for two teams, starting with car owner Bobby Ginn, who sold his operation to Dale Earnhardt Inc. midway through the ’07 campaign.  As fate would have it, Dale Earnhardt Jr. left the team started by his father to drive for Hendrick Motorsports in 2008, so DEI put Martin in the celebrated No. 8 Chevrolet.  “’Those two seasons had major twists and turns,’ Martin said.  “’I’ve always been a straight and narrow guy.  I stayed the course, man.’

   “With his contract running out at DEI, Martin got an exceptional and unexpected offer from car owner Rick Hendrick, who said, ‘Come drive my No. 5 car’ for the 2009 Sprint Cup season.  There would be no part-time schedule.  Martin would have to work all 36 weekends.  He jumped at the opportunity.  “’Me taking two years of a limited schedule has given me a chance to completely recharge my battery and completely have a different mindset on what’s important to me and what I really want to do,’ he said.”

   Kelly noted that Martin, now 50, has posted hall of fame numbers: 39 Sprint Cup victories, including four this season for Hendrick.  He has been the runner-up in points races for the championship four times.  Martin is 12th in the points standings toward making the chase for the Sprint Cup title going into the Sharpie 500 Saturday night at Bristol Motor Speedway in Tennessee. Only the top 12 qualify.

 At the Nationwide Series level (formerly the Busch Series) Martin has scored more victories than any driver in history, 48.

   Kelly had to run, or write, relatively as fast as pole winners to get the big book finished by the deadline given him by the publishing company, which is based in London.

   “I signed to do the deal on Dec. 11 (2008).  The editors wanted it by Father’s Day (June 21),” said Godwin.  “Problem was, that span included Christmas, New Year’s and Speed Weeks at Daytona.  Plus, I had to keep up with my regular duties at the News-Journal.

   “I got a break when NASCAR canceled the usual two weeks of testing at Daytona International Speedway.

   “I banished my wife and two teenage kids from the room where I was writing the book.

   “I got another break by NASCAR having it’s Fan Fest in Daytona, an event that brings the top drivers and other leading figures to to town.

   “This enabled me to talk to about 70 people.

   “One of the best interviews I had was with Kelly Earnhardt, daughter of Dale Sr. and sister of Dale Jr.  She is extremely intelligent and was very forthright.

   “I wrote for three to five hours almost every day once I’d completed the research and got started.  It was a tough deal at times, but I got it done on schedule.”

   “Manmade Thunder” is a BIG book.  It weighs around four pounds.  Its pages are filled with some of the best racing photos I’ve ever seen.

   Sure, it’s pricey at $49, but the pictures, coupled with Godwin Kelly’s prose, make it worth every penny, especially if you collect books on motorsports and/or might be looking early for a Christmas gift for a NASCAR fan.

   Presently, the book is for sale online only.

Plan put Novi inductees Richter, Wheeler at odds

For officials of Charlotte Motor Speedway and NASCAR, it was yet another contentious dispute.

   For members of the media and the few fans who knew about the argument, it was a source of high amusement.

   The fuss was about elephants.

   Yes, elephants.

   It happened in 1995 prior to the track’s October 500-mile race in the Winston Cup Series, now known as Sprint Cup.

   The speedway’s president and general manager, Humpy Wheeler, loved to promote eye-popping prerace shows.

   On this occasion, he was presenting a three-ring circus.  The production, to be staged on the grassy area between the start/finish line and pit road, included aerialist on tight wires and trapezes, a daredevil shot from a cannon, clowns and performing camels, dogs, tigers and elephants.

   NASCAR nixed the latter.

   “No elephants, decreed NASCAR vice president Les Richter.

   “Why not?” demanded Wheeler.

   “They might go berserk and damage the race cars lined up on pit road,” replied Richter.

   It was Wheeler who essentially went berserk.

   Humpy felt this was the thinnest of excuses, ordered only to embarrass the speedway and demonstrate NASCAR’s control over events.

   Track owner Bruton Smith and Wheeler through the years often were at odds with the NASCAR brass, and this was the latest incident.

   Wheeler wouldn’t relent.  “We advertised the elephants, and their show goes on!” he declared.

    Shortly before the ringmaster opened the circus, NASCAR gave in.

   The pachyderms performed.

