Long May He Run

(Adapted from a 2007 podcast.)

This coming weekend finds NASCAR at Texas Motor Speedway.  For those unfamiliar with the sport, a bit of info.  Texas is one of the dreaded “cookie cutter” tracks, a large (mile and a half long) relatively flat track perfectly suited for open wheel cars but terrible for NASCAR in terms of producing genuine racing action.  For NASCAR, the most recent race there notwithstanding short tracks such as Bristol Motor Speedway are where it’s at.  They are where stock car racing was born and to this day is at its best.

My most vivid memory of Bristol doesn’t involve someone bumping and running, or comments about just trying to rattle his cage a little, or any such thing.  It doesn’t involve a race at all.  In fact, there couldn’t have been any racing at the time.  It was raining.

Because of the way Bristol was built, unlike most every other track there is no tunnel going underneath it which someone trying to enter the track can use to get into the infield area.  Instead, part of the outside wall is a gate, so to get in or out you have to open it and drive across the track to get anywhere.  This means all the team’s haulers, the eighteen-wheel trucks that carry the race cars and equipment to each track, have to do this.

From this is where my memory comes, watching the film clip of a rainy day at the track and one lone hauler getting ready to leave.  There was something different this time, though.  Even though it wasn’t race day, and even though it was raining, the flagman was standing in his position at the start/finish line.  And as the hauler crossed the start/finish line on its way to the exit gate, the flagman waved the checkered flag.

It was April first, 1993.  But it wasn’t an April Fools Day joke.

In fact, it wasn’t a joke at all.

The trailer was for Alan Kulwicki’s car.  He wouldn’t be racing that weekend, or any other weekend.

He was dead.  He and three others were killed that day in a light plane crash while on their way to the track.

On April Fools’ Day.

The day my favorite driver died.

If you were to ask a hundred race fans why a certain driver is their favorite, you’d get a hundred different responses.  Some would say their driving style.  Other would say their personality.  Still others would their looks, and there’s nothing wrong with that, really.  Whatever the reason or reasons might be, when a race fan settles on a driver, it’s settled.  They’re a fan for life, no matter what.  Their driver.  Their guy, or in a few cases gal.  But usually guy.  Actually, more than that.

Their man.

When I first started regularly watching NASCAR in the late ‘80s after a life that in terms of racing had been spent absorbing almost nothing but Indy cars, other than Richard Petty I had no idea who any of the drivers were.  Obviously this couldn’t last if I was going to start watching this series week in and week out, for without some kind of investment in terms of having someone to root for I would quickly lose interest.  So, I started learning about the different people involved as best I could given how resources were much more severely limited than is the case today, especially in my corner of the left coast.

Gradually, one driver came into focus as the one who most captured my attention.  He was decidedly different from the stereotype of the Southern good ol’ boy driver.  This one could be described as a cerebral cheesehead, an outsider from Wisconsin of all places who in neither accent nor speech sounded one bit like the other drivers he was running with.  Definitely an outsider, and a bit of a loner; someone determined to do things his way without compromise.  I could relate to that.  Later on I learned we shared a devout Catholic faith.  This only added to the attachment.  The matter was settled.  I’d found my driver.

I’d found my man.

I followed him through the subsequent years, rooting him on from my perch in front of the television in my living room.  I nervously sweated it out during that period of time when he was in-between sponsors and running out of his own pocket until it seemed he would be unable to run any more, breathing a huge sigh of relief when the Hooters restaurant chain came on board.  I freely admit I had no idea what it was about, as there wasn’t a Hooters to be found in California until several years later.  Had I known it would have seen incongruous, a devout Catholic sponsored by a string of dining establishments where the primary attraction was breasts without the word chicken directly in front.  Then again, not really.  We can be a rather freewheeling bunch.  But I digress.

I emotionally rolled back and forth throughout the 1992 season, hoping he could win the championship that seemed oh so close but figuring he was out of the title chase until he made a mad dash at season’s end, closing the points gap during the last few races.  How I remember the final race of the season at Atlanta, briefly noticing the new kid in the rainbow-painted car but mostly hoping against hope that neither the announcers nor my driver had miscounted the number of laps led he needed to lead in order to win the title.  And when he did win, celebrating with that crazy Polish victory lap and then giving a rambling speech upon being told he was indeed the champion… oh, how sweet the joy.

My driver had won.

My man.

He was a most unusual stock car champion, a man who was in so many ways my doppelgänger.  Determined beyond words, he was a curious mix of someone who was almost chronically insecure while at the same time also supremely confident in his own knowledge and abilities.  He could and would lash out at those around him for failing to perform in accordance with his demand for the same level of perfection he demanded from himself, yet he was also a gentle, loving soul.  He was who he was, at times a maddening paradox but always at his core a man of principle, faith, and unyielding effort toward the goal he had at long last achieved — the championship.

My man had achieved his goal.

My man.

Then came 1993.

As it turned out, a most unkind year.

I remember my wife saying to me the evening of that April first had I heard the news.  No, what news?  She silently handed me the paper, and there it was in greasy black and white, buried deep in the sports pages indifferent to anything not homegrown.

Race car driver killed in plane crash

I honestly don’t remember exactly what I did immediately after I read the story.  I know after a while I went into the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed for a long time, trying to figure out how I should react.  Thoughts of could I watch racing again ran through my head.  It wasn’t that I had never seen drivers die before; I remember all too clearly watching Swede Savage’s horrible accident in the 1973 Indianapolis 500 that shortly thereafter cost him his life.  But this… this was all so wrong.  A plane crash.  A freaking plane crash.  My favorite driver was gone, and I didn’t know what to do.

My man was gone.

The relationship between driver and athlete doesn’t end when the athlete no longer competes.  Memories and mementos are cherished.  The occasional story about what they’re doing now is seized upon and savored.  Perhaps there’s a sports card and memorabilia show somewhere nearby where they’re signing autographs for which you gladly pay the fee for a signature, a smile, perhaps a handshake and photograph.  You never stop being a fan.  The one you rooted for all those years?  They’re still there for you.  How could it be any other way?  Not possible.

They’re your man.

Mine was gone.

Eventually the initial shock wore off.  I cautiously adopted as my new favorite driver the kid in the rainbow-painted car, a decision whose wisdom has been proven right time and again in the following years.  But it’s never been the same.  It can’t be.  No matter how fervently I root for Jeff Gordon, and I do without apology, he wasn’t my first favorite driver.  No one can take Alan Kulwicki’s place.  No one.

He was my man.

Someone once asked me which of all the diecast cars I own is my most valuable.  They were surprised when I said I had no idea as far as cash value went, but I knew which was the most valuable to me.  It’s that 1992 Ford Thunderbird, white with orange markings, bearing the number seven.  The resale value?  Not much, as far as I know.  But the value to me?  They don’t print bills with enough zeros on them to measure its true value.  It’s my favorite driver’s car.  It’s the car he won a championship with.

It’s my man’s car.

How can you put a price on that?

So whenever the spring race at Bristol rolls around, I think about that film clip of a lone hauler in the rain.  I think about all the time I spent cheering in front of my television set.  But most of all, I think about Alan Kulwicki.  My first favorite NASCAR driver.

My man.

Gone sixteen years today.

I still miss him.

[video http://www.diecast-dude.com/gac/golden_earring_going_to_the_run.flv nolink]