Ranking life's bittersweet days, this one, my final day at NASCAR, easily shoots to #1 with a bullet.
After eight-plus seasons helping to tell the NASCAR story, I've accepted a great opportunity as VP, Strategic Communications for IMG College.
As you may know, college sports are booming – with radiological meltdown to the left of us, wars to the right, our President even found time to fill out his Brackets. This is a chance to take a leadership role with a fast-growing organization transforming the business of college sports. Being Italian, I fully respect an offer not to be refused.
I'm about as excited as one can get nowadays without the authorities being alerted and the building sealed off.
It's not easy to leave NASCAR, especially amid a thrilling season that has 'em cheering in the press boxes. I genuinely love our sport (jeez, their sport in a few hours); heck, I slept with the fans in their converted school buses and wrote a book about it!
From my first race in 2003 at Talladega (hallelujuah, can it be scripted any better), I've smoked the proverbial exhaust and savored every hit. I am blessed to have been surrounded by extraordinary people who may have talked a bit funny to this New Yorker (and me to them as well) but who leave a mark nonetheless.
NASCAR was not a Dickensian gig: It was the best of times, it was the best of times.
There is no breed quite like NASCAR fans. Show me another place on earth with as many empty beer bottles and as few fights as a NASCAR race.
One fan contributing to that heap of empties -- now recycled at an impressive rate, mind you -- calls me "Lucky Dog." The source of my good fortune is the mere fact I work for NASCAR.
He's right about the nickname. Everyone who works in this industry owns it, too, contributing to a continually unfolding great American entreprenerial success story that happens to bring joy to millions.
I will always treasure my Lucky Dog status. My enthusiasm for the sport won't ever wane. I will continue to root for the courageous drivers and hard-working people who bring this immensely enjoyable traveling circus to millions every week for 10-month stretch.
In the meantime, to those partners, colleagues, and media members who have heard this news and have written or called to playfully declare that I am a "jerk," "ass", "peckerhead" or various other body parts that shall go unmentioned, thank you, I am flattered. I will miss you, too. I sincerely hope we can stay in touch, particularly if you owe me money.
As of April 25, I can be reached at andrew.giangola@imgworld.com
I wish each of you, and everyone involved in this wonderful sport, and those who watch, good health and continued success.
As the great Warren Zevon said, Enjoy every sandwich.
Andrew Giangola
Gaby Giangola's horror novel, CYANIDE SMILE is available on lulu.com. Just click:
http://www.lulu.com/content/e-book/cyanide-smile/9918315
Showing posts with label Charlie Sheen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Charlie Sheen. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
What Would Morgan Shepherd Say to Charlie Sheen
If you can forget for a moment his five innocent children, Charlie Sheen’s televised national meltdown makes for riveting entertainment.
(How absolutely nutty must wife number three be if CHARLIE gets custody of the kids? He admits to ingesting more drugs than humanly possible and claims to be an extra-terrestrial warlock with an extraordinary brain, Adonis DNA and Tiger blood. And the crazier wife more dangerous to the kids? What must she be like? Extra-extra terrestrial?)
Now, one of my all-time favorite movies is NETWORK. As today's major networks suck on Charlie's teet for unpasteurized Rant Milk that translates into easy ratings, you can see a lot of Martin Sheen's son in Peter Finch’s stark-raving-mad television character.
Charlie, too, is mad as hell; at what, who knows, because surrounded by his "Goddesses" in an oversized home filled, he says, with peace and love and good food, he also claims to be a winner. In fact, a bi-winner! (Charlie’s answer when asked by ABC's 20/20 if he’s bi-polar.)
I’m glued to all of it, checking Twitter by the hour to see if @CharlieSheen has posted.
I need a break, and a shower, and something to uplift my spirit and restore faith in all that is decent and good in people who are of this world and have human blood, and go home to one woman, and won't likely be carted away to the hospital any time soon for ingesting a briefcase full of cocaine with half the cast of Debbie Does Dallas.
I got what I needed, and it came from an unlikely source, NASCAR driver Morgan Shepherd, who is the polar opposite of Sheen, most notably in his faith and humility and charitable nature.
Morgan went to Sin City and put on his Superman outfit.
I'm going to rip the story right from Faith Motorsports, because they tell it so well --
“Shepherd catches shoplifter: Most NASCAR drivers don't come to mind when you think of Las Vegas crimefighters, but then again, most NASCAR drivers aren't 69-year-old Morgan Shepherd.