   Years later a grinning Richter conceded that the sanctioning body issued the elephant ban “just to rattle Humpy’s cage a little bit.”

   So it’s a bit of irony that the sometimes antagonists Richter and Wheeler were among the inductees Wednesday night into the Motorsports Hall Of Fame Of America.

   The black-tie ceremony was held at the Fillmore Theater in Detroit.  The hall and its museum are located in Novi, a suburb just west of city.

   Inductions are held annually in August in conjunction with a major NASCAR race at Michigan International Speedway. The Carfax 400 is scheduled Sunday.

   Wednesday’s other inductees are drag racer Kenny Bernstein, road racer David Hobbs, motorcycle racer Scott Parker, IndyCar driver Al Unser Jr., and the late NASCAR champion Joe Weatherly.

   Both Richter and Wheeler enjoyed colorful careers.

   Richter can lay claim to the rarest of honors.  He’s now a hall-of-famer in two sports, football and and auto racing.

   Les was an All American linebacker in the early 1950s at the University of California, where he graduated as valedictorian of his class.

   After two years in the Army, Richter was selected second overall in the pro football draft.  A team then called the Dallas Texans took Les and then traded him to the L.A. Rams for 11 players, still an NFL record.

   The Rams got the best of the deal.

   Richter was an all-pro eight straight years, often playing both defense and offense.  He also kicked field goals and extra points.

   Richter, now 78, got into auto racing in 1959 as part of a group that bought Riverside Raceway, a road course in Southern California.

   “I’ll never forget the first time I saw the place,” he recalled a few years ago.

“It was just a strip of asphalt twisting over rocky, hilly terrain.  There were coyotes, rattlesnakes and no telling what else around.

   “It took us a while to be taken seriously.  What really enabled the track to take off is when NASCAR’s Wood Brothers, Glen and Leonard, came out west and put Dan Gurney in their car.  Dan probably was the most respected driver in America at the time.

   “Dan drove the Wood boys’ cars to victories in 1964, ’65 and ’66 at Riverside.  Parnelli Jones won for them in ’67 and Gurney again in ’68 to give Glen and Leonard five straight.”

   Richter laughingly recollected a 67,000 mile pickup truck endurance test in 1967 at Riverside involving Chevrolet, Dodge and Ford vehicles.

   “The run was non-stop except for tires, fuel and a change of drivers,” he said.  “Eventually, the drivers on night shifts were getting really bored.

   “So we hired some strippers to come out and hide near the turns.  When the drivers came around the women would jump out and pretend to be hitch-hiking.

   “The trucks were equipped with radios, so you can imagine the conversations that took place.”

   I once asked Richter the toughest football player he ever faced.

   “No doubt about it,” he said.  “Jim Taylor, the Green Bay running back.

   “I tried to tackle him head on, one on one.  He left a bony bulge the size of a peach in my shoulder and it’s still there.”

   Who among NASCAR drivers did Richter see as being as rugged as Jim Taylor?

   “No contest,” replied Richter.  “Dale Earnhardt.  “He would have been a great safety.”

   While president of Riverside Raceway Richter co-founded the International Race Of Champions series (IROC) in 1972.  When the Riverside track closed in 1989 he joined NASCAR as a vice president, working out of the Daytona Beach headquarters.

   Upon retiring from NASCAR, Richter became a vice president of California Speedway at Fontana, and still serves as a consultant.

   No race track in the world ever has gone to the expense of staging prerace shows as the Charlotte speedway did when Wheeler was at its helm.  He left his post there in 2008.

   Each May prior to 600-mile races military units were brought in to show their stuff as a way of commemorating Memorial Day.

   These battle re-enactments invariably were thrilling and sometimes produced humorous incidents.

   Most memorable of the latter to me occurred on May 27, 1984.

   Here’s the tale:

   A country preacher was delivering a “hellfire and brimstone” sermon to his congregation at a small church about two miles from Charlotte Motor Speedway.

   “Lord,” yelled the minister, “if everything I’ve said is true, give us a sign!”

   At this moment a loud explosion thundered over the area, creating such a concussion that the church steeple shook and the windows rattled.

   The story goes that the frightened flock spoke in tongues for two days.

   However, the big boom wasn’t heaven sent.

