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Today In Nascar History
February 1, 1969
Richard Petty gets his 1st road course win at Riverside California. Petty would get 6 of his record 200 wins at road courses.
from Karen
Hey, question for ya...we got a little debate going here. We are betting
on the Bud Shootout (we got it bad! lol) and I got the list of drivers
who are going to be in it from NASCAR.com and in that list there are 18
drivers and Kurt Busch is not one of them. We have already drawn going
by what NASCAR.com had.....IS Kurt in it? If he is it's gonna mess everything
up for us cuz there are 9 of us drawing drivers and that would make it
uneven but the point is that Kurt isn't in the list on NASCAR.com which
I would consider to be the "official" line up. Right? Karen
Here is the entry list for the Shootout….Kurt Busch is included. What you might want to do, is leave one driver out there, then roll the pot over for the 500. That makes it much more more interesting!
Budweiser Shootout Entry List
Rusty Wallace
Terry Labonte
Mark Martin
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Bill Elliott
Ryan Newman
Matt Kenseth
Tony Stewart
Ricky Rudd
Ward Burton
Jeff Gordon
Kevin Harvick
Ricky Craven
Jimmie Johnson
Ken Schrader
Dale Jarrett
Kurt Busch
from DE3FAN
Momma,
I had some problems with the Bravenet server and lost the poll count
totals and you may want to re-post it. Not to worry. I had
them saved as I asked for a reply to my email address when someone voted.
It is now repaired and they assure me it will be alright. I have
also changed it so I can edit out any more than one vote per day per visitor.
Seems as though there were some that were voting more than once a day.
I know that old trick of 'cleaning cookies' out and then re-voting.
It may register but everytime I get a response that someone has voted,
I also get their ISP and DNS numbers and will delete any double votes in
the same 24 hour period. The Big "3" fans as well as the Toyota fans
will find out that their double voting will be in vain. Anyone will
be allowed to vote once a day. I really don't understand why I should
have to 'screen' votes from NA$CAR fans!
Larry
http://bhb10.tripod.com/de3fan/
Ok, here it is guys. Go back and vote if you want!!
Momma,
I did not know Dale's first start was at Charlotte. However,
I have a picture of Dale and on that picture it states: First start:
05/25/1975-Finished 22nd, Richard Childress finished 23rd. First win:
04/01/1979 @ Bristol-(named rookie of the year) First Winston Cup:
1980-Only driver ever to win both Winston Cup and Rookie back-to-back.
Eighth Winston Cup: Heaven's Raceway.....................2001
Larry
MARTINSVILLE PLANS EXPANSION
Martinsville Speedway President Clay Campbell today announced plans
to add 2,000 seats and build a new six-lane entrance to the facility. Plans
also call for moving the railroad tracks that parallel the speedway's backstretch
to allow for future expansion. Work on the new entrance and seats will
begin immediately after the April 13 running of the Virginia 500 Winston
Cup race, and those projects should be completed before the Oct. 19 Old
Dominion 500. The new seats, which will bring the track's capacity to 88,000,
will be built above the suites in turns one and two. Work is already under
way on a new 2,000-square-foot infield care center and the conversion of
the old care center into a public relations workroom.
NASCAR and the North American Sports Network have announced plans to broadcast all Winston Cup and Craftsman Truck Series races in 2003 on the new American sports television channel serving the United Kingdom and Ireland. It will be the first time that all Winston Cup races will be broadcast live in the UK. Subscribers will pay about $15 a month to have the digital service added to their existing service. The service will be available in more than 7.5 million homes on Sky (satellite) and ntl:home (cable). Financial terms were not announced.
By JAIME LEVY
The Charlotte Observer
Three corporate defendants are named in a lawsuit over the May 2000 walkway collapse at Lowe's Motor Speedway, and each says the other is at fault.
Opening arguments began Friday in the $27 million lawsuit brought by a Virginia family hurt in the collapse. Their case is the first of dozens to make it to trial, and it could signal how much money - if any - juries are willing to award people hurt in the fall.
