Saturday, April 29, 2017

Birthday boys, Dale and Willie

Happy birthday today to one man who is no longer with us (Dale Earnhardt Sr.) and one who is (Willie Nelson).

 They were born 18 years apart, April 29, 1951 (Earnhardt) and April 29, 1933 (Nelson). Dale would have been 67; Willie is 85. (I just updated their ages from last year.)

 (I almost forgot to mention it.)
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The pig on the media tour

We were on the Winston Cup Media Tour in the early to middle 1990s, and we'd stopped at a business that provided racers with safety products.

 One of the workers there had a pot-bellied pig, and for some reason a handful of women on the tour wanted to pet the pig. I looked around, and they had it trapped at the top of a short set of steps in front of a closed door, and the pig was terrified.

 The pig got away for a moment, then did something extraordinary. It knocked down a display to cause its own distraction. While the women were retreating a few feet, the pig made its getaway.

 Don't say that pigs aren't smart.

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Saturday, April 22, 2017

Two Dales on the media tour

We were on the annual Winston Cup Media Tour one year, around 2000, and I assume it was Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s first tour.

We were going from shop to shop, and we were at Dale Earnhardt Inc. The media members immediately spread out. Some were talking to DEI executive Ty Norris or one of the crew chiefs, something I probably did. A bunch were swarming around Earnhardt, and the rest were attracted to Junior.

Before joining the fray, I watched both Earnhardts for a minute.

Earnhardt, by then a veteran at meeting the press, was answering questions but also watching his son. All I could see of Junior was his face, with a halo of tape recorders around it. Dale looked calm in a storm of questions, and Dale Jr. appeared almost overwhelmed in a similar cyclone.

Welcome to the big time, Junior.

Fortunately, it got easier. I saw Dale Jr. at Rockingham that same year, and he looked more comfortable. Of course, he didn't have 50 microphones and tape recorders stuck in his face at one time, either. Maybe 15 or 20.

And by now it's probably no big deal ... as it was with his father.

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EMAIL: tgilli52@gmail.com   BLUESKY: PROFILE

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

EDITOR@WORK blog entries 

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Anecdotes by Tom Gillispie
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