The Lucky Penny Girl

You can’t use them in vending machines.  On the street, few people bother to bend over and pick them up.  They cost more to make than they’re worth.  It will surprise no one when the U.S. penny goes out of commission. 

But a penny can be worth more than one cent.  Sometimes, a penny can have value beyond measure, like the one brought to a NASCAR race by an extraordinary little girl whose lucky coin found its way into the sport’s lore and the hearts of millions of fans.

The little girl, Wessa Miller, was born with spina bifida, a birth defect of the spine.   Doctors gave her three days to live, a grim diagnosis based on dire medical facts.  But there was a lot about Wessa the doctors couldn’t see.  X-rays, scans and blood samples can’t detect courage, determination and faith. 

Wessa fought hard and made it home, and the doctors said she’d live only two years. Wessa again proved them wrong.  After she celebrated a second birthday, the specialists called that a gift; she probably wouldn’t make it to five.  Wessa had that birthday, too, and the medical experts said 10 would be a miracle. When the girl who wasn’t expected to make it out of the children’s ICU ward was named eighth grade Homecoming Queen, doctors finally had the good sense to stop setting a time frame on a miracle life.

“Wessa is tough, she doesn’t complain. She lives by God’s good grace, that’s the only way I can explain it,” said her dad, Booker Miller.  Twice, Wessa’s wheelchair tipped over and she busted up her mouth and teeth.  Wessa didn’t utter a cross word.  “I could have sued, but I’m not that kind of person to put blame on someone else,” Booker said.  “Wessa’s tough.  She healed up.”  

Booker left high school at 16 to work in a Kentucky coal mine.   He spent 26 years below ground, narrowly escaping cave-ins and tasting copper for three days afterwards.  Consider him a credible authority on human toughness and grit. 

Wessa attends church “every time the doors are open,” according to Booker.  Besides her religion and family, NASCAR is Wessa’s great source of comfort and joy.  “She doesn’t get to enjoy a lot in life, but she does get a lot of pleasure from racing.”

From the time she could watch television, Wessa had been a fan of Dale Earnhardt.  So when she was chosen for the Make-A-Wish program, which grants wishes for seriously ill children, the six-year-old didn’t hesitate. She wanted to meet Dale Earnhardt.  

Wessa’s mom Juanita was concerned.  Her precious daughter had so much vested in a man Juanita knew little about other than a gun-slinging reputation for aggressive driving.  Earnhardt was aptly nicknamed “Ironhead” and “The Intimidator.”  He wore the sport’s black hat, unafraid to move anyone out of the way, even if it wrecked the field.  His hair-trigger temper and swinging moods were difficult to predict.  Who knew what he’d say to Wessa?  She might wind up greatly disappointed, maybe even emotionally hurt.

“I knew Dale from the TV, and was worried he’d be moody and mean to Wessa,” Juanita said.  Yet she wasn’t going to try to sway Wessa from her dream.  Juanita knew how much the driver meant to her daughter.  A trip was scheduled for the family to attend the 1998 Daytona 500, where Wessa would meet her idol at a crucial race.  

Earnhardt, a seven-time NASCAR champion, had won 30 races at Daytona International Speedway, but never when it counted most, at the Daytona 500.  He appeared to be cursed in NASCAR’s marquee event.  Despite winning every possible important race in all possible ways, he’d always been denied at the Great American Race.  “We’ve lost this race just about every way you can lose it,” Earnhardt said after one of his 19 unsuccessful tries.  “We’ve been out-gassed, out-tired, out-run, out every-thinged.”  Once, his tire went down, and Earnhardt claimed a chicken bone cut it on the backstretch. Twice, he clearly had the best car and after driving 499 miles, still didn’t win.   What Dale lacked was luck.  Little Wessa Miller wanted to bring him some.

“Dale was my favorite race car driver, so I wanted to give him my lucky penny,” Wessa said. “I thought it would help him win the race.” 

The day before the Daytona 500, the Millers waited for Dale in the garage area as he finished his final test runs.  Booker was uncharacteristically anxious.  He heard Dale was upset with his sputtering car.  There was talk the engine might have to be replaced.  As the minutes ticked down before the meeting with Wessa, he wondered if Earnhardt would be tense and distant.  But the Intimidator strode in wearing a wry smile.  He got down on one knee, right beside Wessa’s wheelchair.  It was like no one else in the room existed.  He spent 15 minutes with her. 

“When Dale met Wessa, I saw such a different man,” Juanita said.  “He had a heartfelt goodness. They made a connection you could see.”

“I guess Dale was a mean person on the track, but he had a soft spot big as heaven,” Booker said.  “He got right down to her level and had nothin’ to say to nobody but Wessa.   There was a real gentleness in him.  He told her, ‘Wessa, you can do anything you want.’  He meant it.  She’s never forgotten that.”

            As Wessa reached from her wheelchair to hand over her lucky penny, the driver was hatching a plan.  When the crowds dissipated and the cameras went away, crusty old Earnhardt rummaged around the garage for some adhesive and secretly glued the copper coin to his dashboard.  “Dale had enough yellow glue smeared around to put about 100 pennies on that dash,” said his crew chief Larry MacReynolds. The next day, after 19 years of heartbreak and futility, Dale Earnhardt finally won the Daytona 500.

The Millers watched an unprecedented celebration.  As Earnhardt drove down pit road toward Victory lane, hundreds of crewmen from every team lined pit road to congratulate him, touching Dale’s outstretched hand as he drove by. 

            Saturday’s meeting with Dale had already been the best day of Wessa’s life.  Sunday’s win slathered icing all over the cake.  The family left Daytona Beach for Disney World without knowing Wessa’s penny was in Dale’s car.  The secret didn’t hold for long, and the dream trip would get even better.  The next day, the news media tracked the Millers down, and NASCAR Nation learned of The Lucky Penny Girl. 

            But her story didn’t end there. Two months later, to say thank you, Earnhardt arranged for the family to attend the NASCAR race at Bristol.  It was his turn to present a gift.  With no fanfare, he gave the Millers with a much-needed Chevy van for frequent trips to doctors 175 miles away.  He even made sure the van was blue, Wessa’s favorite color.  The vehicle was a godsend for two or three weekly treks from their home in Phyllis, Ky. to the University of Kentucky Medical Center.  The Millers have put more than 150,000 miles on the van getting to Wessa’s medical appointments.

            Two years later, to celebrate Wessa’s ninth birthday, Juanita planned a special gift – a trip to Earnhardt’s Chevy dealership for its annual open house. Mother and daughter quietly joined the back of the long line cueing for Dale’s autograph.  When they got to the front, Earnhardt shouted out, “Wessa!” and gave her a big hug.  For the rest of the meet-and-greet, Wessa sat next to her hero who was wearing his patented crooked smile underneath that bushy mustache which could have swept a city street clean.

            That would be the last time Wessa spent time with Dale.  She was at home watching the 2001 Daytona 500 when the black No. 3 car crashed in the final turn on the last lap.  The announcers weren’t saying much.  The car was crunched against the wall.  There was no sign of Dale.  Wessa was crying as the family prepared for church.  Juanita said she’d find out how Dale was doing after church.  There, the Millers heard Dale was gone.  “When we got home, I said, ‘Wessa, baby, mamma’s got something to tell you…’”

Wessa cried for days. She stayed away from NASCAR for a year. Gradually, the sting lessened.  She reclaimed her old spot in front of the TV on Sunday afternoons, and grew to become an avid fan of Dale Earnhardt, Jr.

“Dale’s death is something we’re reminded of every day,” Booker said.  “He’s the best there ever is.  He was a big part of Wessa’s life.  And he still is part of her life.”

Seven years after the tragic accident, Wessa would be reminded of that, and again enter the consciousness of NASCAR fans, thanks to motorsports reporter David Poole.  As the 2008 season approached, Poole was preparing a tenth anniversary story of the 1998 Daytona 500 for The Charlotte Observer.  Other reporters were covering Earnhardt’s emotional win.  Poole remembered the lucky penny girl.  “Every reporter who’s ever written a story knows the ‘Where are they now?’ one,” he said.  “The problem was, I literally didn’t know where Wessa lived.”

Scouring the internet, Poole found the name “Wessa Miller” on the blog of a professional wrestler who had appeared at a middle school festival in Kentucky.  With the Millers home state revealed, Poole was able to get the family’s telephone number from the Kentucky chapter of Make-A-Wish. 

He and Juanita spent two and a half hours on the phone.  “I walked downstairs and told my wife, Katy, if I can’t write this story, take me off this job,” Poole said.  “I felt like a stenographer; Wessa’s story wrote itself.”   

The article ran on the front page, and offers to help the Millers poured in.  Caring for her daughter was always a daunting task for Juanita, who drives a handicapped-accessible school bus Wessa rides to school when well enough to attend.  Now Juanita also had to worry about Booker, who’d gone through emergency heart surgery. 

In more than 15 years covering NASCAR, Poole had seen race fans and drivers give millions of dollars to the sport’s charities. It was his time to give back.  He established the “Pennies for Wessa Fund” to assist the Millers with medical bills, travel expenses to faraway doctors, and home renovations for Wessa’s special needs.  A special online auction also raised funds for the family.  One of the items for bid was a lunch and race shop tour with David Poole. 