Cindy and Marty Taylor and their son, Brody Wright, of Nelson County, Va., are suing the speedway, the bridge builder and the maker of a substance that corroded the steel supporting the bridge. They say a series of construction mistakes and negligence caused the bridge over U.S. 29 to fall May 20, 2000.
By DAVID POOLE
The Charlotte Observer
Deborah Renshaw lives every day with something she can't remember.
Since Oct. 9, she's worked through hours and hours of physical rehabilitation. Renshaw also has had to climb out of what she calls the hole she fell in emotionally after the worst day of her life in automobile racing.
During practice for an Automobile Racing Club of America race at Lowe's
Motor Speedway, driver Eric Martin's car spun and hit the wall off Turn
4 at the Charlotte track. Several cars
avoided hitting him and Martin radioed to his crew that he was OK.
When Martin's spin started, Renshaw's car was somewhere on the backstretch of the 1.5-mile track. Bob Schacht, her team owner, was spotting for her on top of the trailer in the infield. As Martin's car came to rest off the wall, Renshaw's came through the turns 3 and 4 end of the track. Renshaw's car slammed into the driver's side of Martin's car, killing the 33-year-old driver from Hixson, Tenn.
Renshaw, who suffered broken bones in her left leg and foot in the crash, knows only what she's been told about the crash.
"It's very much still a blessing," she says. "God has a way of helping you forget tragic things in your life."
But Renshaw has confronted the awful truth of that day.
Late last year, she and Schacht came back to Lowe's Motor Speedway.
"I went around the race track with Bob and we replayed that day in our heads," Renshaw said. "We relived it and that helped. It helped to face what happened.
“Bob and I have had conversations about it several times. Bob was right there with me when it happened, He wasn't driving the car, but he was right there with me."
After the crash, NASCAR changed its rules regarding practice sessions and now requires teams to have spotters in a track's spotters' stand when cars are on the track
It took weeks before Renshaw could bring herself to go to her computer and read reports about the accident. Some questioned whether Renshaw and Martin had enough experience to be racing at the kind of speeds their cars could reach at the Charlotte track. In the search for answers following the crash, fingers of blame were pointed.
Renshaw admits she had questions of her own.
"I've questioned what my fate in racing would be after the accident," she said. "I went through the questions of whether I really want my dream of driving a race car, whether it's worth it. And I keep coming back to the same answer every time."
Renshaw is scheduled to race for the first time since the October crash on Saturday at Daytona. She'll drive a car Schacht owns in an ARCA race that will help begin Speedweeks activities leading up to Winston Cup's Daytona 500.
"I've got two choices when I wake up in the morning," said Renshaw, who still walks with a slight limp and continues physical therapy to rebuild strength in her left leg. "I could feel sorry for myself and think that today's not going to be a good day. Or, I could wake up and feel blessed that I am able to still live my dream, to realize that I can still drive a race car."
When the wreck happened in October, Renshaw was just more than a week away from making her debut as driver of a NASCAR Busch series car owned by Rick Goodwin at a track in Memphis, a precursor to a full-season ride with that team in 2003.
In December, however, Goodwin and Renshaw agreed to go their separate ways. Renshaw said she was grateful for the opportunity, but decided that wasn't the road she needed to go down right now.
"I decided to stick with ARCA for the time being with Bob," she said. "That's where I felt I could be most successful at this point."
Bob Schacht Motorsports has the money to run only two or three ARCA events this year. Renshaw would like to add six or seven Busch races to this year's agenda, but that depends on sponsorship. For now, Renshaw said, the team is concentrating on Daytona, the first step back.
"There for a while, I was definitely in a little bit of a hole," Renshaw said. "I didn't want to talk to anybody. Thank God for my family. My mom and dad would help take phone calls and return them or keep a list. It took them reaching down in there and grabbing me up and saying, 'Look here, Missy, you're not going to be feeling sorry for yourself in this family.'"
