Showing posts with label Neil Bonnett. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Neil Bonnett. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 31, 2016

NICE GUYS

NEIL BONNETT

NICE GUYS

The other day, I ran into two guys at the local park. One of them knew that I was a writer (we'd talked before), and they asked me about my career.

 It turns out that both of them were racing fans, and one of them has been to as many Cup tracks as I have. So they got me talking.

 They were the first fans ever to ask me about nice guys. Who were the nice guys you talked to when you were covering NASCAR in the 1990s and early 21st century?

 John Andretti was special for his intelligence, his humor and his kind demeanor.

 The Labonte brothers, Terry and Bobby, are right there. Kyle Petty, when he was in a good mood. Jeff Gordon, easy. Mark Martin. Sterling Marlin. Ricky Rudd. Rick Mast.

It's easier to name good guys than jerks, but every driver can be a jerk when he's stressed. Mark walked away from me the first time I tried to talk to him. The next 15 or 20 years, he was as good as gold. He might have been my favorite guy to talk to; he was close.

 I had a bad time with Dale Earnhardt when I first tried to talk to him, in 1990, and it wasn't until '91 that I actually got an answer out of him. Then over the next several years, Dale would either be friendly with me or he'd ignore me. There was little middle ground. He could be nice, if he was in the mood. But he was rarely in the mood.

 People think of Bill Elliott as a good guy; after all, he was the most popular driver several times. My first interview with Bill was contentious; it started out like he was in fight-or-flight mode; he eased at the end and he actually shook hands with me and thanked me for talking to him.

 Bill was kind of like Earnhardt. If he was stressed, he'd walk away from you or be gruff.  If he wasn't, he'd sit and chat. Yes, Bill could be a good guy, or not.

 The Bodine brothers, Geoff and Brett, were two of my favorites. They knew me, and I got to know their families a bit from calling their homes. Both seemed genuinely happy to see me at tracks, and both were great, and willing, talkers.

 I remember one day I was walking through a garage area during practice, and Brett was heading out on the track. When he got to me, he slowed down to a near-stop and waved broadly at me (I'd covered him extensively when he'd driven for Hoss Ellington). He wanted to make sure I saw the wave, and, strangely, it's one of my favorite memories of racing.

 There's also Davey Allison. A lot of reporters didn't like Davey because he was often short with them. Davey also drove for Hoss (he didn't remember me from there, though), but I really got to know him after his wreck in the all-star race at Charlotte in 1992. Through his PR guy, I got his home number, and I talked to Davey's wife, Liz.

 Davey also gave me his shop number, and I'd leave my name and number on his answering machine. He'd call me back, and we'd talk for an hour. Sometimes it was an interview; other times it was just BS. When he had time, we even talked a time or two at the track.

 It hurt when he died in 1993.

 The final nice guy I'll mention is Neil Bonnett. Neil was still trying to come back from a 1990 wreck at Darlington when I got to know him. I interviewed Neil by phone in early 1994, and we enjoyed the interview immensely. Later, he called me back, and it was obvious he was rummaging through the garage for pictures and other stuff.

 Before we hung up, he asked when I was coming to Daytona. I told him, and he said for me to come by the 51 truck, and we'd go out for dinner. He wasn't there when I got to the track; he died earlier that week in practice.

 Later, I wrote a column about Neil, and I ended it by saying racing lost its best friend in Neil Bonnett.

He might have been the ultimate nice guy, although Benny Parsons and Buddy Baker were tremendously nice guys, too. Same with Ned Jarrett and his son Dale. Ned was right up there with Neil. (All of them were close.)

 I give up. There were so many nice guys. I might have missed a dozen or so.

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EMAIL: tgilli52@gmail.com   BLUESKY: PROFILE

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Friday, May 8, 2009

A black-letter day

Feb. 18, 2001 started innocently enough with the preparation for the Daytona 500. I regularly watched the Great American Race on TV back then, partly to see if Dale Earnhardt would win it again. I don't know that I was a big Earnhardt fan, but I'd met the man and written about him for newspapers, magazines and web sites. And I'd written a book — Racing Families: A Tribute to Racing's Fastest Dynasties — with Dale on the cover.

 But 2/18/01 would be memorable.

 It's well documented. On the last lap of the 500, Earnhardt was running third behind his two Dale Earnhardt Inc. drivers, Michael Waltrip and Dale Jr. Earnhardt plowed into the turn-four wall as his drivers headed toward the finish line.

 For long minutes I watched tensely as they talked to Mikey and Junior and others on TV. It looked like an innocent crash, but I'd seen such crashes before. One year at Talladega, Jimmy Horton and Stanley Smith crashed. Horton's was spectacular, as his car sailed over the wall. Smith's looked like a fender-bender. Horton was almost unhurt, and Smith nearly died. He never raced again.

 On top of that, I remembered Neil Bonnett's 1994 crash in the same spot. It was similarly unspectacular, and Neil died.

 Darrell Waltrip talked absently on TV, hoping that Dale was all right. But I was worried. The crew was so slow getting Earnhardt out of the car, and the ambulance seemed unhurried en route to the hospital.

 A friend of mine — a big Michael Waltrip fan — called because he knew I was one of the few people he could enjoy the moment with. A half hour or so later, my wife called and said that TV was reporting that Earnhardt was dead. I called my friend back, and he argued that Earnhardt COULDN'T be dead.

 A few minutes later, the TV station I was watching announced Earnhardt's death. I went into the bedroom, sat on the bed, and cried.

 But I didn't have time to mourn. The sports editor of the local newspaper asked me to write a story about Earnhardt. Did I know any big-time drivers not in Daytona? I told him that Buddy Baker had lost his TV gig and was at home in the Charlotte area. I called Buddy, and his wife said he had locked himself in a room to mourn alone, but she'd ask. A few minutes later, Buddy came to the phone and said sadly, "How ya doin', partner?"

 We talked for 20 minutes or so — it was therapeutic for both of us — and I quickly wrote the newspaper story. Then I went back to mourning.

 A few days later, several family members were eating together at a restaurant — great fish and chips — but I was sitting quietly. One of the women put her arm around me to console me. She thought I was thinking about Dale. Maybe I was; I don't remember.

 But I had little time to mourn. I learned that Cumberland House Publishing wanted to add an Earnhardt entry to its series of books about late, great athletes. They'd had writers do interviews with friends and colleagues of greats like Walter Payton, Pistol Pete Maravich and others.

 That led to two months of intense interviews and story collecting about the Man in Black. The series was always positive in its portrayal of the athletes, so I didn't focus a lot on Earnhardt's rough reputation. I did have some stories about the shark-in-the-water aspect of Dale, but lots of them came out funny. The book was published in late 2001 as "I Remember Dale Earnhardt."

 I went through the process again in 2007 when I updated IRDE, and it became "Angel in Black: Remembering Dale Earnhardt Sr."

 Some days Earnhardt was likable. He'd grab your arm and share a laugh with you. Other days he'd totally ignore you. You never know which Dale would come around the corner.

 I no longer watch NASCAR races from flag to flag. Sometimes I don't even turn the TV on. I didn't watch the Daytona 500 this year. Who cares about it? It's no fun without Earnhardt.

 Sometimes I get confused and think that he's still alive, but those moments are quick and fleeting. But, in a way, my musings are correct; he's still here. He's alive in my head and in the heads and hearts of fans and all of those who knew him.

 Today I thought of him again. Eight years and counting.

 (This is a reprint of a blog entry I wrote on Feb. 18, 2009, the eighth anniversary of Earnhardt's death.)
Contact: I can be reached 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
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