“You’re not supposed to be part of the story,” the veteran reporter and SiriusXM radio personality said. “But sometimes the story becomes part of you.  Every one of us has good days and bad days. A good day for the Millers is when nothing really bad happens.  The things they deal with on their good days would be a pretty bad day for anyone else.  But they look at every single day as an absolute gift.  If all of us thought like that it would be a much better world.”

Working with the “NASCAR Angels” TV program, the NASCAR Foundation and Motor Racing Outreach, Poole arranged to bring Wessa Miller and her family back to Bristol Motor Speedway in 2008.  Wessa was featured in a “Heart of NASCAR” segment on the show and was introduced during pre-race ceremonies, waving to the cheering crowd with the breezy confidence of a president at his inaugural parade.  She also met Dale Jr., giving him a 1988 penny to match his car number, 88.  Lightning didn’t strike twice – Earnhardt had a tough race – but no one really expected it to.

There really can only be on Lucky Penny.  The coin Wessa handed to Junior’s dad is the one NASCAR fans remember.  It remains glued to the dashboard of the No. 3 Goodwrench Chevrolet, now on display in Childress Museum, in Welcome, N.C.

Wessa Miller often thinks about that day, and the wondrous time spent with a hero who declared she could do anything.  She’d always liked Dale because he was so tough.  Now she’d be like him. Wessa had had been suffering regular seizures before coming to Bristol, where Dale once brought her family.  Back at that track, she didn’t have a single one all weekend.  When the Millers returned to Kentucky, so did the seizures.  Wessa didn’t complain.  Dale wouldn’t. 

Juanita and Booker continue to live one day at a time, appreciating each as a gift to spend with a courageous daughter who defies the odds while delighting and surprising whoever she meets. Like that penny which softened even the Intimidator, they consider themselves very, very lucky. 

Less than two months after arranging for the Millers to return to Bristol, David Poole died of a massive heart attack.  He was 50 years old.  Fans who wish to honor David or help the girl who found a place in his hear can donate directly to the “Pennies For Wessa” Fund by visiting www.penniesforwessa.org, or by mail at Pennies For Wessa, Attention: Mike Damron, Community Trust Bank, P.O. Box 39, Mouthcard, KY 41548

For more stories like this, The Weekend Starts on Wednesday: True Stories of Remarkable NASCAR Fans by Andrew Giangola is available on amazon.com and wherever fine books are sold.

Hearts Big and Brave

NOTE:  Craig Reda passed away this past weekend, with Jackie by his side.  Here is their story from The Weekend Starts on Wednesday. We love you, Craig.

His name is Craig, and he “lives” just down the road from Bob’s Party Bus.  His neighbors at the track, who visit bearing strong peach-flavored drinks in mason jars, call him “Braveheart.”  It’s the beard and charged-up Zeus hair.  His wife Jackie will sometimes call him “babe.”  She is a beautician who wears long flowing flower child dresses, serves food and drink like a one-woman 24-hour diner, and correctly refers to herself “the hostest with the mostest.”  I’m happy to call Craig and Jackie my friends.  

The couple from Frankenmuth, Mich. (a place not to be forgotten since Jackie presented and "forced" me to break in a Frankenmuth Brewery shot glass) collects NASCAR signatures on the inside of their converted yellow school bus.  More than a hundred cover the cream domed ceiling.  There are shiny black names of Goodyear tire changers.  There’s driver David Starr and crew chiefs Harold Holley, Brad Parrott and Todd Parrott.  There are John Hancocks from track workers and guys who used to sling gas cans for Jimmy Spencer.  It is a roster of marvelous signatures forming a tapestry of lives intersecting at the race track, some scribbled with the fine-art intricacy of Arabic, some in chunky bold caps, could be a back-of-the-pack, over-the-wall jack man not getting much attention but now the recipient of a special moment immortalized on the sloped roof of the 1972 Ford bus, courtesy of two down-home NASCAR fans. 

I had been taking pictures of buses in the infield at Michigan International Speedway, and between turns two and three I spotted a large “3” carved in wood, mounted on a picnic table attached to the top of a school bus.  Most fans who buy an old bus for the races re-paint the hull, usually the color of a favorite driver.  This one proudly holds its original yellow.  I head over and through the open rear emergency exit see a gent sporting a bushy pony tail.   He’s kneeling on the shag to put on a new record – yes, a grooved black vinyl platter on a real turntable next to long row of albums housed in flaking covers with photos of the Allman Brothers, Creedence, Mott the Hoople, Led Zeppelin, Foghat, Neil Young, the Beatles, the Stones, the Who. 

“Hey man, I’m taking pictures of buses.  I dig them, can I take a shot of yours?” I ask. 

            With an easy smile, Craig Reda waves me in. He’s a carpenter who has built a few churches.  I had already detected a mellow, charitable, judicial, Jesus-like presence, and that, along with Craig’s barely tamed Woodstock era ‘do, may explain why I was slipping into hippie speak, leaking out “Hey man can you dig it” intonations and tie-dyed inflections you’d imagine from Sadie Atkins and Squeaky Fromme on Charlie’s Ranch.

Far out.  

Craig saw the bus abandoned in the woods in 1995, found its owner and bought it for a few hundred bucks.  It was to be used to transport tools and materials for his construction business.  A race at Michigan was coming up, and the Redas brought the bus into the infield.  “Three laps in, Jackie announced, ‘This is our race bus.’”  Craig put in a queen size bed, a sofa, a deck on the roof, and the stereo below.  The signatures were an idea that took a life of its own once a few guys from Roush Racing signed.  Craig pulls out a marker and asks for mine, too.  I protest.  Well, it was a half protest.  OK, it was an extremely lifeless rebuff.  I say “no, no I can’t, no thank you” in a lame, uncommitted way to ensure I’d get to sign.  Never turn down a chance to be on TV to give an autograph.  

Craig doesn’t have to work hard to lead me to an open spot, and Jackie easily talks me into specially signing a die-cast car for an eight year-old in the camper across the way.  I proudly squeak out my name with a moist Sharpie, thereby devaluing the NASCAR-licensed merchandise.  But what the heck, it’s invigorating to be seen as “someone” and at the same time I want to take a shower. 

The prevalent feeling is odd discomfort to be considered a minor celebrity among the population of several camping slots on the big backstretch at Michigan.  To all their friends, Craig and Jackie introduce me as a NASCAR PR Director, as if I’m a dignitary from an important faraway government.  Jen Ireland is a Dale Jr. fan from Traverse City who’s been a regular at the track since she was two years old.  Pete Monahan lives on a 1961 Crisscraft boat, only touching dry land during the summer for the races at Michigan.  His girlfriend Erin Glauch sits on the horse saddle mounted next to the Reda’s wooden bar next to the bus, grabbing the horn when laughing to keep from falling off.  A parade of friends will drop in throughout the weekend, taking a seat at the bar to catch up since the last race, ask how good is it to be back, and isn’t your worst day at the track a thousand times better than your best day at work?

With the fans out in these parts, you’re introduced as a NASCAR executive and it’s as if Oprah has instantly become your aunt.  There is prevailing faith you can grant special wishes and impart general wisdom.  Folks hang on your every word.  To work for NASCAR is to be seen as pulling levers behind the curtain at Oz.  For a fringe player  like me to be paid somber respect like this is a tribute to the honor and appreciation NASCAR fans have for the sanctioning body even while all the thanks goes to them; that’s the twisted part of a NASCAR PR guy hit up for an autograph, the fan is the star here. 

            You bet, these folks are highly impressed with NASCAR.  They are here to see a race put on by NASCAR in the Kingdom of NASCAR and are grateful for the presence of an employee in a NASCAR shirt wearing credentials that say NASCAR.  But then you become friends with these fans, and you do the ordinary things friends do and joke around about the stuff friends kid about.  You love them for the normal reasons any friends converge; the Redas are fun people with big, generous hearts and a knack for making you laugh.  And you also get mildly annoyed at the routine minor perceived transgressions among friends.  Like snoring.

            Jackie had generously invited me to crash on her couch, a world-class idea following spirited revelry for Craig’s 50th birthday. As the clock flirts with 4 a.m., I sink into a surprisingly comfortable sofa next to the stereo in the rear, ready to chainsaw a stack of logs.  We’re on our backs cracking each other up like 12 year-old kids up way too late at sleepaway camp when Jackie, whose voice was now crushed auto glass soaked in whiskey, issues a warning: “Andrew, it is deathly hot in here.  I’m taking off my clothes.”

Cool and quiet, the Redas plunge into deep sleep.  Within minutes, a foghorn sounds.  Then another.  Inside the bus, it is like angry dueling foghorns.  One trying to outperform the other in a longstanding global grudge match.  Craig lets out a prodigious full-air gurgling blast that could have burst his uvula.  He may swallow his tongue, I’m thinking.  His whopping wail is like a taunt, prodding and coaxing Jackie to return volley.  And his beloved wife of 18 years doesn’t disappoint, coming with aircraft carrier guns ablaze, unleashing a fearsome cruise ship-worthy blast that would have blown the Gorton’s Fisherman from his boat. 

I don’t recall sleeping much, and at the first glint of light peeking through the bus curtains made of aprons rescued from a Frankenmuth German restaurant, I nearly tumble out the back exit in order to freshen up and meet a CNBC crew for interviews with Tony Stewart, Carl Edwards, and our vehicle partners as media here in Michigan are doing the “fate-of-Detroit-in-NASCAR” story.  (Chevy, Ford, Dodge and Toyota sell a heckuva lot of cars to NASCAR fans, and are getting a significant return in the sport.) 

