by richard teague tinynascars@yahoo.com
Let me say first that I sure am glad to be back with EU and that everything is just fine. Well, maybe it’s a lot better. I did go on strike for awhile during the off season. (Really, I had to have a hospital stay and rehab for more than two weeks.) For the past three weeks I’ve been at home getting back to normal, so I didn’t do any writing at all for more than a month. I don’t want to think about or discuss the past month because that’s pretty much behind me now. I’m ready to write about NA$CAR! The new stuff and the old stuff too. There is just too much to try and catch up on so I’ll start with the past week and Media Day at Daytona with the meetin’ n’ greetin’ John and me did.
This was the third year we have gone to Media Day. This is where NA$CAR has a wide assortment of drivers from the Craftsman Truck Series, Nationwide (formerly Busch) Series and the Sprint (formerly Winston & Nextel) Cup Series who sit down with the media. Since there’s print media, radio, and live TV interviews all going on at the same time, you have to wait until a driver comes to your area to talk and take pictures of them. Yeah right!
John and me have learned the ropes, so we go everywhere and we don’t wait for them to come to us. I tried to catch Bill Elliott grabbing a bite to eat at the sandwich table, but he’s real quick and the dang camera I got takes about three years to snap the picture after I push the button. John’s is the same way. I was thinking maybe Will (y’all know Will, he’s my boss at EU) would buy us a faster camera, but then I remembered he just gave me a monster raise this year, so that’s out.
Back to Media Day 2008. John was over taking pictures at the table where every driver has to sign stuff like hats, posters and helmets for the NA$CAR Foundation charity auctions. They seem to be alright with that, except for one driver I won’t name. He was signing all this stuff and John asked him how it was going and he said he would rather be out on the track testing. He said when he was a kid he dreamed about driving a racecar, not signing stuff. He looked at John and they both had a good laugh over that statement and he kept on signing.
The biggest things that John and I noticed was the “New Face of NA$CAR,” or rather new faces. There was this one driver, and I don’t know all the new names yet, but this kid was about the size of my 16-year old granddaughter. The driver was Jason Leffler and I’m sure he got his mohawk haircut from his sponsor Great Clips. These new drivers, and some of the old guys, are either young or spent some time in the off season to get looking young. Take “Front Row Joe” for one. When I saw him I had to ask John if that was Nemechek. We both decided it was, but only because he had a Furniture Row racing driver’s suit on. I walked up to him and told him he looked 10 to 15 years younger and he laughed.
Not just Joe, Dale Jarrett looked as if he lost weight. Kenny Schrader hasn’t driven for Little Debbie in awhile, so the cakes and goodies aren’t part of his salary anymore and he’s gotten skinny too. And Mr. Stewart is looking slimmer too. Probably because them Toyota people have him working out everyday before work like they do at their plants. It just amazed us at how the young, new drivers are already having an effect on NA$CAR’s image. Y’all will see what I’m talking about as the season progresses and you get to see these guys up close. It is strange, but I figure it’s just the New NA$CAR.
Well the first one done and Junior has won, what was it, his first in 62 races I think? How bout that Tony Stewart taking a Toyota up front and keeping it there with a 2nd place finish. Now those are two things I wonder if we’ll continue to see as the season goes along. You know I watched Stewart race that Toyota and kept thinking, just how much did Toyota pay Gibbs Racing, Joe and Tony to leave Chevrolet and switch to them? You think Gibbs will be their flagship team this year since Waltrip couldn’t do it last year? Strange thing about the first race, 2 Dodges, 3 Toyotas and 5 Chevrolets in the top 10, where were the Fords? Surely this is not any indication of how the season will go.
Well I think I’ll shut her down about here and get back on a personal note for a second. I had thought about giving up on NA$CAR while I was in the hospital and the surgery and emergency room and the wheelchair and all the stuff that started off this new year. But when me and my Bestest Bud, John, got inside that tent last Thursday and started hanging out with them guys and seeing everything and the Shootout Saturday night, well, I changed my mind. I guess y’all will have to put up with me for another season. If you need to tell me something or give an opinion get her done at tinynascars@yahoo.com and, as usual, If it ain’t NA$CAR, It ain’t s**t!
Article Published in the 2-14-08 Issue of EU Jacksonville
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