Thursday, December 15, 2016

Memories of Tony Stewart

I was just thinking about the recently retired Tony Stewart, the three-time Cup champion, and I thought I'd write a bit about him.

Some reporters found Tony to be hard to deal with, but I never did. The first time I talked to Tony was in the 1990s when he was taking a Busch Series (now Xfinity) ride with Joe Gibbs' team. The story was for a track program magazine, and the team's PR guy or gal hooked me up with both driver and owner for phone interviews. Both interviews went well, and I enjoyed the whole thing immensely.

Boring, I know, but what can you do? Sometimes boring is good in the newspaper business.

I also remember one time we were at Charlotte Motor Speedway's infield media center, and Tony was going to be the next person to be interviewed by the press. He came through the door and was obviously nervous heading into the group setting; he was a young driver back then.

Two or three of us stood on the side with Tony and listened to whoever was at the podium, and Tony talked to us for several minutes. I guess it calmed him for his ordeal.

Other than quick interviews, I had one other encounter with Tony that I remember. It came during the 2003 (and last) Winston Cup Preview in Winston-Salem, N.C. I wrote about it on this blog; I called it Tell them Tony sent you. 

It went well, too.

Also about Tony Stewart: Tell them Tony sent you


Contact me at tgilli52@gmail.com or nc3022@yahoo.com. Also, my Twitter handle is EDITORatWORK.

More entries from TARJ
(a book of great stories about the Intimidator)
(the book of great NASCAR stories)

EDITOR@WORK blog entries 

Entries from The Dog Blog
More blog entries by Tom Gillispie

Anecdotes by Tom Gillispie

Sunday, December 4, 2016

Monster Cup?

I'm curious what NASCAR will call its top series now that Monster Energy is replacing Sprint as the title sponsor.

The Monster Energy Cup Series doesn't cut it, and I'm not sure about the Monster Cup Series, either (although it's better). Monster Energy Series -- leaving out the word Cup altogether -- looks like it'll be the way to go.

But, naturally, they'll come up with a name I haven't thought of.

What do YOU think they'll call NASCAR's top series?

Maybe the all-star race can be the Monster All-Star Race.

Note: I understand it'll be the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series. That makes sense, but it's long. And the logo I saw is ugly.


Contact me at tgilli52@gmail.com or nc3022@yahoo.com. Also, my Twitter handle is EDITORatWORK.

More entries from TARJ
(a book of great stories about the Intimidator)
(the book of great NASCAR stories)

EDITOR@WORK blog entries 

Entries from The Dog Blog
More blog entries by Tom Gillispie

Anecdotes by Tom Gillispie