Word: daytona
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...veranda at the governor's residence in the southwestern Venezuelan state of Barinas, Narciso Chavez stands up, lifts a leg and stomps the ground several times, laughing. He is demonstrating the country-and-western dance moves he learned years ago at bars near Daytona Beach. Nacho, as he's nicknamed, studied English in Florida, had a son with his American girlfriend in Ohio, and claims he's still the best English teacher in his hometown. More to the point, perhaps, he's the younger brother of President Hugo Chavez, which may be how he came to be stomping around...
...Davis or Dinosaur. This is because there was a Bill France Sr.--was there ever. Big Bill grew up poor in Washington and had less than $100 to his name when he moved his family south during the Depression, seeking work. He found it in a gas station in Daytona, Fla., a town that loved gas. Soon France was helping organize stock-car races on the beach. After the war, France, 6 ft. 5 in. and with a booming voice, decided to bring order to a ragtag racing scene that sometimes saw promoters skip town without paying the drivers...
Bill France Jr. was smaller and quieter but no less visionary or hardworking than his dad. During the construction of Daytona International, he would be on site dawn to dusk, driving a bulldozer, wielding a shovel, whatever had to be done. Later he would work at the family racetracks as a flagman or scorer. He was ready for the reins when they were given...
...reach a wider audience, he needed television, and he went a-courtin'. CBS bit, big time, in 1979 when it agreed to televise the Daytona 500 flag to flag. That race couldn't have gone better for NASCAR: the superstar Richard Petty won when leaders Donnie Allison and Cale Yarborough crashed into each other in the final lap, then leapt from their cars and got into a fistfight. It was marvelous theater, and ratings were high, which they've remained since. The last TV deal France signed before bequeathing NASCAR to his son in 2003 was for six years...
...would have Earnhardt behind the wheel of the number 3 car that his father drove for Richard Childress Racing, winning six of his seven season championships. While technically still active, that number has not been on the Nextel Cup circuit since Dale Earnhardt, Sr., died in a wreck at Daytona...