Rivalries

 The ongoing spat between Chase Elliott and Kevin Harvick has given NASCAR fans something spicy to talk about as the racing season winds down.

 Like most “feuds” at the Cup Series level, the latest one likely won’t last long, mostly due to concerns over how the drivers’ sponsors and sanctioning body officials will react. The AP is reporting that NASCAR officials already have laid down the law to the parties involved.

 It's ironic that Rick Hendrick is involved again. Years ago, NASCAR officials intervened in a similar situation when one of Hendrick's drivers, Geoff Bodine, and Dale Earnhardt were going at it on a weekly basis. (That’s the incident portrayed in the movie “Days of Thunder.”)

 Rivalries, even friendly ones, are fun to follow. Back in the day, NASCAR fans watched David Pearson and Richard Petty battle for wins on a weekly basis. Their most interesting encounter occurred in the 1976 Daytona 500, where they wrecked racing for the lead on the final lap, with Pearson limping across the finish line to get the win.

 But through it all, then and now, the Pearson family and David’s long-time team owners the Wood Brothers have been close friends with the Pettys. I’ve seen that first hand.

 Still, the “rivalry” lived on, to a degree, as I found out a few years back. Long after he retired from NASCAR, Pearson started racing a flat-head Ford on some Carolina dirt tracks.

 I spent a weekend tagging along with him. On the final night we were riding back to his house after a win at the old Riverside Speedway in Travelers Rest, S.C.

  I told David about how in my teenage years I went to Cup races with my cousins Wesley, Weldon and Ronnie Stubbs and some others from home. We were all Pearson fans, and I thought he was the best back then.

 I told David that even though I was supposed to be unbiased as a reporter, it was hard to shake my earlier opinion about him being a better driver than Richard, who was a great help to me during the time I covered NASCAR races.

 David didn’t say a word in response. He just kept driving.

 A few weeks later, I was interviewing Richard. David walked up and told me: “Hey, why don’t you tell Richard what you said the other night about which one of us was the best driver?”

 All I could say was: “I told him you were.”

 David got a good laugh out of it. Richard not so much. Me either.

There also have been some good rivalries over the years involving drivers at tracks like Senoia Raceway. Some were friendlier rivalries than others, but they all kept fans entertained as long as they lasted.

 One Senoia rivalry that comes to mind is between Randy Holt and Ronnie Sanders during Senoia’s asphalt era.

 When I was working at the Atlanta newspaper’s Fayetteville office, Ronnie’s shop was close by, and I often stopped by there to catch up on the latest racing news. Those visits were usually pretty short since there were no chairs to be found there, something another driver Lee Hansard pointed out to me when I was doing a story about Sanders, a workaholic then and now.

 One day, Ronnie’s uncle and sponsor the late Bob Stinchcomb was at the shop. Ronnie ran through a list of races scheduled for the upcoming weekend. There were big paying affairs at Pensacola, Fla., Mobile, Ala., and Birmingham.

“Uncle Bob” wasn’t interested in traveling to those tracks, even though Ronnie was always a contender for wins at them.

 “I want to go down to Senoia and outrun Randy Holt,” he said.

 So it was off to Senoia for Team 18.

 Another driver who inspired those kind of thoughts for his fellow drivers and team owners was the late Billy Clanton, who will be honored next week with a memorial race at Senoia.

 When Billy was up for induction into the Georgia Racing Hall of Fame, I was in charge of collecting the votes. Many Hall of Fame voters are drivers themselves.

 As those old drivers considered Billy, most relayed to me a story about some on-track incident between them back in the day.

 The first time I heard that, I assumed they’d be voting “No” on Billy. I was wrong. The vast majority of them voted “Yes” and he was elected with votes to spare.

 Rivalries - even feuds - have a way of eventually building respect between drivers. That’s part of what makes them so interesting to follow.

 See y’all at the races.



Comments

  1. jeffsandtOctober 14, 2021 at 4:32 PM

    Rivalries in racing always kept the fans stirred up and interested. Good read.

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownOctober 15, 2021 at 5:56 PM

    Great read, Rick !!

    ReplyDelete

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