   It was triggered by artillery men of the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, based at Fort Bragg, N.C.  The paratroopers had fired a howitzer while re-enacting the invasion of Grenada the previous October.

   Wheeler spent 33 years at the Charlotte track and became widely known as the premier promoter in motorsports.

   “His imagination reaches to infinity,” an associate of Humpy’s once said.  “I’ve heard people say they came to races at Charlotte as much to see what wild thing Humpy would do next as they did to see the races.”

   More seriously, Wheeler is credited with proving that superspeedways could be illuminated for nighttime racing.  He achieved this in 1992 as a means of keeping NASCAR’s all-star race in Charlotte.

   Humpy was especially popular with competitors because he dramatically increased purses and strongly advocated safety measures, such as the “soft barrier.”

   Now 70, Humpy presently operates The Wheeler Company, a Charlotte-based consulting firm he began this year that focuses mainly on professional sports.

   So far he hasn’t suggested the use of elephants to a client.  But it’s still early.

Racing hurt? Earnhardt was hardly only one ready, willing

Ricky Rudd’s race car spun off the fourth turn at Daytona International Speedway, slid into a grassy area and then began flipping violently.

It was a horrifying wreck, taking place in the Busch Clash, a NASCAR special event for the previous season’s pole winners.

After flipping seven times on Feb. 12, 1984, the Ford fielded by Bud Moore appeared to be higher in the air than a power pole. From there it twisted around twice while still airborne and nosed into the ground.

There was great fear for Rudd’s life.

Miraculously, Ricky escaped with serious bruising of almost his entire body, including the face. His eyes were blackened and quickly swelled shut.

There was speculation that Rudd would be sidelined from Winston Cup Series competition for several races.

Not exactly.

Just four days later he was back in a race car, running in a 125-mile qualifying race leading to the Daytona 500.

NASCAR officials were unaware that he competed in that event—and the 500 on Feb. 19 as well—with his eyes taped open!

Rudd finished seventh in both races.

On Feb. 26 Rudd was still hurting badly. His eyes remained so black that someone remarked that “Ricky looks like a raccoon.”

Nevertheless, Rudd, his eyes like slits, not only ran in the Miller 400 at Richmond, the native Virginian won. He overtook Darrell Waltrip and led the final nine laps.

Rudd’s feat of fortitude ranks high among the top “tough man” performances in NASCAR history.

I’m recounting Ricky’s profile in courage and determination as a followup to a blog, or column, I wrote last week about the toughness of the late Dale Earnhardt.

Some readers pointed out that among NASCAR drivers, Earnhardt wasn’t alone in this regard.

They’re right.

One reader wrote in response to cite Richard Petty and Bobby Allison as examples. They are great ones.

Petty once drove several races with a broken bone in his neck. Perhaps showing even more grit, during the early 1970s King Richard ran the Daytona 500 only a few days after having a sizable portion of his stomach removed because of ulcers.

Petty’s doctor forbade him to go to Daytona.

“I’m gonna run and you can’t stop me,” declared Petty.

Allison, making a special appearance, once was injured so badly in a short track race in Wisconsin that he couldn’t get in and out of his NASCAR ride.

So Bobby had what amounted to handles sewn onto his uniform so that two teammates could lift him into the car.

The toughness trait shown by many competitors goes back to the sanctioning body’s earliest years.

Here are some examples I remember:

In May of 1955 Herb Thomas, one of NASCAR’s biggest stars, ran into a deep rut in the dirt track at Charlotte Speedway, a three-quarter-mile oval.

His car began flipping and Thomas was thrown from the vehicle. He suffered serious back injuries, a broken leg, a concussion and deep bruising to both shoulders.

Thomas’ doctors predicted he would be sidelined for six months. Thomas scoffed.

Herb was right.

As racing historian Greg Fielden recounts in his great series of books on NASCAR, Thomas returned to action on Aug. 7 at the Forsyth Fairgrounds in Winston-Salem.

Thomas triumphed in his third race back, winning on Aug. 20 at a one-mile asphalt track in Raleigh.

Then, just as Thomas had predicted from his hospital bed four months earlier, he took stock car racing’s biggest show of all at the time, the Southern 500 at South Carolina’s Darlington Raceway. Driving a Chevrolet, he won the classic for the third in its sixth running.

