2020 NASCAR Thread

Cars left to right: Bobby Allison, Benny Parsons, David Pearson and Cale Yarborough.

That was my first Daytona 500 (as a paying customer).

 

Ha! I beat you. Mine was '74. I was three, so technically, I wasn't a paying customer; my folks were. We followed it up with a trip to Gatorland and Disney.

 

Looks like we're going to have some late night racing. The race at Texas has been red-flagged for weather for three hours and counting, and it's only on lap 53 of 334.

 

Was that Ned Jarrett standing next to Willie Nelson? Something I never thought I’d see.

 

Update: Mañana.

 

Second update: NASCAR, please don’t say “mañana” if you don’t mean it.

 

Sophomore at UF, I bought a ticket about three weeks before the 1978 race in the cheapest grandstand for $15, way more than I had ever spent on any sporting event to that point. Eve of the race, I came down with terrible flu-like symptoms (COVID!) and spent the entire night on the floor of the bathroom in the apartment. Finally, around 4 a.m. I decided to just go ahead, suck it up and drive to Daytona in the pouring rain. Was one of the first cars in the parking lot (wound up next to the old dog track) and slept in the car for four hours. That was the race where Lennie Pond punted A.J. Foyt and he barrel rolled through the infield RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME. I honestly thought I had watched my favorite driver get killed, but they pulled him out of the mangled car.

Buddy Baker was dominating that race in the beautiful black and silver No. 27 until he blew the engine up with a handful of laps remaining. Bobby Allison beat Cale Yarborough to the line (in an interesting precursor to 1979!).

Those full-bodied cars were something to see in person. At 190 mph, they rattled the grandstands and you could feel the air pressure as they came by in a pack. It took me a full 20 laps to figure out you couldn't see squat if you looked straight ahead. You had to pick them up in the tri-oval and quickly turn your head as they roared by to figure out who was who.

Dad, who attended the 1961 race, came up from Broward County the next year and we shivered through Petty's win after Bobby and Cale came to blows in Turn 1 on the white flag lap. I've only been colder that that at Daytona once since then.

 

I was at the 500 when Pearson and Petty crashed coming to the line, but I don't remember it.
I remember going to the Busch Clash in '90, and there was a wreck in turn 4 during the ARCA race. The emergency crews responded, and the track was still green. I thought, "This isn't good." Sure enough, the race spun when it came back around, and a car went right over top of an EMS dude.
Then, in '91, after Desert Storm, we must have been given free or cheap tickets to the Firecracker 400 because a bunch of us rented a van and went to the race. That was when DW did his big roll down the back stretch in the Western Auto car.

 

Not promising. Also, chilly.

 

Update: Mañana.

 

Covered Tuesday races at Atlanta and Michigan.

The Holiday Inn Express in Fayetteville knocked on doors and made us all go down to the first floor laundry room that Monday because a tornado was spotted a couple of blocks away. Afterward, I went out to the track and interviewed the few stragglers in the motorhome lot for something to do.

Brooklyn was just a massive quagmire. (Otherwise known as a typical Pocono weekend.) Most of the motorhomes sank in the mud and required tow vehicles. I think I changed Delta flights four times that weekend.