That evening I return to see the Redas, and our deep sleepers just eat up the eyewitness account of the grudge match and how the Gorton’s dude is now hard of hearing and soaking wet after their blasts knocked him off the fish stick boat and me from the bus at the crack of dawn. 

“Yeah, if Jackie wakes me up, I’ll just turn her over, and she does the same for me,” Craig says, sipping homemade wine from an old man he does work for.   He met Jackie on Ladies Night at a local German beerhouse nearly two decades ago. “She was the funniest, prettiest loudest girl in the bar.  I could hear her over the band. I was single with a boy and she fell in love with my kid…and me, too, I guess.”   They’re now inseparable.  During a race weekend about the only time you won’t see them nearly attached at the hip is when one trudges toward turn three for the bathrooms and showers.  In fact, Craig was offered a garage pass on a Saturday but declined because he didn’t want to spend a few hours away from Jackie.

I’m not the only NASCAR person observing this true love story while welcomed with open arms into the wide and expanding circle of Craig and Jackie Reda.  They’re good friends with Michigan International Speedway President Roger Curtis, first meeting in 2006 when security stopped their bus entering the track gates.  Craig wondered which rule he’d broken.  He pushed open the tall double door like a driver picking up a kid on the way to school, and the new track president bound up the stairs, introduced himself, and thanked them for coming to the race.  “Right there, we knew Roger was a different breed,” Jackie said.  

At his June 2009 Sprint Cup race, as Curtis worked the infield, catching up with friends and thanking new fans for their patronage, he rolled up to the Redas campsite in his Chevy Tahoe.  He motioned for the Redas to jump in.  They got a big surprise when Curtis pointed the vehicle onto the track and floored it.  “He was laughing the whole time, saying, ‘Oh boy, we’re gonna get in trouble for this!’” Jackie said.  Track security came blasting onto the scene as the president and his fan friends barreled around the oval.  The men in badges started to reprimand Roger, then realized it was the boss man wheeling this late-night hot lap.

Curtis once came by the camp site for one of Jackie’s steaks.  He asked Craig to name the one thing that would markedly improve his fan experience.  Reda has been at these races since getting the bus in 1995.  His friends like Jen Ireland, a fixture in the infield a lot longer, remember when “European sun bathing” was allowed for the ladies.  There’s a lot of history at the Reda’s bus.  This was a no brainer.  “A Big Screen TV right over there,” Craig said, pointing to the outside wall in the middle of the 2,200-foot backstretch. 

The next race, pulling the bus into his spot, Reda looked up and there it was: a giant screen right where he wanted it.   It was of course for every fan’s viewing pleasure but damned if Craig didn’t accept it as a personal gift from Roger Curtis, the darn coolest racing executive around, especially when Roger stopped by, elbowed him in the ribs and said, “Hey, what do you think of that!” 

Of course, it was a typical Curtis upgrade for the entire back half of the infield.  For his pal Craig Reda, Curtis had something more personal in mind, showing up on the night of the carpenter’s 50th birthday celebration at his camp site with a sheet cake made to look like a race track.  Roger and Craig locked elbows and fed each other the way newlyweds will do before smashing it into one another’s faces, which they did as well.

            “Roger sees his job as ‘How do I make you happy?  What can I do for you today?’” Craig said.   For his part, Curtis says he’s simply a fan at heart who has never let a pursuit of “market share” cloud a much more important goal: making every single ticket holder’s experience memorable.  From his office in the administrative building, Curtis can see the seats he had as a fan for so many years near the start-finish line.  He remembers what it’s like to buy a ticket simply to have a blast at the track…and what it’s like to be caught in traffic afterwards.  His first time at Michigan, it took seven hours to make it to the highway, an untenable situation he’s helped fix.

Also in Craig and Jackie’s NASCAR circle is International Speedway Corp. PR man Lenny Santiago and Michael Printup, president of Watkins Glen International.   After spending time with fans at Craig’s birthday bash, Printup has a handful expecting to drop the green flag, drive the pace car and sing the national anthem.   Printup, who was asked to run Watkins Glen in summer of 2009, is learning how to delight and amaze fans at the knee of Roger Curtis, so expect he unexpected.  At the next road course race in western New York, if you see a long-haired guy resembling Braveheart shouting, “Gentlemen, Start Your Engines,” with a smiling woman in a flowery sun dress by his side, that may be Craig Reda.  The honor will be well deserved.   

Tom Cruise's Days of Thunder

To be a famous Hollywood actor, a fellow has to have a big head. Not a humongous ego. I’m talking about basic cranial measurements calculated with an old-fashioned tailor’s tape measure. Think about it: Bogey, Groucho, Kirk Douglas, Ronald Reagan, Mel Gibson, Burt Reynolds, Russell Crowe, Tom Hanks – all blessed with giant heads which come across larger than life on the big screen.

Of course, equally successful mega-stars like Tom Cruise defy the trend. Cruise’s head may be smaller than the average Joe’s, if you’re gonna go crazy in the tape-measure comparisons. But here’s the thing that’s always struck me about Cruise, whether he’s on the red carpet or leaping off a talk show host’s couch: He looks and acts like a modern-day race car driver.

And that, my friends, is a blessed condition to be born into.

Resembling a race car driver is more than having a certain body type. Sure, it helps to be on the small side, taut, rangy, cagy, wiry. More than that, the “look” includes a certain self-possessed, devil-may-care attitude.

Cruise has the full package. He oozes confidence and swagger. He drives too fast. He jumps from airplanes. He’s a natural in aviator sunglasses. He’s short. His electric, larger-than-life presence fills an entire room even when he’s physically small enough to slide lithely from a car’s driver’s side window. And then there’s that killer grin.

Tom Cruise doesn’t just smile. He aggressively flashes his teeth in the instinctive way an animal on the range would ward off predators or attract a mate.

That special smile brought a lot of new fans to NASCAR in the 1990 film Days of Thunder, which Cruise created.

Growing up, he’d always been attracted to muscle cars. In fact, after hitting it big with Risky Business, the young actor on the edge of superstardom didn’t want to buy an expensive house or fancy clothes. He only wanted a fast car. As Cruise’s movie career was taking off in the late 1980’s, he landed a big break in working with on The Color of Money with Paul Newman, a serious professional race car driver who regaled his protégé with romantic racing tales.

“For me as a kid growing up, I always wanted to race cars,” Cruise said. “Toward the end of shooting on The Color of Money, Paul really got me into car racing, and I ultimately raced on his team. The last time we raced was a few years back. We were trying out different cars at Willow Springs Raceway in California. Per usual, I thought I had him beat … but suddenly he comes around the corner. His car is next to mine. Then he flips me off and blisters past. You’ve gotta love it. It was pure Newman.”

Through Newman, Cruise met NASCAR team owner Rick Hendrick. The two drove in the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) Showroom Stock Series and became tight. Cruise would spend time at Hendrick’s North Carolina lake house, and tag along when Hendrick Motor Sports drivers tested at different tracks. “We’d pick a track for a test and would ask Tom if he wanted to come play,” Hendrick said. “Many times he did.”

Sports cars were a panic, but Cruise knew that kind of racing was viewed by the public as more a niche for rich guys approaching a proverbial midlife crisis. He wanted a bigger, broader canvas. In NASCAR, he saw a sport tip toeing out of the Southeast, and he ran to it.

The actor hatched a compelling idea – to make a movie about stock car racing based around a cocky outsider coming in to rile the rank and file. Of course, he’d play the brash young buck turning the sport on its head. His friend Rick Hendrick would be the model for the team owner, and Rick’s crew chief, Harry Hyde, the prototype for the young driver’s crew chief.

“We were testing at Daytona, and Tom was out there playing around in one of my Busch Series cars,” Hendrick said. “He pulls into the pits, pops out all excited and says, ‘Man, we need to make a movie!”

Cruise wanted to capture NASCAR’s earlier bare bones, good ol’ boys period. “You know it’s just America,” Cruise said. “It’s something about driving in a car. I came up with the idea to make this movie about NASCAR, and these icons in the beginning who created this sport. (Through NASCAR) you just see our history through time, our love affair with the automobile. It’s a very unique kind of racing that feels very American. Rubbin’s racin’, you know.”

Days of Thunder was an ideal vehicle for the 28 year-old whom Newman had dubbed “this generation’s biggest film superstar.” With his all-American looks and middle-American appeal, young Cruise had already built a reputation as a box-office sensation playing the swaggering overachiever who is knocked down a few pegs and humbled by life lessons. By the time the credits role, Cruise’s characters emerge more likeable than when the house lights went down two hours earlier.

In Days, Cruise repeated that formula, playing Cole Trickle, a vainglorious Indy car driver who lost his ride and headed to NASCAR with team owner Tim Daland, (Randy Quaid) and salty crew chief Harry Hogge (Robert Duvall). During the Daytona 500, Cole and his nemesis Rowdy Burns tangle in a nasty wreck threatening to end their careers. Rowdy and Cole form a friendship, while Cole comes to grips with his own mortality.

When Tom Cruise sets his mind to do something, he famously goes all out, whether it was taking on odd jobs as a kid to help his divorced mother put food on the table or landing his first acting roles in The Outsiders and Taps. Cruise was so determined to make Days of Thunder, the crew dubbed him “laserhead.”