Unbelievably, compared to what we see in races nowadays, Thomas did it by covering the entire 500 miles without changing tires.

In 1986 Harry Gant was involved in a savage crash with Buddy Arrington during the Miller 500 on June 8 at Pocono Raceway in Pennsylvania.

Doctors at the track released Gant on the promise that he’d go to a hospital upon arriving back home in Taylorsville, N.C.

However, Gant became in severe pain before he could fly out on a private plane. He was hospitalized in Wilkes-Barre, where it was determined he’d suffered a bruised heart and lungs, other bruise-related injuries and a concussion.

Arrington also sustained a concussion and was hospitalized at Allentown, Pa.

Gant wasn’t released until June 11.

Two days later he was at Michigan International Speedway, where he qualified third for the Miller 400.

Gant, driving the famed “Skoal Bandit” Chevrolet, led quite a bit in the 200-lap race on the 2-mile track. He was ahead as late as Lap 195.

Then, Bill Elliott whipped into first place and edged Harry at the checkered flag by two car lengths.

“Now,” said Leo Jackson, Gant’s team owner and crew chief, “we’ve got broken hearts to go with Harry’s bruised one. But we’re so proud of him. That was a man out there driving today.”

On April 14, 1992, Sterling Marlin crashed in the first turn at Bristol International Raceway during the Valleydale 500 when an oil line broke on his Ford.

His car became a fireball.

“When I felt the heat and saw the flames, I just automatically covered by face and tried not to breathe anything in,” Marlin recalled later. “I hoped the car would hurry up and stop so I could get out of it. It was getting warm.”

Marlin suffered burns to his face, shoulders and inner thighs.

Sterling was hurt so seriously that he was taken to the Vanderbilt University Burn Center in Nashville for treatment.

There, he expressed such determination to start the First Union 400 at North Wilkesboro Speedway on April 21 that his team of doctors reluctantly relented.

Junior Johnson, Marlin’s team owner, had left the decision up to Sterling.

One of the doctors flew in a private plane with Marlin to North Wilkesboro on April 20 so the driver could take a mandatory practice lap.

The plan was for Sterling to run one lap, then the veteran Chargin’ Charlie Glotzbach would take over in a relief role.

On race day, Marlin, essentially wrapped like a mummy, was led to his car on pit road, obviously in much pain.

He gingerly was assisted into the machine.

Marlin ran his one lap, pitted, and just as gently was removed from the cockpit.

He left the race track as soon as possible to fly back to Nashville and the burn center.

Why do injured drivers put themselves through what has to be excruciating torment?

It’s the great importance of earning points toward the NASCAR season championship, or at least a lucrative finish high in the final standings.

Marlin explained:

“It might mean a million dollars (then the champion’s share).

“If we wound up at the end of the season and could have finished real high in the points, well, if I had laid in a hospital bed instead of even trying, I’d have felt awful, both for myself and the team.

“There was never any second thought in my mind about doing it.”

Through the years this mentality among the drivers has led some observers with ties to NASCAR to suggest that its officials need to protect the competitors from themselves.

The idea generally has been to let them discard their two or three worst finishes - or non-starts - when counting points.

The thought has gone nowhere with NASCAR, and it won’t. A few years ago the wife of one driver amusingly assessed the competitors’ obsession with “playing hurt.”

“I’ve lived with my husband for many years,” she said. “And like a lot of the other drivers he’s too lazy to get off the couch to get a glass of water.

“But they’re never hurt too bad to crawl into a race car on Sunday.”

Earnhardt lived up to tough reputation

How actually tough was Dale Earnhardt?

Most notably in memory for many of those who followed his career closely are these two examples:

-- The time he flipped wildly down the backstretch during the Daytona 500 of 1997 at Daytona International Speedway in Florida. An emergency crew got to his car quickly and hustled Earnhardt into an ambulance. Dale, shaken but not hurt, happened to glance out a window and saw that his race car had come to rest upright and on its wheels. "Let me out of here," he demanded. "I want to see if the engine in that thing will crank." It did, and Earnhardt continued in the race, much to the delight and loud cheering of fans.