Renshaw said she has been inspired by support and encouragement she's received from friends, from family, from fellow racers and from fans. She's received crosses, seven-page letters and a homemade card from a 7-year-old boy.
She's exchanged letters with Martin's family. "I know one day we'll sit down and talk about it," Renshaw said. "But it's just not the right time now."
She doesn't remember the crash but knows that others do.
"It has been an emotional roller coaster and it still is," Renshaw said. "It's going to be a lifelong thing I will have to deal with. I read somewhere that one driver said that if I am going to make it I have to forget what happened. With no disrespect for the Martin family whatsoever, there's truth in that. You have to move forward and move on.
"I do believe that people are on a predetermined path in their lives. You do have choices to make in weathering through any storm that comes your way. But I do feel that at some point God will lead you in the direction he has for you.
"In your heart you have to know you're going in the right direction at all times and not have regrets about what you do."
Junie Donlavey doesn't possess a driver or a sponsor, but he does hold the will to bring his Richmond-based Winston Cup team to Daytona International Speedway this week to attempt to qualify for the Daytona 500.
The No. 90 Ford missed nearly all of last season's second half after losing its primary sponsor in June. An offseason search for financial backing has proved fruitless, but the team decided to finish preparing a superspeedway car and make the trip.
"You only live once," said Donlavey, who figures to settle on a driver after arriving. "Why quit when you feel good and you've got the equipment? We've got a lot of people that want to help and be a part of it, too."
Donlavey, who will turn 79 in April, has been traveling to NASCAR races at Daytona Beach, Fla., for more than 50 years. He has attempted to qualify for every 500-mile race since the famous superspeedway opened in 1959. Donlavey has raced on shoestring budgets at Daytona in the past, but fielding a Winston Cup car is considerably more expensive now compared to his early years. Top-notch teams spend about $15 million to $20 million a year.
"It didn't cost anywhere near it. I couldn't even put [the difference] in percentages, but the sport has grown to where it takes that much," he said. "Sometimes I feel halfway on the stupid side trying to compete with the well-financed teams, but that's part of racing. It's always a gamble anyway.
"We'll give it a try." - Nate Ryan
By JIM UTTER
ThatsRacin.com Writer
It started with a news report by XM Satellite Radio's NASCAR reporter, Claire B. Lang.
It's now become a mission.
Following Lang's airing of an interview with Mike and Katie McLaughlin on Tuesday in which the couple discussed the folding of McLaughlin's new NASCAR Busch series team, Angela's Motorsports, due to financial problems with the owner, Lang's weekday listeners responded in force.
Nicknamed the "XM Nation," fans have swamped XM's call-in lines and flooded the office with email filled with pledges to help fund McLaughlin's dream of winning the Busch series opener at Daytona.
The response traveled to new heights Friday, when Greg Zipadelli, crew chief for 2002 Winston Cup champion Tony Stewart, donated $10,000 to getting McLaughlin's team to Daytona.
"If it wasn't for Mike McLaughlin I would never have had the chance to win the championship here in Winston Cup," Zipadelli said on the air Friday. "He's like a brother to me and anything we can do to help out, we're gonna.
"There's a lot of people that have worked hard to get where they are at, but I don't believe there's anybody that's wanted it any more or worked any harder than Mike has."
The team McLaughlin and crew chief Harold Holly had assembled was impressive and their car performed well at the preseason test last month at Daytona.
"This has been a very tough week for all of us involved with the team, but I am not going to let this defeat me," McLaughlin said.
"I have to follow my heart and do everything possible to win the Koolerz 300. I want to thank everyone from the bottom of my heart for allowing me to chase my dream."
The campaign to get the team to Daytona for the season opener has been dubbed "Hopes and Dreams 2003."
It began with listeners on XM Radio pledging their support. Now, two additional avenues have been established should fans or other interested parties wish to donate money to the effort.
McLaughlin has secured the use of the car he tested with in Daytona and will be joined in Daytona by many of the team members from his former team.