Just as he had spent weeks in a wheelchair alongside paraplegic veteran Ron Kovic to get ready for his previous film, Born on the Fourth of July, Cruise immersed himself in NASCAR to learn how drivers spoke in their cars and around the garage. The NASCAR crash course began at the Watkins Glen road course with screenwriter Robert Towne, who had won an Emmy for Chinatown. Towne clipped a microphone to his cap with the wire running into his shirt. While the writer recorded racing conversations, the actor, in a floppy sweatshirt and with a ball cap pulled low over his eyes, intently watched the pit stops.

Dr. Jerry Punch, a South Carolina emergency room physician during the week, was announcing for ESPN in the pits on weekends.

“I’d talk to Earnhardt and Jeff Gordon and Davey Allison, and Tom would eavesdrop,” he said. “It was his first up-close introduction into the culture of NASCAR, and he was absorbing it like a sponge. About halfway through the day, one of our ESPN handheld camera men recognized Cruise. He spun his camera around and started screaming, ‘Tom Cruise is here. We know he’s here!’ Cruise had to leave at that point. I’m just a pit announcer in an ESPN fire suit, and fans start screaming at me for being important enough to be near him. That’s when it stuck me how big his celebrity was.”

The impression Cruise left on Punch, and NASCAR drivers like Rusty Wallace, whose race shop he visited for a tutorial, and Greg Sacks, who in a two-seater at Volusia Speedway taught Cruise the finer points of handling 800-horsepower Cup-level stock cars, was that of a perfectionist hell bent on understanding every detail of the sport.

“Tom developed a real respect and appreciation for the sport,” Dr. Punch said. “What seemed to me to be merely a movie was for him a passion to get it right. He got in the racecar and actually drove it. Granted, these cars were pretty much nailed to the ground in their set up, but they still ran some hard laps. He knew the more they let him drive the car, the more realistic the film would be.”

It was turning out Cruise not only looked like a race car driver, he was performing like one. “Tom could drive a car,” Rick Hendrick said. “He’s got a lot of talent and absolutely no fear. He’d always drive over his head, whether it was a stock car, a street car or a boat on the lake. He enjoys speed.”

“Oh yeah, Tom likes speed and is very racy,” agreed Greg Sacks who was driving the Slim Fast car for Hendrick in the Winston Cup Series and in Days exclusively drove the City Chevrolet, Exxon and Super Flow cars. “The first time I met Tom he jumped into a Corvette and did burnouts right there in the garage. He started racing around the garage looking for any new piece of asphalt he could find, going way too fast.”

Valuing the expertise of Hendrick, Punch and Sacks, the filmmakers made them technical advisors. Sacks became the sounding board and racing conscience for Robert Duvall, whose wrinkled, pitch-perfect character, Harry Hogge was modeled after the legendary crew chief Harry Hyde. “(Director Tony) Scott would call a wrap, and Duvall would look over at me and say, ‘Greg, is it a wrap?’ I’d give a thumbs up.”

But sometimes he didn’t. When Hogge says, “Boys, we got ourselves a sponsor,” for the first take, he was walking to Victory Circle at Darlington with champagne and paper cups. Sacks told everyone to lose the cups and spray the champagne around like they meant it.

In Punch’s case, after putting in 12 hours in the ER, the doctor would arrive home and field Robert Towne’s questions on the telephone deep into the night. Unbeknownst to him, the screenwriter was sketching out scenes. For example, Hogge was involved in a real-life racing episode that seems too outlandish to have actually happened.

“I was working the pits for MRN radio in Pocono, and Benny Parsons lost a lap and the caution came out,” Dr. Punch said. “Benny was on that long 7/10 of a mile backstretch, and he wanted to pit. Harry, who was his crew chief at the time, wouldn’t let him. Benny thought it was a race strategy. He cruises by during the caution, looks over at his pit and sees Harry and the entire crew eating ice cream. Not many people know it, but the ice cream scene in the film was a true story.”

The mock arrest in which a female cop pulls over Cole Trickle only to disrobe for the young driver actually happened, as did a much-recalled line of dialogue with Hogge telling Cole, “I want you to go out and hit the pace car because you’ve hit everything else.” Harry Hyde had once sarcastically barked those instructions to an erratic Buddy Baker at Martinsville Speedway.

Many characteristics of the flamboyant, good looking, and immensely talented Tim Richmond fed the development of Cole Trickle. Like Cruise’s character, Richmond, who learned to drive a car under Harry Hyde’s tutelage, was a flashy young hotshot long on talent and short on experience.

“Tim had no idea what made the car fast and loose,” Dr. Punch said. “He could just get in the car and drive it.” Hendrick said Richmond would certainly have won many races and a few championships had his life not been cut short from AIDS, just as he was coming into his own as driver.

Dr. Punch’s medical background would help Cruise and Towne cast the female lead – an aloof neurosurgeon who’d fall for Cole Trickle…and the actor playing the character. “A list” Hollywood beauties of the day wouldn’t cut it as a serious surgical resident.

“We wanted an attractive woman, because she’d fall for Tom Cruise, but also someone who had a pasty complexion, because she’d be in the hospital 24/7, and maybe an accent to make her sound especially astute and intelligent,” Dr. Punch said. “When we found Nicole Kidman, who had been a premed student at UCLA and didn’t have to pretend to be intelligent, the decision was pretty much made right there.”

Days of Thunder exposed the sport to a whole new audience, while those already inside the tent were excited to have “their own” NASCAR movie. Stock car racing had been portrayed in films like Thunder in Carolina, Stroker Ace and Speedway with Elvis Presley, but there hadn’t been a true big-budget NASCAR flick in a while; certainly, none generating Tom Cruise-portioned hype and headlines. As Paramount rolled Days into thousands of theaters across the country, NASCAR itself was rapidly growing in popularity. Now it was reaching people with no interest in racing who merely wanted to see Tom Cruise. Corporate and ad types who hadn’t given a second thought to the sport were rapt in attention watching good ol’ boys rubbing fenders on the silver screen. Rick Hendrick says a handful of new sponsors signed on to be part of this big and exciting sport they previously had no clue existed.

No doubt, Days of Thunder was entertaining; NASCAR fans would begin an ongoing debate about the film’s accuracy and which parts represent the “real” NASCAR. According to driver Kyle Petty, “Well, we both drive cars around tracks…and that’s about it.”

As much as Cruise wanted perfection, his best laid plans went astray in the editing suite. Dirty cars became clean around the next bend. Cole Trickle jumps into the car wearing black shoes and emerges with white ones. Cars magically switch positions in the running order. Harry Hogge’s cap changes logos mid scene. Most famously, at one point, Nicole Kidman’s character turns to Cole and calls him, “Tom.”

“That is one of the best continuity errors in film history,” said NBC Anchor Brian Williams. “I can watch Days of Thunder just waiting for Nicole Kidman to call her future husband, ‘Tom’.”

On the heels of Cruise and director Tony Scott’s runaway success with Top Gun, racing purists derisively called the film Top Car. They took umbrage at fantastic scenes like race cars built on a dirt-floor barn, drivers threatening one another over the radio, or when Cole spins out at Daytona but is able to get back to speed and pass other cars in only few laps.

“A lot of NASCAR fans thought the movie would be like a regular Sunday race with movie stars,” Dr. Punch said. “But Hollywood has to make it into a compelling story where boy meets girl. You can’t have all racing in that kind of film. And then you had a director (Tony Scott) who had made Top Gun, and wanted more demolition derby than NASCAR racing as we knew it. But they did the best they could, and it was a step ahead of Stoker Ace. For me, it’s a loveable campy look at our sport that gets more entertaining every year.”

On the track, filmgoers were drawn to a hefty share of fireworks that might not have reflected the real NASCAR each week but were nonetheless revolutionary at the time. The demolition crew put behind the drivers a sawed-off telephone pole attached to a half-stick of dynamite. The explosives would blow the pole into the ground, launching the car into an end-over-end barrel roll. Stunt drivers, who Rick Hendrick calls “absolutely crazy,” would on the director’s command hit a switch to deploy the bombs, making their cars go airborne. A sticker on the cars’ dashboards read: “PRESS BUTTON, TURN LEFT AND GOOD LUCK”.

Most NASCAR fans view Days, with its careening barrages of twisting metal and unmistakable Winston Cup engine noise, as mindless, shut-off-your-brain entertainment. Scott’s car-mounted cameras shot the fierce racing action so intimately, fans can practically smell the danger. “My favorite part of the movie is how they got the smoke to look in the corners,” said Rusty Wallace, NASCAR’s champion the year before Days started filming. “Going into the corner after someone’s blown an engine, it’s a wall of smoke. They captured on screen exactly how that looks to a driver.” In theaters, some fans rose from their seats when seeing Days’ old-school, put-up or shut-up, get-in-your-car-and-drive-the-wheels-off-it racing. Plus, the sound simply rocks; Days was nominated for an Oscar for “best sound.”

While Days of Thunder wasn’t the ideal racing movie the NASCAR community wanted, it was closer than what the sport had in a long while. There was no riding around in this film – the steel-smacking racing was absolutely fierce. And the relationship between upstart Cole Trickle and veteran Rowdy Burns captured the influx of fresh-faced drivers from different parts of the country about to change the sport.