-- The 1996 crash at Alabama's Talladega Superspeedway during which he again flipped, skidded several hundred yards on the car's roof and then was struck hard by three other vehicles. This wreck did leave Dale with several injuries, including a badly broken left shoulder. Nevertheless, he qualified the next week for the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis, but, with tears in his eyes, had to give way to a relief driver. Then, two weeks after the scary Talladega crash, he incredibly won the pole virtually one-handed on the Watkins Glen road course in New York at a track record speed.

Both episodes are indications of Earnhardt's extraordinary physical and mental toughness.

There's another that's lesser known, but just as impressive to me.

It unfolded in late July of 1982, starting at Pocono Raceway, where NASCAR's Sprint Cup Series teams are gathered this weekend for the Pennsylvania 500. And I recall it every year when this particular Pocono date rolls around.

Earnhardt and the late Tim Richmond tangled going through the triangle-shaped track's treacherous Tunnel Turn. Earnhardt flipped several times and his car almost flew from the speedway. He sustained a broken left knee.

Dale refused treatment in Pennsylvania, preferring to return home and see his family doctor in Mooresville, N.C.

At the time I had the same doctor, now retired, and a few years ago he related the tale to me.

"Dale came to my office limping and asked me to check his knee," said the doctor. "We X-rayed him, and it was maybe the worst knee injury I saw in a career of over 40 years.

"I said, 'Dale, you're going to have to undergo an operation right away. That knee is torn all to pieces. You need to go right now to see an orthopedist.'

"Dale gave me that intense look he had and replied, 'There ain't going to be no operation, at least not right away. That would keep me from running at Talladega next weekend.'

"I said, 'Man, there's no way. The slightest pressure you put on that foot is going to shoot pain up your leg to the knee. It will be excruciating.

"'You won't be able to touch the brake or clutch pedals.'

"Dale said, 'There ain't gonna be no touching the brake pedal.'

"He got himself outfitted with a brace and got a crutch, and off to Talladega he went."

Earnhardt kept secret from NASCAR the seriousness of his injury out of fear that officials wouldn't let him run. When not in his race car for practice or qualifying, he layed low in the garage area in a Lincoln Town Car with heavily tinted windows, hiding from NASCAR brass. He stretched out in the back seat of the car of his team owner, Bud Moore, for as much comfort as possible.

Dale qualified 18th for the Talladega 500, but was swept into a wreck and finished 35th.

On Aug. 3, he underwent surgery at a hospital in Statesville, N.C. His injury was much beyond the "hairline fracture" that Dale called it.

He had a depressed lateral tibula plateau fracture. Two screws were inserted into the knee.

"The surgeon said I'd have to be on crutches for three to six weeks ... And he also told me the injury won't impair my ability to race," Earnhardt related brightly.

And race he did during the 11 events remaining on the 1982 schedule, not winning again but doing well enough to finish eighth in the Winston Cup Series point standings.

Earnhardt was destined to eventually top the series' points races seven times, tying the once-thought-unapproachable record of Richard Petty.

On Feb. 18, 2001 Earnhardt was involved in a last-lap crash during the Daytona 500 that even he couldn't survive. He lost his life at age 49.

His memory and the legend of his toughness will live on as long as automobiles are run in races.

The day that racing took a back seat

Everyone gathered at Bristol International Raceway wanted the Volunteer 500 to finish quickly.

   The drivers, their crews, the NASCAR officials, the fans and members of the media.

   Everyone.

   This is because the date was July 20, 1969.

   Later that afternoon, two American astronauts, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, were scheduled to become the first human beings to land and set foot on THE MOON!

   In fact, many among the estimated 32,000 spectators at the Tennessee track 40 years ago left early so they could follow the historic lunar landing on TV.

    And they departed prematurely only in part because the No. 17 Holman-Moody Ford started by David Pearson had been driven to a three-lap lead in the crash-filled race.

   Stunningly, in the cockpit for the final 146 laps of 500, running in relief of Pearson, was his arch-rival, Richard Petty.  Petty’s Ford had blown an engine on Lap 60.

   Pearson was stricken with the flu. A soaring thermometer that reached 104 degrees, with accompanying high humidity, had further weakened him.  Although leading, he had to get out of his blue and gold car.