Jay Robinson Racing will be listed as the owner of the No. 39 Ford. Earlier this week, Robinson purchased the assets of McLaughlin's former team.
Donations may be mailed to the Mike McLaughlin Fan Club, P.O. Box 45, Waterloo, NY 13165; or secure donations may be made on-line by visiting www.paypal.com and sending the donation to katermclaughlin@....
Jeff Gordon had three victories in 2002 -- all in August or later. Credit: Autostock
Gordon says distractions were
factor last year
By Marty Smith, Turner Sports Interactive
CONCORD, N.C. -- Looking back now, Jeff Gordon admits the circus surrounding his divorce proved more distracting than he was willing to admit during the 2002 Winston Cup season.
"I think that they probably, at times, were affecting me more than even I realized," Gordon said during a recent media outing at Hendrick Motorsports.
"There were a lot of distractions. It was a totally new thing, something I'd obviously never been through before."
When Gordon failed to win a race during the first half of the 2002 campaign, questions were raised about his focus. Pressure rose with each passing week, though Gordon continually discounted the notion that his on-track performance was suffering on account of his off-track situation.
When he finally did win, at Bristol in August, the winless streak was stopped at 31 races. Not since his first victory -- which came in his 41st career race -- had he gone so long without visiting Victory Lane.
He'd won 58 times before, but none were more meaningful.
"I think as we went and got into that point in the season when we hadn't won in quite a while, the pressure was on from the media, the pressure was on internally with the race team," Gordon said. "That's why that first win was so exciting. It's just nice to get that off your back.
"It's enough when it's just what's happening with your race team. When
you have other things going on, it can affect you, and I think it affected
me more than I thought. But for the most
part, when I got to my car I felt like I was doing my job."
Brooke Gordon filed for divorce in March 2002, citing the "martial misconduct" of the four-time Winston Cup champion as grounds. Gordon has since counter-sued, saying he shouldn't have to split the couple's estate because he risked his life to attain it. His net worth is reportedly more than $48 million.
A recent Associated Press report said that Brooke Gordon's lawyers have subpoenaed sensitive materials from his competitors to use in their divorce case, which teams are admittedly reluctant to hand over.
Such files are considered very sensitive in NASCAR, where each owner negotiates separate agreements with individual drivers and sponsors.
Kelley Earnhardt has a reputation of being much like her father. Jovial, but serious when the
situation calls for it. Credit: AP
Sister helps Earnhardt Jr. cope with celebrity
MOORESVILLE, N.C. (AP) -- After months of pondering the contract offer, Dale Earnhardt Jr. decided he needed some advice.
He didn't call a lawyer, an accountant or an agent.
Instead, he took the paperwork to his sister, Kelley, and let her hash out a deal.
If it's business, pleasure or personal, Earnhardt's 30-year-old sister is the first one the NASCAR superstar turns to.
"Dale Jr. was always littler than everybody -- shy, got picked on a
lot at school -- and I was always
the caretaker for anything he needed," she said. "He borrowed lunch money
from me. I did his chores when he wasn't in the mood to do them and would
have gotten in trouble. I was always the mother hen."
It started when they were children of an absent father, living with their mother in Virginia. Kelley was two years older than her brother and always looked after him.
Eventually, they moved to North Carolina to be with their father, the late Dale Earnhardt, but were split up when Dale Jr. went to boarding school and Kelley went to college.
The time apart was good for the little brother -- "he started to become his own person" -- but not so good for their father.
After years of focusing most of his time on his racing career, Earnhardt
had decided he wanted to reconnect with his children. He begged Kelley
to leave school in Wilmington, promising her
she could live by herself and even start her own racing career.
"He was just starting to become a lot more family oriented and we just never got to see each other," she said. "He sent me flowers one time at school and I still have the card, it said 'It's been so long, I have almost forgotten what you look like."'
