Word: waltrips
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...that there isn't some grumbling among drivers. "These are the best of times and the worst of times," says Darrell Waltrip, a former champion who's hanging on at age 52 because the popularity and the money make it too hard to leave. "But it used to be just you and the race car. Now it's too big a business, and everybody wants a bigger piece of your time." In the old days, says Waltrip, "Richard Petty used to be able to win a race and sit up on the wall for an hour, sign all the autographs...
...always. Ray Loewen once invited SCI's founder, Robert Waltrip, aboard, and the two men, both wearing yachtsman's caps, almost came to blows. O'Keefe likewise failed to appreciate the charm. Over a sumptuous dinner, O'Keefe told Loewen he did not want a fight and proposed a number of ways to resolve the dispute. But Loewen, he says, turned the evening into an effort to persuade him to sell his own best funeral homes. At one point, he says, Loewen boasted how he maneuvered John Wright to sell the Wright & Ferguson Funeral Home by threatening to build...
Predictably, there is something of a pork-rind backlash. Some fans grumble that the modern speedways, charging more than $100 for the best tickets, are driving out the down-home folks who helped build NASCAR in the first place. But driver Darrell Waltrip, a three-time Winston Cup winner and a 24-year veteran of the sport, insists there is still room for all kinds of fans. "You can sit in the infields and be rowdy, or you can sit up in the stands and be a gentleman," says Waltrip. And either way, revel in the noise...
...stood shoulder to shoulder with Drew Bledsoe and shot the breeze with Ken Griffey, Jr. I've had lunch with Sandy Alomar Jr.'s girlfriend and done shots with Laura Davies in a Vermont bar. I've worked in the pits for Michael Waltrip and shaken the hand of Goose Gossage. I've interviewed Roberto Baggio one-on-one and pissed off Bill Parcells...
...Pittsburgh Steelers, but a stock car fan gets behind a wheel every day, and his sedan at least looks like those driven by Yarborough, Petty and the Allisons. As a result, the fans have a rare, fierce sense of identification with the heroes of the sport. At Darlington, when Waltrip edged out Petty, the spectators cheered so loudly that the drivers could hear them over the roar of the engines. For the final laps the fans were on their feet, screaming with appreciation at the skill and daring of the men who have so mastered the fundamental art of driving...