Twenty years later, Greg Sacks still smiles when recalling how Tom Cruise would sneak skydiving jumps into the busy filming schedule. In all, Cruise secretly made dozens of jumps from Deland near Daytona International Speedway. Sacks tried it himself with Cruise and Tony Scott, the trio free-falling from 13,500 feet and landing in the track’s infield grass. To say the least, the money men behind the film, Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson, were not pleased. “We were like three amigos landing in the grass,” Sacks said. “Tom had this completely mischievous look in his eyes.”

Rusty Wallace, who had a small role in the film playing a NASCAR driver, still watches Days from time to time to remember the brash, colorful Harry Hyde. With 55 wins of his own, Wallace is one of the sport’s greatest drivers. He took more than $50 million in purse money over his career but still appreciates the $5.60 royalty check which turns up in his mailbox like clockwork each month.

Tom Cruise would go on to make many more blockbusters, including and A Few Good Men, The Firm, Jerry Maguire, War of the Worlds, and the Mission Impossible franchise. Fifteen years later, he’d return to NASCAR races in Daytona and Auto Club Speedway outside of LA with his son, Connor, who has become an avid NASCAR fan. Cruise still hangs out at Rick Hendrick’s pit stall and sat at his friend’s table at the Waldorf=Astoria when the most successful team owner in NASCAR’s history celebrated Jimmie Johnson’s third straight championship. Looking back two decades to the NASCAR film he lovingly made, Cruise fondly recalls going hard into the corners and getting to know the very special people who were taking a regional sport into the mainstream.

“My personal Daytona memory is getting up close to 200 mph, personally driving on that track in the car, and meeting those drivers that I got to meet,” he said. “Making movies, I love it because I get to enter into a world and you meet these generous people. It’s a great life because I’m interested in life and in engaging in life, and to have those experiences I feel very privileged.”

I Am A Superstar

Until the accident, a late-December respite in Vermont was the much-needed so-called battery charge for our family.

One particular ski trip was my chance to move beyond “intermediate” skiing. Out on the slopes, the sun was disappearing behind the formidable mountain. Closing out day one, I’d have four more to distinguish myself and improve my technique.

For the proverbial Last Run of the Day, Viviane and I come across a black diamond called “Superstar.” Just seeing that name gets my adrenaline pumping: strong and confident notions of red, white and blue achievement, Superman, Wonder Woman, Mark Spitz and Michael Phelps in their USA Speedos. If my run were televised, Jim McKay would be in a canary yellow blazer describing it.

Viviane is smooth and light on her skis. She describes my style as Jean-Claude Killy on the green bunny runs and Jerry Lewis on the blacks.

Today, Jerry is a no show. I haven’t gone down once. The legs feel good. It’s time to master the elements, blast past the fat part of the bell curve and enter the rarified realm of the expert skier. I am a super star.

I point a pole to the beckoning trail sign. Viviane nods, and a bad idea builds momentum with the trail’s steep decline and wind-blown moguls. (Are the scary bumps called “moguls,” because they mimic Donald Trump’s hair?)

My wife is out in front, finding her way down the difficult slope. I gather too much speed and try to cut back in a groove between slick moguls, a move that would have looked good on the chalkboard. Too bad we’re not in a classroom but sliding down an iceberg. My skis hit a rut and pull to the side. My top heavy body surges in the other direction as if launched from a circus cannon. Except my arms aren’t stoic at my sides. This is a flailing, out-of-control, agony-of-defeat cartwheel.

NASCAR drivers see crashes happening in slow motion. Wayne Gretzky once explained when he scored a goal, time slowed, and the puck appeared the size of a pizza pie, the goal as wide as the Hoover Dam. None of that here. It’s an instantaneous, oh-snap blur, white canvas screaming toward my face. Greg Louganis couldn’t have hit the surface at a more precise 90-degree angle. It sounds like chomping a mouthful of Cap’n Crunch. I bounce like a Super Ball. On the second revolution, my head smacks the rock-hard mountain like a bowling ball dropped from a roof. Finally, silence.

It is a sad reflection of our You Tube culture that laying there, thankfully breathing (albeit stunned) and reassured my skull was not split like a rotten pumpkin, I wonder if anyone on the chair lift captured my spastic circus-act flop. Please tell me no one camera-phoned this. I’m destined to be an internet laughing stock. Without royalties.

There are no cameras or giggling. I’m alone, in one piece.

This can’t be that bad. The morning papers said a Manhattan window washer survived a 47-story fall. All my digits are moving. But as the commercial says, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.

That initial crunch wasn’t the give of snow. It something in my shoulder breaking.

My wife kept her wits and balance, which kind of describes our marriage, and had pulled to a stop below. The grade is too steep for her to come up. All is OK, no worries, I reassure her with a sprightly lefty Super Star-like thumbs up, confidently gesturing like a downed lineman pinned to the stretcher as he's carted off the field to the crowd's roar of sympathetic approval and relief the game will again resume. Yet I do not feel confident and am rather worried. The covenant of marriage allows making claims to your life partner that you do not believe. She tells passing skiers following her gaze up the mountain, “Oh, he’s fine. He’s just catching his breath.”

All I can do is flash a dumb smile and that thumbs-up with the arm I can move.

“Baby, just put your skis on and ski on down!” she urges.

Maybe an expert skier could do that. I’m an eternal intermediate, forever checking that middle box on the rental line, a reckless overachiever who flirted with bragging rights for super-stardom beyond his proficiency and paid the price. The run couldn’t have been named “Devil’s Emergency Room” to scare me away? I try to stand, but the shoulder is shot. I slide on my bottom across the slippery surface, faster and faster down the steep hill. This is not going to end well. I dig boot heels into the ice, and lurch to a stop.

The mountain is quiet, save my gasping. I lean on my good shoulder and crawl, inches at a time, across the mountain, toward the woods. Isn’t that where animals go to die?

Someone, it’s a ski instructor, is waving his poles and shouting down from the lift. “Do you need me to radio for help?”

Up there, I’ve looked down at the meek humiliation of the daring and the clumsy, those unfortunate injured skiers who are strapped in and carted away on the Red Cross sled. Yeah, call it in. Now I’ll know how it feels to be present for your own funeral procession. Like driving a stock car at the track in Charlotte, which had different ending of hearty slaps on the back and a framed photo on fake marble, I’ll check off another bucket-list experience.

Viviane says they closed Superstar after my crash. Too treacherous; an out-of-control intermediate from the city was nearly killed. My fast-fading manhood is revived. Yes, it was the ferocious mountain, not me. Mother Nature won today’s battle, the war is mine. I am a superstar…until I find out Viviane was conjuring a well-meaning fib, something a married woman says with noble intentions but nary a shred of truth.

The doctor examining me says he’ll take x-rays but it looks like a broken collar bone. “What do you do for a living?” he asks, sounding not that interested.

“I’m with NASCAR,” I tell him. He smiles, makes eye contact for the first time, and asks if Jimmie Johnson is going to win a third championship.

In the mirror, I basically have no right shoulder. The disappearance of a frequently used body part is sickening. My arm is dangling low like an ape’s, the shoulder having apparently said, hasta la vista. The surrounding skin is already yellowish green. I want to puke.

“This looks pretty bad. Do I need surgery?”

“I don’t think so,” he says. “I want to know this. Earnhardt moving to Hendrick: is that going to change the competitive balance in the sport? I mean, Dale Jr., Gordon, Johnson – that’s like a Murderers Row or the Purple People eaters. What a lineup! They’re gonna dominate!”

I’m in starting to shiver, slipping into shock maybe. The dull pain is starting to spread to my chest. I’m wondering if they’ll screw rods into my body like some of the drivers I’ve talked to, or if I’ll be limping around like the Hunchback of NASCAR in New York.

“Do I have to stay in the hospital?” I ask.

“We’ll fix you up here, and you’ll be out in just a few. There’s quite a separation in the bone break. You must have hit pretty hard. Hey, I’ve seen some hard hits in NASCAR this year. I couldn’t believe Gordon walked away from that lick in Pocono. How about those HANS devices and new softer walls? They’re really making NASCAR much safer.”

“This hurts a lot. How long will the pain last?”

“Oh, it’s like any bone break,” the doctor says. “We’ll give you some strong medication. Did you know Dale Senior broke his collarbone at Talladega, the car just flipping like crazy, and then he drove the next week with that broken collarbone?”

“Yes, he actually won the pole and the race. Watkins Glen. Road course. Toughest course to drive, I’d imagine, with a painful injury like that. Doctor, I’m on the first day of a five-day vacation. Do I have to go home? We can get back to New York in about five hours.”

“It’s up to you. Frankly, you’ll at first be uncomfortable wherever you are. You can stay in the lodge. Hey, speaking of New York, that track NASCAR was building is not going to happen?”

This dance goes on until the doc gives me a sling and bottle of horse pills. He tells me to see an orthopedic surgeon back in New York. “I’d bet that doctor will want to operate. If I were you, I’d avoid surgery. You could place one end of your collar bone on one side of the room, and the other end on the other side, and the bones will find each other. The collar bone is a truly amazing thing. You should be OK in a few months.”

He was right. I got better. (The collarbone can find anything; too bad it couldn't go work for the goverment and find Amelia Earhardt.)