So Kelley came home, transferring to North Carolina-Charlotte, where she earned her business degree while driving Late Model cars. At the same time, Dale Jr. was getting his start in NASCAR along with their older half brother, Kerry.
As Dale Jr. started to blossom into a NASCAR star, their father took care of everything. The son had little interest or involvement in the business side of racing and no one had a problem with it.
Whatever was good for the father was good for the son.
"When dad was here, him and (stepmother) Teresa, whatever they did for dad, they mimicked for Dale Jr.," Kelley said. "They made his decisions. Even when he started his own company, they made the decisions about where he banked, all of his insurance. ...
"They told him what they were doing, but he didn't really care to sit there and understand it."
Then, Earnhardt was killed in a wreck in the 2001 Daytona 500.
Brother and sister were on their own again, and Kelley knew Dale Jr. would need her.
"I called Dale up and said, 'I need to work for you, and you need me to come work for you,"' she remembered. "It took him about three weeks. He always had the trust in me, he knows how I operate."
Those close to the family have always said Kelley is most like her father -- no-nonsense with a keen sense for business, but able to kid around at the proper time.
And when it comes to her brother, no one has ever looked after him the way she does.
So Dale Jr. turned everything over to her, making Kelley his business manager.
She's president of JR Motorsports, his company that encompasses everything not related to his Winston Cup team, which is owned by Teresa and Dale Earnhardt Inc.
"I instill a lot of trust and dependability on her to help me out because she's pretty smart about this stuff," he said. "And let's face it, I'm probably not too experienced in it. I would probably let people walk off with the bank."
Kelley didn't let that happen when it came time for Dale Jr. to sign a contract with DEI. He had worked under a handshake agreement with his father, but wanted something official this time around.
He rejected the offer of a lifetime contract that Teresa offered, and worked with Kelley on the things he wanted included in his new deal.
So the two of them packed up the paperwork, crossed the parking lot from JR Motorsports into the main building at DEI, and had a meeting with their stepmother in the conference room.
After months of going back and forth, Dale Jr. finally signed off on a five-year deal that included the one main sticking point: a cap on the amount of personal appearances he had to make for the sponsor and DEI.
Although they have solid relationships with Teresa and their half-siblings, the two of them have created their own mini-family.
The birth two years ago of Kelley's daughter, Karsyn, has changed them both. Dale Jr. spends hours on end with his niece, sometimes playing computer games with her, sometimes secretly teaching her curse words, and sometimes just sitting back and watching her.
And Karsyn's arrival finally allowed the little brother to look after his sister.
"He'll tell me about dating, going out or outside interests, 'You don't need to be doing that because you have Karsyn,"' she said. "He definitely is way harder on me about personal things than I am on him."
The racing legend's widow, Teresa Earnhardt, talks for the first time about her loss.
Sometimes
Teresa Earnhardt almost slows down long enough to talk to Dale. She wants
to tell him that everyone is doing fine. She wants to explain how much
people miss him, how senators, governors and even the President were rocked
on Feb. 18, 2001, when he crashed his black Chevy into a wall at Daytona
and died.
She wants to tell him about his daughter Taylor, 14 now and in the eighth grade, but she simply can't. "To do that, you really have to be still and quiet and dwell on your thoughts," she says in her first interview since Dale's death. "And I don't have a lot of time to dwell on any thoughts. I don't have time to dwell on anything."
It has been two years since the racing world lost its biggest star, Dale Earnhardt, and in that time his widow, Teresa, 44, has not stopped going full speed. While taking control of Dale's multimillion-dollar business ventures, including four racing teams, a new charitable foundation and a vast merchandising outfit, Teresa has made it her mission to keep spirits up around the Earnhardt camp, bolstering others with her strength and resolve.
"She grieves every day, but she also feels a real sense of responsibility to Dale," says her sister Sherry Houston Clifton, 49, a partner and promoter at North Carolina's Hickory Motor Speedway. "You want to crawl into a hole for a while, but that didn't happen because people were depending on her."
