1971, I started listening to the races on the radio. I was 9 years old and got to hear Petty win the Daytona 500. I played the MRN on the big Philco console stereo. The thing was probably 5 foot wide, and I wanted to hear it loud enough to hear the race while still playing like a 9 year old boy would. So everybody else in the family got to listen as well.
So my dad got me a transitor or walkman radio for my 10th birthday. A gift for him too, for $21 he got his naps back.
Friday Hassler got killed in one of the twin 125s.
It was all Petty blue back then before STP. Bobby Allison in the Coca Cola machine. I remember Donnie Allison started driving for the Wood Brothers, they were fast but I think they only won once together. Pearson was in between the Holman Moody years and before eventually going to the Wood Brothers.
Cale was between running Indy cars and eventually coming back to drive for Jr Johnson.
But Charlie Glotzback was in the Jr Johnson Chevrolet, and the Chevy program was just really getting cranked up during my first memories.
Bobby Isaac in the K&K Dodge. James Hylton, GC Spencer, Elmo Langley Soupy Castles, Wendall Scott, Marty Robbins, Bill Dennis, Dick Brooks, Jabe Thomas, DK Ulrich, Ed Negre, Coo Coo Marlin are a few names that they routinly discussed.
Buddy Baker, and even Buck Baker still raced in some local Grand American races.
I remember hearing the Riverside race when Mark Donahue in the Penske Matador.
The MRN crew respected the drivers, they talked about Joe Weatherly with the highest respect. I did not have a clue about him, but I knew he was someone important because of the respect they still had.
Tiny London.... They did a lot of 10 lap run downs during the coverage back then. They would go through the running order and call out were Tiny was running. The announcer would say Tiny Lund-and whoever was running behind him. Well I just heard Tiny London....
Tiny ran at a race in a Grand American car at my local track Greenville Pickens Speedway . He drove a Camaro and had the 200 lapper won, until blowing a head gasket late in the race, glad I got to see him run back in the day.
But I have to admit most of those memories are nostalgic. I was a real nerd about it, and mentally drinked every racing tid bit I could find. But it was very piece meal, a few glimpses with a million pounds of my imagination.
The newspapers would post some race pictures, and I would build a whole mental database on the the little nuggets.
Peter Gregg won the Daytona 24 hour race, they posted a picture of him taking the checkers. And I would build an entire mental framework work about those races off the scant information.
Petty's Darlington wreck 1970 I think, he flipped forever with parts of him hanging out the car. I learned about it from the Greenville News paper, they posted several images, it had the freeze frame effect. I played it over and over again in my mind, while never having really seen it.
The Grand Prix movie, I still hear them and the RPM odometer zinging, and then busting loose at Monoco. If it were on TV tonight, I would still make time for watching the opening Monoco sequence. It was riveting, about as good as.... well you know.
When a freind of a friend went the race and bought a program back, seeing that program was an incredible find.
If i could have really seen it all then, would it have been as good as my imagination? I don't know, I would just say to the young folks to enjoy the good times now, you only get it once. Make the most of it, don't let no one deny you, it is a big friggin deal, it is your time. I think it will be the sweetness for you one day too.
Celebrate it.
Around 2012, I began rooting for Truex, because I noticed that he seemed like an unlucky but humble guy who would eventually win a race. Boy, has the narrative changed since then or what?
). Last but not least, as retarded as The Chase format seemed to be, I have to admit, things got exciting during The Chase, and I think the defining moment of all ten races had to be the moment that RYAN NEWMAN just squeaked his way into the final four with a last lap bump-and-run on Kyle Larson. It was a thrilling season.