I was in tip-top shape but then gruesomely rolled an ankle at Texas Motor Speedway. What used to be a jutting ankle bone at the bottom of my skinny chicken leg soon resembled the kind of plump tomato my grandmother would have proudly thrown in the pot for Sunday’s sauce. You hit 40, and you become spastic. Your body grows hair in odd places and progressively falls apart. TV commercials offer electronic devices to alert the authorities when you become incapacitated.

I can accept that. Harder to deal with is how I’d viewed those who get hurt on business trips as losers. I’m in that club, too. Not exactly on the bucket list.

Each NASCAR track has a well-staffed mini-hospital in the infield. It’s meant for drivers, not clumsy, aging, accident-prone PR people. I hobble to the Infield Care Center for an ace bandage and a tape job. I’m hosting media, will be on the ankle all day, and need to stabilize it. The Speedway doctor won’t tape me without taking x-rays. Sure enough, the tip of the fibia is broken.

The doc shows the film – a chunk the shape of India floating beneath the shin bone. The kind, gentle and efficient folks in the Infield Care Center strap on a metal boot, hand me crutches, and suggest I see an orthopedic specialist back home.

“I know,” I say. “I bet they’ll want to operate.”

The busted ankle brings out the best in service companies. Avis fetches my car at the hotel, no charge. Continental bumps me to first class with curb-to-gate wheelchair service. I make a mental note to fake an injury before a future trip. In light of recent events, pretending won’t be necessary.

I return to New York to see another doctor. You can guess what happens when he hears I was hurt at a NASCAR race. The orthopedic surgeon at St. Vincent's Hospital in Greenwich Village secretly wishes he were Tony Stewart’s jack man:

Clumsy PR Guy: So, it’s broken. Bummer. But there’s no ligament damage, right?

Doctor: No, none. What amazes me is how fast those drivers go when they are so close to one another. Extraordinary, isn’t it.

Clumsy PR Guy: What about the tendons?

Doctor: The tendons are fine. You don’t have to worry about that. They say it’s the roar of the cars and the whole massive feel of it. You go to a race, and you are just blown away and hooked.

Clumsy PR Guy: I have been elevating the leg and keeping ice on the ankle. How long should I do that?

Doctor: As long as needed. I hear NASCAR is still looking at building a track in the New York area. Jersey? Near the Meadowlands? Out on the Island? No, no, Staten Island. Yes, that’s it. Is it true? That would be great. That sport really needs to be here in New York.

Clumsy PR Guy: Unfortunately, there’s not enough political support, and that’s not gonna work out. Listen, getting back to me and the ankle, I imagine there’s some sort of physical therapy ahead?

Doctor: You will absolutely need rehab. We can make a recommendation – plenty of good places. It really seems to be a sport that has caught on like wildfire. I have a friend at ABC, who was a big skeptic but is now completely sold on it. They show your races, right?

Clumsy PR Guy: Yes, ABC is a partner, and NASCAR is very popular. I sit at a computer all day. My main exercise is hitting the send button on email. So I like to run at night. When will I be jogging again?

Doctor: Should be a few months. Just between you and me, it gets pretty wild at some of those tracks, huh? What’s it like?

Clumsy PR Guy: It’s fun. The fans are a panic. I writing a book on them. There’s a fan who took the NASCAR flag to the top of Mt. Everest. Another guy walks around at the track naked except for a Goodyear tire and Tom Sawyer straw hat. Come to think of it, he walks a lot, and I’ll be walking a lot. I can do that with the cast you’ll give me? No crutches?

Doctor: Yes, of course. I don’t understand Staten Island. Why didn’t they just didn’t go buy the land at Grumman airport out on the Island? It’s totally available.

This is a top ankle and knee guy in New York magazine’s list of the city’s best doctors. He’s in demand and hard to reach. I was able to see him instantly. You see, his assistant is a Sprint phone-carrying NASCAR fan. She saw “NASCAR” on my email requesting an appointment. I was promptly slotted in. Getting my first preference for follow up appointments was a snap. I just had to answer a few questions about what Dale Jr. was like, and does he really have a girlfriend?

Who says they don't love NASCAR in New York?

For more stories like these, Andrew Giangola’s critically acclaimed book, THE WEEKEND STARTS ON WEDNESDAY, is available online and wherever fine books (and some crappy ones) are sold.

The Other Side of Smoke

When little Spencer Roy was 6, he wanted a tattoo. Not one of those temporary Cracker Jack ones. No, he asked for a real tattoo – needles in flesh. A Tony Stewart tattoo.

That was, of course, out of the question. There are laws. But the boy’s mom, Stephanie, had an idea. She watched every NASCAR race at home with Spencer, and Tony was her driver, too. Mother and son named their cat, “Tony Stewart.” The family’s pet fish is “Tony Stewart.” Step out of their shower, and your wet feet meet a Tony Stewart bath mat. You don’t have to be a mentalist to guess Stephanie’s computer password. Then there are the Tony Stewart cars and cups and flags and stickers throughout the house.

Considering the various and sundry ways the Tony Stewart name infests the Roy’s home, the idea of branding a family member’s skin “Tony Stewart” wasn’t so outlandish. Maybe Stephanie, as an agent representing the Roy clan, would get the tattoo.

A race was coming up a Martinsville, Virginia, Stephanie’s home track. The Roanoke mom knew Tony would be doing an autograph session in the Salem Civic Center. She showed up, inched to the front of the line, and offered her bicep. This wasn’t the first time Stewart had been asked to sign a body part. He laid pen to flesh with big, confident strokes – a John Hancock with verve and flourish, the kind of assuredly bold signature you’d expect from a driver Stephanie and Spencer love because “he will move your butt out of the way or put you into the wall if he has to.”

Stephanie found a phone book and a tattoo parlor. For forty bucks and a little bit of sting she could again show how far she’d go for the boy suffering a serious heart condition who she loves so much. It took about 20 minutes to make Tony’s signature permanent. Stephanie had to keep hitting the brakes she was driving so fast to get home. Little Spencer was just tickled pink. To this day, he’ll gleefully lift his mom’s shirt sleeve to show total strangers the tattoo of the only driver in NASCAR who matters.

Six years later at Richmond International Speedway, courtesy of “Make A Wish,” a wonderful organization helping children with life-threatening medical conditions, Spencer got his chance to meet the driver on his mother’s arm.

Tony Stewart met Spencer and Stephanie Roy at his motor coach in the drivers and owners lot before September’s Chevy Rock and Roll 400 race. Stephanie came prepared with orange fingernails with jet black tips and the number “20” etched on. Stewart showed up wearing his orange fire suit and a big smile. He greeted Spencer with a fist bump and began to treat the boy like a long-lost friend.

Spencer flipped his program open to Tony’s page, pointing to his man.

“Who’s that goofy guy?” Tony asked. “You picked the ugliest guy in the whole book!”

Spencer laughed and turned to another photo of Tony.

“You’re laughing, but I don’t get better looking in any of these photos, do I?” he asked. “No wonder I don’t have a girlfriend.”

Stewart spent 15 minutes making Spencer crack up while signing a heap of paraphernalia handed over with assembly-line precision by his PR man Mike Arning.

Bad weather was headed for Virginia as tropical storm Hannah moved in. The 37-year-old two time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion did a rain dance jig, attempting to ward off the precipitation so Spencer Roy would be able to see his first NASCAR race. Stewart promised the boy if he won the race, and he had every intention of doing so, he’d climb the fence at Richmond just for him. Together, they’d celebrate in Victory Lane.

A hospitality tour was waiting. Stewart’s PR man motioned to the group, reminding the driver of obligations backing up. Stewart said goodbye to Spencer, then found a way to kick start a conversation he didn’t want to end. The cycle of attempted goodbyes followed by more joking repeated itself a few times. Finally, after a series of high-fives, it was time to go.

“Remember: after the race, Victory Lane,” Stewart said as he walked away.

Spencer and Stephanie had seats directly in front of the No. 20 pit stall. Spencer was physically in Virginia but more accurately in heaven, throwing up his hand every time Tony’s race car flew went by.

The boy had been a NASCAR fan almost his entire life, and only had two drivers. First was Ernie Ervan, known to some as “Swervin’ Ervan, the driver of Philip and Georgia Gregware, who lived above the Roys and took care of Spencer for several years when Stephanie worked weekends. Phil’s nickname was “Curly,” but before Spencer could talk, he couldn’t say that. He just called Phil “Ernie.”

When the real Ernie retired from NASCAR in 1999, Spencer immediately switched allegiances to Tony Stewart. The boy’s medical condition, Prolong QT and mydocardial disease of the muscles, makes comprehending complex things difficult. While traditional learning – the Pythagorean theorum and the Magna Carta, and the arcane a + b = c equations and historical events each of us suffered through and mostly forgot – is difficult, Spencer has strong intuition and is sharp as a tack. Watching the races on TV with the Gregwares (every Sunday the families would share a home-cooked meal and the race), Spencer would pick his own driver. Spencer liked Tony Stewart’s personality, his driving style, everything about the guy.

After adopting Tony as his driver, he’d followed him on TV for years. Now he was at the track in Richmond, watching this momentous freight train of race cars zooming by, close enough to make his wheel chair shake. It felt to Spencer like the whole earth could be thrown off its axis. Could goose bumps have goose bumps on top?

Spencer wanted Tony to lead the pack. He was rooting hard, encouraging Tony to go faster and faster as the laps ticked off. Stewart had a solid car and was running up front. He was in contention. Would he take the checkers, climb the fence, and meet Spencer in Victory Lane?

