Old Truths

  Being the old-fashioned old coot that I am, I put a lot of stock in old sayings, old folklore and other time-honored axioms.

 I’ve made many a farming decision based on old sayings about the weather. On early mornings back in the day I’ve made work plans based on what I saw in the dew-covered fields. If spider webs were lying flat, it wouldn’t rain that day. If they’re arched up, rain was inevitable.

 I’ve also found it to be true, as the late John Burch Harp told me, that when the weather is coming from the east, if it doesn’t rain in the first 24 hours it won’t rain at all.

 One of my old racing buddies, former NASCAR team owner Tom Beard, likes to say that in every poker game there’s a sucker, and if you don’t know who the sucker is it’s you. That applies to a lot more situations than poker games.

 There’s also some old thinking in racing that I once thought to be true but now believe otherwise.

 Back in the day, some folks’ racing strategy reminded me of Aesop’s fable about the tortoise and the hare. As many a school kid learned, the tortoise (turtle) won the long-distance race over the hare (rabbit) because the much-faster rabbit jumped out to an early lead, then dawdled, allowing the slower turtle to overtake him and win.

 That once was true in NASCAR and other forms of racing. A driver who was aggressive early in a run often used up his or her tires and was eventually passed by a more conservative driver, who took his or her time, managed the tire wear, passed cars one at a time, eventually overtaking the speedy starter.

 But my observation of racing today is that the hare now wins more often not, in races from NASCAR superspeedways to the local dirt tracks.

 Drivers who aggressively dart through the pack on restarts usually wind up maintaining their quickly gained spots, while those who don’t take the same risks are rarely able to make up the lost ground.

 Ross Chastain is one of NASCAR’s current crop of drivers who is capitalizing on his aggressive driving and has won twice already this year despite driving for a relatively new team.

 Chastain’s aggression got him into a bit of a pickle last week at Gateway as he angered veteran Denny Hamlin and Chase Elliott by bumping them during the race.

 Chastain apologized after the race, but the fact remains that his aggression is overall a big plus for him.

 Many a team owner will tell you that it’s much better to try and manage a young driver’s aggression than to get a naturally conservative driver to pick up the pace.

 But that kind of thinking has been around a long time.

 When I first started going to races at Senoia and other tracks, David “Gracie” Thompson was driving a car he and Marvin “Booga” Williams fielded together.

 Gracie was on the aggressive side as a driver, and that seemed to suit his racing partner just fine.

 Gracie says Marvin used to tell him he didn’t mind repairing the front bumper after a night of battle, but fixing the rear bumper was another matter.

 And that story brings up another thing I’ve learned – when people like Tom Beard and Marvin Williams tell you something, no matter the subject, you can take it to the bank.