Saturday Night At The Short Tracks

 I was pleased to see on social media that the folks at Senoia Raceway are reaching out to people in town for the NASCAR races at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

 AMS ticket holders can get a discount on admission at Senoia Saturday night, and holders of NASCAR hard cards, the plastic annual licenses carried by those who follow the circuit, are welcome as guests.

 I think it’s great that a short track is trying to connect with local “big track” fans. And the promotion brings back some good memories from my days traveling the NASCAR trail.

 One of my closest friends on the circuit was and is a fellow writer, Monte Dutton.

 We have lots in common. We both wrote extensively about short track racing before moving to NASCAR, where in our time most reporters came from stick and ball sports. And we both grew up around farming, and that too was unique in the media centers.

 On many a Saturday night before a Cup race, Monte and I would venture off to a local track – partly because we always seemed to get left off the invite list when NASCAR and team reps invited a select few reporters for a fancy dinner but mostly because we both really appreciated short track racing.

 It’s fashionable now for reporters to venture off to short tracks, but not so much back in the day.

 There were benefits for our day jobs in that we got to know drivers like Tony Stewart a lot better from interaction in the pits of a dirt track than from a media scrum at the speedway.

 And there were plenty of interesting nights back in the day.

  Once at Volusia Speedway in Florida, when Tony was in his first or second season of Cup, we were standing by the fence (then and now my favorite place to watch a race) and Mike Head, whom Tony did not know at the time, was being held up pretty bad by the driver in front of him.

 During the caution, Tony told me: “Mark my words, if that guy doesn’t give that 54 car some room in the next two laps, he’s going to get moved and it’s going to be right here in front of us.”
 Of course Tony was right.

 One night during a Martinsville weekend, Monte and I went down to 311 Speedway in Madison, N.C., to watch Richard Childress’ grandson Austin Dillon run his first Super Late Model race.

 While we were visiting with RC an older fellow came up and gave him a photo from years before. It was of a much younger Childress along with Dale and Teresa Earnhardt, sitting on the tire rack of a race car trailer in the 311 pits. Prominent in the photo of those three happy people was a Mason jar about three-fourths full of moonshine.

 I am sorry to report that despite my best efforts I was unable to obtain a copy of that photo.

 When Bill Elliott rediscovered dirt Late Models in the early 2000s, he invited his then-teammate Jeremy Mayfield and his wife Shana to watch him race at Talladega Short Track on a Talladega Cup weekend.

 After the feature, Bill, really excited about the racing, and asked Shana what she thought of the dirt version.

 Her answer: “There’s DIRT in my lipstick.”
 Also at Talladega one night, Carl Edwards, having heard numerous stories of mine from tracks like Senoia and West Atlanta, said he wanted to meet Ricky Williams, whom he’d heard a lot about.

 I pointed to Ricky, who was in his car, engine running, waiting to pull out on the track.

 Carl walked up, stuck his head in the window and struck up a conversation. Needless to say, Ricky was taken quite by surprise.

 When Kansas Speedway opened, the local track, Lakeside Speedway, wasn’t honoring hard cards, so I bought a ticket, which specified the section, row and seat number.

 I didn’t know anyone around me but I did notice a very attractive lady in front of me with young guys sitting on either side of her. She was looking at a racing paper and turned to an ad for a race at Rome Speedway. The ad was laid out so that there were drivers photos surrounding the rest of the ad copy.

 She was commenting on the drivers in the photos and came upon one she was really impressed by. When she pointed out the driver to her friend, I couldn’t help but notice that she’d picked out Ricky Williams.

 I spoke up and told her I knew that guy and would pass along the compliment. And I did.

 Some of Monte’s and my favorite trips were from Martinsville to South Boston Speedway.

  Cathy Rice, the promoter, always rolled out the red carpet for any NASCAR media that made their way to her track. And the bologna burgers were always delicious.

 I usually didn’t write a whole lot about South Boston, or any of the other short tracks that hosted us, but I always left them feeling better about the sport as a whole.

 I’ll bet anyone who ventures from AMS to Senoia this Saturday night will leave there feeling the same way.



Comments

  1. Monte DuttonMarch 20, 2022 at 12:22 PM

    Good times. I'm still the same. I get more out of hanging out than I do writing about the event.

    ReplyDelete

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