As the laps wound down, it was turning into a battle between Tony and reigning NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson. The Home Depot and Lowe’s cars battled on the final laps in a thrilling bumper-to-bumper duel. They tore around the three quarter mile track, Stewart on Johnson’s bumper, Stewart moving along side on the banks, even with Johnson, enough the momentum he carried through the turns faded and his rival burst ahead on the straightaways.

The cat and mouse game continued for several thrilling laps. The crowd of more than 90,000 was on their feet. Spencer’s arm shot up each time Tony rocketed past, right on the No. 48’s tail. But this day, this race, was not to be for Spencer or Stewart. They couldn’t catch Jimmie Johnson, and Tony finished second.

Spencer was crushed. He didn’t make it to Victory Lane. He was quiet and withdrawn, not himself for an entire week. But as the days passed, who won at Richmond didn’t seem to matter as much. The end of the race faded in his mind. Spencer Roy’s weekend in Richmond holds a sharper, more intense memory that grows in prominence as other recollections fade. Spencer had met his hero, and he was larger in life than even in the boy’s grandest dreams.

America’s Anchor Finds his Slice of Heaven

When American Presidents visit war zones, NBC anchor Brian Williams often tags along. It’s a humbling responsibility to beam the first draft of history from hot spots around the globe. The downside of these hastily scheduled trips, beside stinging windstorms, lousy hotel room pillows and time away from the family, is missing NASCAR races.

But Williams always brings a piece of his beloved sport with him. For instance, when President Obama first toured Baghdad, he spoke to military personnel at the Al Faw palace, built by Saddam Hussein and now occupied by the U.S. military. Williams decided to mark the territory in a fashion any fellow fan would understand. He plastered a Dale Earnhardt “3” sticker onto one of the palace’s outside walls.

“As far as I know, it’s still there, on the wall of a guest house on the bank of a skanky man-made lake,” Williams said. “I figured it’s about time the Iraqis knew about the real ‘Intimidator.’”

This was not an isolated incident. Williams goes nowhere without a supply of black No. 3 stickers in his bag. He has to replenish the stock frequently, especially since he slaps a number three decal on every car he rents.

“My goal is to eventually sticker the entire U.S. rental fleet,” Williams explained. “Half the time I turn the car in, the rental guy thinks it’s an official number, some code from corporate headquarters, and it stays on the car. I have to admit, when I’m driving, I keep an eye out for my Dale stickers. Haven’t seen one yet, but it’s only a matter of time.”

Whether it is stickering deposed dictators, rent-a-cars and his own Mustang GT, injecting racing analogies into election night coverage, or extending a business trip to attend a dirt track race, Brian Williams could be the NASCAR fan wielding the largest and most persuasive megaphone. His appreciation of racing has percolated since his dad introduced the young boy to Joie Chitwood’s Thrill Shows and local dirt races near their home in upstate New York where NASCAR’s Bodine brothers ran. Listening to the throaty engines and crunching metal during beloved Demolition Derby nights ignited in Williams a life-long passion for fast cars going in circles.

“It’s plain and simple: I like speed,” he said. “Just give me the first turn at Talladega, when they come around at speed on the second lap. I defy you to replicate that feeling anywhere else in life. You don’t know if it’s your heart thumping or the eruption of all that American horsepower coming around that turn. These are full-blooded, normally aspirated American-built cars doing exactly what they are supposed to do, driven by men whose bravery is never fully discussed or recognized. And I love every second of it.”

The greatest blessing in anchoring NBC Nightly News, Williams declares, is the opportunity to meet people he truly admires. Among the world leaders, captains of industry, humanitarians, scientists, and rock stars he’s broken bread with, none ranks higher than Dale Earnhardt. Williams was able to meet and grow close to Dale after taking a job with NBC News in 1993. “Call it one of the perks of knowing the president of NBC Sports,” he explained.

At the 1998 Daytona 500, Williams took his 10-year old son, Douglas, to meet Dale. “My son asked Dale if he could put his hand on the number three machine – which is what Douglas always called it, ‘the number three machine.’ Without hesitation, Dale said, ‘Absolutely,’ and led us through a scrum to the car. He told my son, ‘If we win, you come back for the trophy presentation.’”

Dale wasn’t asking, he was ordering Douglas to do this.

Of course, Earnhardt dramatically won the race. The fans went bananas. Earnhardt did a few celebratory doughnuts in the infield grass. The Racing Gods must have been making up for the two-decade curse because his spins in the grass took the uncanny shape of the number “3.” Brian and Douglas Williams watched as a group of fans ran to the beaten up turf. Some jammed chunks into their coolers. Others laid their bodies down in the deep tire tracks, communing with the celebratory ruts.

Victory Lane was rocking like a van on Lover’s Lane.

Earnhardt memorably shouted, “Daytona is ours! We won it, we won it, we won it!” Dale found time during the rollicking celebration to call over Brian and Doug to pose for pictures. Those photos, along with Dale’s No. 3 die cast car, and hats he signed are proudly displayed next to signed letters from past U.S. Presidents in Williams’ Rockefeller Center office.

“He was that kind of guy to remember us at such a big moment,” Williams said. “The King, Mr. Richard Petty, opened the door to drivers carefully crafting a media image, and Dale took that to a new level. Dale realized ‘the Intimidator’ was a title that worked for him and the sport. He knew the value of that iron-headed reputation and how to market it. But he didn’t always follow that image in his personal life. He made it very big but never got rid of that regular guy side, fixing ball joints and front ends. And he had a marvelous soft side few saw. I'll always remember his smile more than any glare. He had a warm, crinkly, wry smile, and loved to tease people. Dale started racing when the family was down to its last can of beans, and he clearly relished becoming a successful, self-made businessman.

By the end, he was very happy with where he was. He’d tell us, ‘If I die racing, please understand that I died doing what made me happy.’”

Three years after standing in Victory Lane with his son and his racing idol, Williams was on vacation watching Earnhardt’s final race on television. “Having seen him flip seven times and walk away, I didn’t think anything of his last-lap crash at the Daytona 500,” he said.

Soon after, word came through NASCAR had lost its greatest driver. Williams rushed back to his New York office. A host of messages were waiting for him. One was absolutely haunting. “There was a voice mail on my answering machine – it was Dale checking in to say hello, wanting to know if I was coming to Daytona. It stunned me. I put the message on an audio CD. To this day, it’s hard to listen to.”

Many in the media – clueless about NASCAR but hip to Williams’ curious passion for racing – came to him for comment. “It was one of those Margaret Meade moments for mainstream media, as if they were discovering a new civilization: ‘Brian, tell us about those NASCAR fans and NASCAR Nation.’ I was a rare member of mainstream media asked to explain the meaning of it all. I wrote an essay about Dale for Time magazine. It was a horrible week.”

It’s been said NASCAR needed Dale Earnhardt’s passing to reach its full potential for coast-to-coast popularity. Following the tragedy at Daytona, many new fans discovered big-time stock car racing. For Williams, some of the old magic disappeared.

“It’s not that the sport immediately changed. It’s just that my guy was gone. I still look for his car when they come around on the first lap. I’m still subconsciously scanning for the black No 3. I am hopelessly devoted to his memory.”

Following Earnhardt’s death, Williams ventured deeper into the roots of the sport, the racing that first sparked his love of automobiles, those small local tracks he loved as a kid and now could sample during his journalistic travels. The steel-skinned newsman becomes earnestly poetic when discussing small-town racing.

“These tracks are glowing islands of light, smoke, and noise that dot the countryside and roar to life on Friday and Saturday nights where fans encounter the sport in its purest form,” he said.

Growing up in Elmira, N.Y., Williams first attended races at the Chamon County (SP?) Fair Grounds. His family moved to the Jersey shore, where the inquisitive and well-read teenager became a regular at Wall Township Speedway, Flemington Speedway, Stafford up in Connecticut, even heading up to Portland, Maine for short track races.

“Ours was a pure American home – the garage was for stuff, and the driveway was where you kept your car so everyone could see how you rolled. You kept meticulous care of that machine, and on Saturday, everyone could see you washing it.”

As Williams rapidly ascended to the pinnacle of TV journalism, he bought a summer cabin in Montana and became part owner of a dirt modified team. He’d already driven Talladega, reaching a very impressive 181.5 mph. He makes a point of emphasizing the additional half mile an hour in recounting the feat. “That’s the definition of being alive,” Williams proclaimed.

With his place out west, the east coast news man could get seat time running dirt on Friday nights at a small dirt track outside Bozeman ambitiously called Gallatin International Speedway, feeling the heat coming up his legs and a special kind of claustrophobia sliding into the turns.

“A dirt modified car is a different animal, 800 horsepower monsters, really,” Williams said. “Your whole life is one controlled skid. Asphalt is great – it’s sticky and fast and hot and lot of fun. But dirt is a whole different experience. I have so much respect for dirt drivers. And as a fan, you can measure your good time by the amount of track you wear home on your body.”

Scruffy, dirt-kicking, splintered-grandstands, small-town NASCAR appeals deeply to Williams, who was once a volunteer firefighter and maintains his Irish-Catholic working class roots. He is known mostly for work performed solo behind a desk while wearing an expensive suit, but he appreciates the camaraderie and profound bonds forged among sweat-stained men on a team getting dirty to pursue a common goal.