   The desire of everyone to depart the speedway in the Blue Ridge Mountains was dampened by a rash of wrecks.  Owner/promoter Larry Carrier had redesigned the half-mile layout to feature bankings of 33 degrees in the turns. Carrier wanted to have the fastest track of that length in the world.  He got it.  Pole winner Cale Yarborough, driving a Wood Brothers Mercury, qualified at 103.432 mph, beating the former Bristol time trial mark by approximately 15 mph.

   The drivers had a tough time adjusting to Carrier’s changes.

   “They’ve ruined a good race track,” said Petty.

   The combination of wrecks and high heat, which caused engines to fail, left only 10 of 32 starters running at the finish.  And the 10th place driver, the late Roy Tyner, was a whopping 97 laps behind at the checkered flag.

   It took 3 hours, 8 minutes to run the 250-mile race.

   Upon its completion word came from NASA that Armstrong and Aldrin were going in a bit earlier than planned.  This heightened the urge to get home—or SOMEWHERE—to watch the telecast of what was happening on the moon.

   The astronauts were scheduled to emerge from the Lunar Lander about 6 hours after touchdown.<p>
   “No way we’re going to make it home in time,” I told pals in the press and others from the Charlotte area.

 “Don’t worry, we’re going to see it,” said genial, generous Richard Howard, who at that time was running  Charlotte Motor Speedway.  “I’ll take care of that.”

   Howard planned to rent a suite at a Holiday Inn in Boone, only about 90 minutes away from Bristol and en route back to the N.C. Piedmont.

   “A bunch of us will stop in Boone to tune in to what NASA’s achieving.  We won’t miss it.”

   Looking ahead, Howard, now deceased, had dispatched a part-time aide, Eddie Proctor of Charlotte, about halfway through the race to make arrangements in Boone.

   “Get some champagne and other beverages,” Howard told Proctor.

   How this was going to be accomplished mystified me.  It was a Sunday, and there strictly were no alcohol sales on The Sabbath in either Tennessee or North Carolina.

   But when those of us invited by Howard arrived in Boone about 9 p.m. during a heavy rainstorm, we found Proctor waiting with the refreshments.

   Armstrong and Aldrin already were on the moon, having descended at 4:17 p.m.   “Houston, Tranquility Base here,” we learned Armstrong had radioed NASA headquarters in Texas.  “The Eagle has landed.”

   At 10:17 Armstrong came down the lander’s ladder.

   As his feet touched the desolate, dusty moonscape, Armstrong stated memorably for all time, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
    Aldrin  shortly joined Armstrong outside the lander while Michael Collins awaited in the trio’s space capsule, orbiting the moon.

   There was tremendous cheering in the Boone hotel room as Armstrong spoke.  People hugged and thumped each other on the back.  Tears were in most all eyes.

   Suddenly, there was loud pounding on the door of the room where about 20 people were celebrating.

   We found a guy standing there in his underwear.

   “How about holding it down in here!” he shouted angrily.  “We’re trying to sleep next door.  We’re going to Tweetsie Railroad tomorrow!”

   Tweetsie is an amusement park at Blowing Rock, N.C., mainly an attraction to kids.

   “Man,” someone said, “Americans have landed on the moon!”

   “I don’t give a damn who has landed where,” the guy said.  “Shut up the noise.

   One fellow in the room was mightily offended.

   “You unpatriotic S.O.B!” he yelled, lunging toward the door.  “You’re going to see Tweetsie through black eyes, ‘cause I’m going to give you the whipping of your life!”

   The man in his skivvies took off running through the rain across the inn’s expansive yard.  Howard’s friend was right behind him.  The friend’s wife at the time followed, loudly demanding that her husband give up the chase.

   In the distance, a siren wailed.

   Someone had called the cops.

   Common sense prevailed, and the chap intent on punishing the Tweetsie fan returned to Howard’s suite.

   Howard, who could have been a U.N. diplomat, patiently explained to two policemen what had happened.

   They understood, and left laughing about the incident.

    In 2003 I took my then 8-year-old grandson, Jeffrey McCarter of Mooresville, to Kitty Hawk for the centennial celebration of the Wright Brothers’ first flight.

   Among the honored guests on Dec. 17 were Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.

   We saw them, but never met them.

   If we had, I’d have told Armstrong the tale about a guy I know chasing a stranger in his underwear through the rain around an inn in Boone.

   It would have been a first-person story.