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| JIM IS THE WHITE-HAIRED MAN IN BACK |
Jim McLaurin and I spent a lot of time together when we were covering NASCAR in the 1990s. We'd room together at races or on the Winston Cup Media Tour, go out for dinner and hang out together at races. When we stayed at the Manor House (it's no longer there), we'd watch Austin City Limits; we loved country-and-western music, particularly the western part.
Jim, the NASCAR writer for The State paper in Columbia, S.C., was easily my best friend among the writers.
He was funny, witty, thoughtful and a heck of a writer. Once, we were at Charlotte Motor Speedway and an organization that rescued retired racing greyhounds showed up. There were a couple of dogs there, and Jimmy Mac squatted to pet one of them. Tons of cameras clicked, and Jim quipped that newspaper copy editors would write "Jim McLaurin, left" as though no one could pick out the human.
Here's what kind of guy he was. We were at a luncheon in Daytona Beach for the International Race of Champions series. There was a different driver at each table, and I was going to sit with a driver I was interested in. Jim decided to sit at a nearby table with a driver sitting alone. I hope I sat at that table, too.
In 1993, we drove separate cars to Atlanta to cover a race. When we woke up the next morning, we looked out to see a thick coat of snow around the hotel. We looked on TV and saw video of Atlanta Motor Speedway smothered in white.
There was no racing, no way to drive home in the thick snow. So we stayed.
We left the door open to avoid claustrophobia and heard a family from Florida talking about their first snow. The daughter (late teens) excitedly ran out into it, and we heard a yelp and what sounded like a melon hitting the ground. The family called 911, and it seemed like forever for the ambulance to get there.
We never learned if that girl was OK.
Later, we wanted to eat, but we'd have to slog through the snow to another building. I'm a large man, and I was going to have a hard time traversing a snowy sloped sidewalk to the cafeteria.
Jimmy Mac grabbed my arm as we slid down the slope. Someone opened the double doors as we slid out of the snow onto the carpet. We kicked the snow off our shoes and went on it.
We wound up staying parts of three days there. I had an adventure on the way back to Charleston, S.C., but this is about Jim. So I'll leave it there.
Another time, Winston Cup Scene was hosting several NASCAR writers at a Charlotte Knights minor-league baseball game. We left the Manor House in Jim's car and sat in the Scene's suite. Racer Lake Speed, whose main sponsor was Spam, threw out the ceremonial first can of Spam (it was a sinker, naturally), and the ump yelled PLAY BALL!
I could write about us braving a terrible storm at Talladega in 1991, but that story is too long for this post.
Why am I writing about Jim? I learned in March that he'd died (no cause of death given).
Several of my racing friends and acquaintances, drivers, crewmen, owners and writers have passed on over the years. But Jim's death has hit me the hardest.
I had struggled to find the words. But I finally found them.
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