Even during the battle over Dale's autopsy photos -- she fought off newspapers trying to publish them days after his death -- Teresa was remarkably composed. "She's never shown any signs of crumbling or going into a shell," says her friend Kix Brooks, of the country singing duo Brooks & Dunn. "She's just taken care of business and gone on with her life."
“She's not the kind of person that needs to be consoled," says her stepson Dale Earnhardt Jr., 28, one of NASCAR's top drivers. "She really helped us understand how to deal with losing Daddy. She just has a lot of common sense."
It is the way she feels Dale -- the gruff, tough, good ol' boy known as the Intimidator --would have wanted her to handle things. Married for 18 years and partners in every way, "they would look at a situation and say, 'Well, that's the way it is, life goes on,'" says Darrell Waltrip, 55, a friend of Dale's and a retired racer who is now a NASCAR analyst.
In the numbing days after the crash, amid a massive outpouring of emotion from fans across the nation, Teresa was the calm center of the storm. Most important, she comforted Dale's children: daughter Taylor, who lives with her in the Earnhardts' log house in Mooresville, N.C., as well as Dale Jr., Kerry, 33, and Kelley, 30, his children from his first two marriages.
"She has helped us remember his passion for the things he loved and the importance of carrying them on," says Kelley, the business manager for JR Motor Sports, owned by her brother Dale Jr. “Teresa has been our rock.”
More than most, Teresa understood the dangers of racing because she was raised in a car-loving family. Her father, Hal Houston, 70 (he and wife Betty, 71, are now retired from the furniture-making business), raced stock cars all over their home state of North Carolina. "We were racetrack brats," says Teresa's sister Sherry. "Every weekend we were at a track with Dad. If we got sleepy, we'd get in the back of the pickup and curl up in a tire."
Teresa was studying interior decorating at a Charlotte community college when she met Dale at a race in the late '70s. A high school dropout from Kannapolis, a mill town in North Carolina, and the son of Ralph Earnhardt, one of racing's earliest stars, and Martha, Dale worked odd jobs-as a welder for a trucking company, at a tire store-and raced only on weekends. But even then "he was very magnetic," says Teresa. "He was always exciting to watch."
Divorced from second wife Brenda, Dale married Teresa in 1982. Friends say they survived some rough spots as Teresa reined in Dale's wild side and helped him focus on racing.
Not regarded as especially promising in his early days, Dale soon became the most daring and charismatic driver on the burgeoning NASCAR circuit, greatly boosting the sport's popularity. Since 1990, attendance at NASCAR events has more than doubled to nearly 7 million fans; the sport's TV ratings are now second only to the NFL's.
Things were going great guns for the Earnhardts -- Dale's handsome son was coming into his own as a driver -- when everything changed on the fourth turn of the Daytona International Speedway. Trying to hold on to third place behind his son, Dale spun right and hit the concrete wall at 170mph.
"I called him on the radio and he never answered," says Richard Childress, the owner of Dale's No. 3 Monte Carlo racecar. Childress radioed Teresa, who rushed to the track's care center. By the time she got there, Dale was on his way to the Halifax Medical Center in Daytona Beach.
"We figured it was just an injury," says Dale Jr., who drove with his stepmother to the hospital. But in the somber emergency room "there were a lot of doctors standing around doing stuff. Nobody had to tell us. We just knew."
Dale Earnhardt died of blunt-force injuries to his head and neck. Those present that day say Teresa was shaken but otherwise in control. When a technician cleaning Dale's body tried to slip off his wedding ring, Teresa demanded he keep it on.
"I am not one to curl up at any time," she says. "I do what you gotta do. There's right and there's wrong, and you do the best you can."
-- ALEX TRESNIOWSKI
-- MICHAELE BALLARD and DON SIDER in Mooresville
2nd part of story will follow on or about February 10th.
Posted: February 3, 2003
By: Mary Henry
February is here already, and that means it is almost time for Daytona!