“The sport of NASCAR is a reflection of America, a place with a real romantic side, which I see in hard-working people asking to be entertained at a small race track on a Friday or Saturday night,” Williams said. “NASCAR is a great slice of America. If I have a layover for a weekend, I will always find out where the small tracks are. There, I feel at home, watching working mechanics, contractors, firemen, builders, school teachers by day, and on the weekend driving a car put together with chewing bum and bailing wire. All available money goes into car, and if they’re lucky, they can steal away Monday night in the garage to pound out Saturday night’s dents.

“NASCAR fans don’t ask for much. They save up all week for a few hours of entertainment. They find being at the track preferable to sitting in an air-conditioned movie theater. It’s like being in on a wonderful secret –sitting in the infield, the smell of the track, the lights coming up. It’s just a hugely patriotic crowd – a tough, largely working class crowd, but don’t get me wrong, decent people. During the National Anthem before the engines fire, you can hear a pin drop. The fans come out to see family and neighbors running super stocks, modifieds, just basic entry-level stock car racing on a dirt track, on a Friday night, capping off a long work week. I tell my children not to root too loudly against any given driver, because that might be his wife, mother, or kids sitting directly in front. It’s a true slice of heaven.”

Houston, We Have Fan

COL. DOUG HURLEY IS PILOTING THE SPACE SHUTTLE ATLANTIS, WHICH LIFTED OFF THIS MORNING EN ROUTE TO THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION. DOUG WAS ALSO AT THE CONTROLS FOR THE ENDEAVOUR FLIGHT. TODAY'S LAUNCH MARKS THE FINAL MISSION OF THE 30-YEAR U.S. SPACE SHUTTLE PROGRAM. HERE IS DOUG'S CHAPTER IN THE WEEKEND STARTS ON WEDNESDAY:

It’s not unusual for a NASCAR fan unable to tune to a race – maybe he’s on the job or waiting to get root canal – to sneak a quick online update. One fan, Doug Hurley, a Colonel in the Marine Corps, got his NASCAR fix at work on a laptop computer in a unique place – 250 miles above the earth moving at 17,500 mph in zero gravity.

Hurley, the pilot of Space Shuttle Endeavor, hadn’t missed a race in eight years since being introduced to NASCAR at Watkins Glen and feeling a rush of excitement he could only call “indescribable.” He wasn’t going to let a small thing like manning the controls of the most complex machine ever built get in the way of finding out how Joey Logano did at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

“It’s not a very well-kept secret at NASA that I’m a pretty big NASCAR fan,” Hurley says. The second line of his official NASA biography states, “Recreational interests include hunting, cycling and attending as many NASCAR races as possible.”

While training in Star City, Russia with cosmonauts preparing to work on the International Space Station, the Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel watched NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races on the Armed Forces television network deep into the night. On board the Endeavor, he took DVD copies to two of the most notable races in the history of stock car racing – the 1979 and 1998 Daytona 500s. He’s lobbying to have these classic races included in the permanent library on board the International Space Station.

Hurley grew up in Apalachin, NY, a town so small it had no stoplight. On cloudless nights, he’d gaze at the wide sky, densely speckled with the twinkling lights of stars from galaxies billions of miles away. Doug was only two years old when Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, but remembers news clips of Sky Lab missions sandwiched between the Saturday morning cartoons.

“As a young boy, you think, ‘Wow, that would be pretty neat to go there and do that,’” he said.

He liked what the military stood for and to help pay for college enrolled in the Navy ROTC, program at Tulane University. During college, he spent a week at a Navy jet base in Jacksonville and got to ride in a fighter plane.

“That was the defining moment. I knew what I wanted to do.” Hurley excelled as a Naval Aviator and a test pilot. He was the first Marine pilot to fly the F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet.

Despite his fondness for speed, Hurley never paid much attention to NASCAR, even though he’d lived 45 minutes south of the road course at Watkins Glen. That changed when his cousin Nanette began dating Greg Zipadelli, then Tony Stewart’s crew chief for Joe Gibbs Racing. Nan and Doug had spent many holidays and summers together as kids and remained close as adults. He jumped at her invitation to watch the race from Zippy’s pit stall at the Glen.

“From the moment I heard the first engine roar to life, I was unequivocally, unbelievably, completely and totally hooked on the sport,” Hurley said. Since then, he’s attended more than 20 races and holds season tickets at Texas Motor Speedway.
Nanette and Zipadelli are now married with three kids, but Tony and the crew chief he called “the big brother I never had” have parted ways. After a stellar decade with the No. 20 Home Depot car, including two NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championships, Stewart left Joe Gibbs Racing following the 2008 season to form his own team, becoming the most successful driver-owner in NASCAR since Alan Kulwicki won the title in 1992. The separation was a tough, emotional time for Zippy.

“Loyalty is a big thing with Zippy, and he decided to stay with Joe Gibbs, who gave him a huge opportunity. That’s where his heart was.”

Most No. 20 fans also guided by their loyalty simply followed Stewart to this new No. 14 ride. Hurley stuck with Zippy and his new driver, teenage phenom Joey Logano, nicknamed “Sliced Bread,” as in “the greatest thing since…”

“Joey is amazingly grounded for a person his age facing tremendous challenges and responsibility,” Hurley said. “If you compare him to Zippy or me, we were selected for our jobs – Greg as crew chief and me into the astronaut program – in our early ‘30s. Joey is 19 and handling the pressure of big-time auto racing very well. At the outset, there was skepticism about his abilities in a Cup ride, but his true talent quickly became apparent. NASCAR banned testing for 2009, which was the right move to save costs, but it hurt newer guys like Joey. And then you have him going into a new car much different than the NASCAR Nationwide Series cars he was driving. Considering all that, he’s figuring out a lot of things pretty quickly. Joey’s been blessed with tremendous talent and the help of a core group of guys who have been with Zippy from the beginning. He and Zippy have been a great team, which they proved when Joey became the youngest driver ever to win a Sprint Cup Series race at New Hampshire in 2009. Joey battled hard all day and Zippy made a great call to win the race. I’m predicting Joey is going to do very well in the ears to come. Plus, he is just a super nice guy. He’s got solid support from his parents, and it shows.”

Hurley, who is 42 and favors the flat-top hair style reminiscent of the flight directors and fly boys chronicled in Tom Wolfe’s book The Right Stuff, sees many parallels between the sport he loves to watch from the pit stall and his own job strapped into a rocket soaring toward the wide blue yonder. “My background is as a fighter pilot, so the speed, the adrenaline rush, the eye-hand coordination is somewhat similar. A big part of the excitement for me is getting so close to the action. Fans can feel a bit of that, sitting off the turn with the cars coming right at you. They can get some of that speed adrenaline rush a fighter pilot feels.”

In some ways, NASCAR drivers face tougher challenges than astronauts, Hurley says. It’s a surprising perspective from a decorated Navy test pilot snapped up by the astronaut development program as soon as he was eligible, a four-time recipient of the NASA Superior Accomplishment Award who helped orchestrate the mind-boggling tasks of an upside down rendezvous with the International Space station, five space walks, the replacement of half dozen 250-pound batteries in the unforgiving blackness of space, and the transfer home of a Japanese astronaut.

“The biggest difference is NASCAR is much more in the public eye than what we do as astronauts and what I did as a fighter pilot,” he said. “When we launch shuttles into space, of course that’s highly publicized, but months of training are largely done without constant scrutiny. NASCAR drivers live in the limelight virtually year-round. Being in a dangerous, high-pressure environment, it’s not easy to manage outside eyes prying in.”

There are obviously many differences between astronauts and race car drivers. Flirting with danger – the lurking, unpredictable set of unseen circumstances that can snuff a life out in a blink – is not one of them.

Hurley was avidly following NASCAR when drivers Adam Petty, Kenny Irwin, and Dale Earnhardt Sr. were killed over a nine month period from 2000 to 2001. He personally strapped the STS 107 crew into the Space Shuttle Columbia, which disintegrated upon re-entry over the southwestern United States in 2003.

“Nothing prepares you for losing seven friends in an instant on a national scale,” he said. “NASA had a tough decision after the loss of the Columbia just as NASCAR had a tough decision after losing its most famous and maybe greatest driver. Where do you go? What do you do? The right answer is you fly again, and you race next week. You just make sure you’ve learned from the previous events so it won’t happen again.

“The danger of what we do is always in the back of my mind. But I think human space flight is better from the Columbia accident, despite losing seven people who can never be replaced. It’s the same with NASCAR. We lost Dale Earnhardt Sr., and will never get him back. But some very positive things came from that tragedy. The sport made significant improvements to the cars and tracks and has never been safer.

“What happened with Dale and the Columbia are eerily similar. We’d seen foam fall off the Shuttle for years. We tolerated it. NASCAR had some bad accidents that seemed like freak occurrences. It took a huge event in both cases to bring about productive change – losing the most famous driver in what looked like an innocuous crash and the Shuttle burning up over Texas after a piece of foam dislodged. But some pretty smart people worked hard to fix the problems. And we’re much safer as a result.”

Just as NASCAR is seeking expansion opportunities, so is NASA. Missions are being planned for the U.S. to return to the moon and possibly beyond to Mars. Perhaps one of our own remarkable fans will be at the controls. Whatever is next for Doug Hurley, all of NASCAR Nation wishes him “Godspeed.”