Sunday, September 1, 2019

Who's driving the 8 car?


THE YEAR WAS, I BELIEVE, 2000, and I was at Charlotte Motor Speedway and doing a feature for Racing For Teens (which has now been defunct for many years).

This would-be bridegroom was waiting for his preacher to show up (he was stuck in race traffic; imagine that), and the prospective bride was hiding before the ceremony.

While we were chatting, I asked his favorite driver and how he became a fan. His answer: "The 8."

I thought, Who the hell is the 8? I didn't remember an 8 car in Winston Cup.

Turns out that rookie Dale Earnhardt Jr. was driving the 8. After that, I knew exactly who was driving the 8 car.

This fan never did say why he was a fan of Junior.

I did go around and ask a couple dozen other fans about their favorite driver and how they chose him (there were no female drivers named). Overall, it was a great day.

 Oh, I never found another 8 fan that day.


EMAIL: tgilli52@gmail.com  TWITTER: EDITORatWORK

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(a book of great stories about the Intimidator)
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Thursday, August 22, 2019

Shedding light on the situation

I think the year was 1992, and Charlotte Motor Speedway was about to install lights for night racing.

I went over to CMS to talk to promoter Humpy Wheeler about the lights, but I wasn't on Humpy's schedule. So I rode along with him to a funeral and interviewed him along the way.

Humpy suddenly stopped the car and said, "Let me talk to this gentleman," and he got out. The gentleman turned out to be a state trooper, and apparently Humpy was speeding.

He came back after several minutes and told me everything was OK (the trooper had recognized him), and we went on.

When we stopped at a drive-through for a bite, I asked if the speedway was working on anything other than the lights. Humpy told me they were working on building a speedway in Texas.

I thought that was strange (and wondered if he was putting me on), but I mentioned that in my next notes column. It turns out they were working on Texas Motor Speedway.

 At the time, I didn't know I'd just gotten a scoop.




EMAIL: tgilli52@gmail.com  TWITTER: 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
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