Elvis Presley was the King of Rock n Roll, Richard Petty is the King of NASCAR, but Dale Earnhardt will always be the King of Daytona.
This year has been different to me for some reason, and just couldn't figure it out. I was chatting with friend Chris the other night and soon realized, Daytona and no Dale again! Daytona was Dale Earnhardt. Who ever your driver was, when you thought Daytona, you thought Dale Earnhardt. I was also corrected by a Earnhardt Fan, that Dale never liked to be called Sr. So I respect that and it will be Dale Earnhardt from now on to me.
I must say this and please no one get offended or take it the wrong way. Let Jr. be Jr. That is what he has asked of all his fans. He has never and will never try to replace his Dad. Jr. is his own person, so lets respect Jr. for Jr. and not compare him to Dad at all. Ask any driver in the garage they will tell you the same thing. No one will ever fill those shoes. Rusty said it all, there will NEVER be another Dale Earnhardt. That is the part that is getting harder and harder as years go by.
No matter if you were a Dale Earnhardt fan or not, you say Daytona, Dale came to mind. He owned that place, and in my heart and mind he always will.
Dale Earnhardt only won Daytona 500, one time, but how many times did He finish second? Second S__ks Dale use to say, that is the first to loose. Take off the plates and let us run! If you know anything about NASCAR history, you know Dale Earnhardt had a passion for Daytona, and it always carried over with his fans.
Going to qualifying every year, you just knew when Dale was headed out on pit road, the crowd let you know with the cheers. You stood up, and watched and cheered as He headed down pit road, passing everything in site. That I miss so much. Most of the time the sound of the crowd was like their driver had just won the race.
Then think every Daytona 500, maybe my driver will win today, but Dale will be there, you knew that in the back of your minds. Sure enough when came the end of the race, there he was, don't care if He started dead last, he was up front racing for the win.
Dale always made a difference in our sport, rules, body styles, no matter. He had an input and NASCAR listened. Lets try to remember that is what some of the veterans are trying to do now, just fill in the gaps, cause there will never be another mentor like Dale was, they know it to. Try to remember that these veterans speaking up are the veterans that Dale Earnhardt himself taught.
Dale and Rusty had their run-ins on the track, but off track it was like family. What Rusty is trying to do with the tire situation is, what Dale tried to get back in 2000. Passing abilities for these cars. Makes for a more competitive race. Use to have a lot of those thanks to Dale and Rusty. No matter who was your Driver, you went to Bristol to watch Dale and Rusty. Those days are gone, but memories will never be replaced in my mind.
Our veterans drivers have made this sport what it is today. Now with NASCAR taking over and trying to be the mentor! Sorry I question that. NASCAR needs to listen more to these drivers they are the one that are out there risking their lives every week, for the sport we call NASCAR.
Some of the rules NASCAR has come up with, I must say I do agree with. But this sport belongs to the drivers. Every since 2001 all or most of the positions at NASCAR have changed, Why? Gary Nelson? there for years? Now we have what's his name? Mr. Darby? Mr. Darby needs to listen, he talks to much. Was Mr. Darby a driver before now? Not sure on that one? Gary Nelson if He didn't understand Dale Earnhardt use to put him in his race car and hit the track. Does Mr. Darby do that? No, he gives out fines and penalties, some for no reason at all. At what point now can drivers try New things? They will get big fine and loose points.
Lets get back what We use to have they say? It will never be the way it use to be, but give our veterans a chance. They are the ones that has been there, done that.
Dale Earnhardt was the man to fear at Daytona, and no one will ever take that away from us veteran fans.
Dale and Rusty gave us the best of both worlds. They were as competitive as they could be.
So when the season starts this year, take a few minutes to go back into NASCAR history? Then you will soon realize and admit that you miss Dale Earnhardt to.
For all my Earnhardt friends and fans. This is especially for Chris, Ed and more, God only takes the best, and memories can last you a lifetime.
PS, I bet, he is still Intimidating.
Your
Momma
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