racing fan before team sports

Along with sports teams, I have been a NASCAR fan since 1974. My parents took me to my first NASCAR race the Los Angeles Times 500 at Ontario Motor Speedway on November 24, 1974. I was only eight years old and it was one of the happiest days of my life to that point. It ranked right up there with going to Disneyland. I was a big Richard Petty fan and he was starting on the pole for the race, this was the last race of the season and he had clinched the Winston Cup Championship. Unfortunately during the race he blew his engine and didn't finish. Bobby Allison ended up winning the race in an AMC Matador, the red, white & blue #16. From that point I was hooked. I was a NASCAR fan before it even became popular. Back then they didn't even show live races on TV, I had to catch highlighted coverage of the major races such as Daytona, Michigan, Talladega, Darlington on the Wide World of Sports. I also liked Darrell Waltrip. The only race they showed completely was the Indianapolis 500, but even that was tape delayed. I would have to go all day without finding out the results and then watch it on ABC from 9 pm to almost midnight. My parents let me stay up because it is always run on Memorial Day weekend and I didn't have school the next day. Along with NASCAR, I liked Indy car racing too as long as Johnny Rutherford was in the field. The big Texan with squinty eyes, he looked like my stepdad. In the spring of 1978 we took a family cross country vacation and I got to visit the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and took a tour of the track and the infield museum. It was nice to see one of Johnny Rutherford's winning cars up close. He was a three-time winner of the Indy 500, the last one in 1980. Before moving to Oregon, we went to some local short track Saturday night races at Saugus Speedway in Southern California, a 1/3 mile paved oval. I rooted for a black Camaro with yellow number #38 of Jimmy Insolo. He ran with the big boys occasionally at Ontario and Riverside when the NASCAR races came west, but never made it big in NASCAR. I also saw Ron Hornaday get his start running at Saugus. He has gone on to win two NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series championships. I didn't go my second NASCAR race until my 29th birthday, while on a cross country driving trip, while on leave from the Air Force, the race at Michigan International Speedway was scheduled on my birthday August 20th, so I had to be there! I have an aunt and uncle that live in Michigan near the track in Brooklyn, Michigan, so I stayed with them. By this time Richard Petty had retired from racing, but still ran the 43 team. I had become a fan of his son Kyle Petty, who was carrying on the racing Petty tradition. He isn't as successful as his dad, winning only eight races in his NASCAR career, but he is a good role model. I had my Kyle Petty shirt and hat on, but he dropped out early. I also am a Jeff Gordon fan, but on this day ironically another Bobby won, Bobby LaBonte in the Interstate Batteries #18. I had a seat along pit row near the LaBonte pits and one of the lugbolts flew off under the fence during a pit stop, and I went down and got it, so I have a piece of the winning car. It was a fun way to kick off my last year in my 20s. I had another opportunity to go to a NASCAR race at Talladega, when I was in Alabama for Air Force training in the Spring of 1997, but the Spring race got rained out that Sunday, so I spent the day touring the International Motorsports Hall of Fame next to the track. The race was rescheduled for Monday, but I couldn't go because I had mandatory class.