The veteran of 44 NASCAR seasons was getting out of his rental car in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart store Monday evening just minutes away from Las Vegas Motor Speedway just as three men burst from the store's entrance with security forces trailing behind. Thats when Shepherd, a daily jogger and fitness perfectionist, sprang into action.
"I just got out and took off after them," Shepherd said. "I caught one of them just as they were getting ready to hop a little wall at the end of the parking lot. I yanked him down and got on top of him."
Shepherd said in a matter of seconds a Las Vegas police officer pitched the ageless NASCAR driver a pair and handcuffs and continued pursuit of the other two suspects, along with the store's security force.
"I cuffed him and sat on top of him," Shepherd said. "The police department officers showed up and asked if I could hold him a while longer while they ran down the others. I told them he wasn't going anywhere."
Shepherd said while the young shoplifter pleaded with him to let him go and about the possibility of going to jail, Shepherd used the time to lecture the youth about his poor choices. (Faith Motorsports)(3-1-2011)
(How absolutely nutty must wife number three be if CHARLIE gets custody of the kids? He admits to ingesting more drugs than humanly possible and claims to be an extra-terrestrial warlock with an extraordinary brain, Adonis DNA and Tiger blood. And the crazier wife more dangerous to the kids? What must she be like? Extra-extra terrestrial?)
Now, one of my all-time favorite movies is NETWORK. As today's major networks suck on Charlie's teet for unpasteurized Rant Milk that translates into easy ratings, you can see a lot of Martin Sheen's son in Peter Finch’s stark-raving-mad television character.
Charlie, too, is mad as hell; at what, who knows, because surrounded by his "Goddesses" in an oversized home filled, he says, with peace and love and good food, he also claims to be a winner. In fact, a bi-winner! (Charlie’s answer when asked by ABC's 20/20 if he’s bi-polar.)
I’m glued to all of it, checking Twitter by the hour to see if @CharlieSheen has posted.
I need a break, and a shower, and something to uplift my spirit and restore faith in all that is decent and good in people who are of this world and have human blood, and go home to one woman, and won't likely be carted away to the hospital any time soon for ingesting a briefcase full of cocaine with half the cast of Debbie Does Dallas.
I got what I needed, and it came from an unlikely source, NASCAR driver Morgan Shepherd, who is the polar opposite of Sheen, most notably in his faith and humility and charitable nature.
Morgan went to Sin City and put on his Superman outfit.
I'm going to rip the story right from Faith Motorsports, because they tell it so well --
“Shepherd catches shoplifter: Most NASCAR drivers don't come to mind when you think of Las Vegas crimefighters, but then again, most NASCAR drivers aren't 69-year-old Morgan Shepherd.
The veteran of 44 NASCAR seasons was getting out of his rental car in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart store Monday evening just minutes away from Las Vegas Motor Speedway just as three men burst from the store's entrance with security forces trailing behind. Thats when Shepherd, a daily jogger and fitness perfectionist, sprang into action.
"I just got out and took off after them," Shepherd said. "I caught one of them just as they were getting ready to hop a little wall at the end of the parking lot. I yanked him down and got on top of him."
Shepherd said in a matter of seconds a Las Vegas police officer pitched the ageless NASCAR driver a pair and handcuffs and continued pursuit of the other two suspects, along with the store's security force.
"I cuffed him and sat on top of him," Shepherd said. "The police department officers showed up and asked if I could hold him a while longer while they ran down the others. I told them he wasn't going anywhere."
Shepherd said while the young shoplifter pleaded with him to let him go and about the possibility of going to jail, Shepherd used the time to lecture the youth about his poor choices. (Faith Motorsports)(3-1-2011)
What Would Morgan Shepherd Say to Charlie Sheen?
Charle's not bi-polar. He's a bi-winner, he says!
I'm going to rip the story right from Faith Motorsports, because they tell it so well --
Shepherd catches shoplifter: Most NASCAR drivers don't come to mind when you think of Las Vegas crimefighters, but then again, most NASCAR drivers aren't 69-year-old Morgan Shepherd.
The veteran of 44 NASCAR seasons was getting out of his rental car in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart store Monday evening just minutes away from Las Vegas Motor Speedway just as three men burst from the store's entrance with security forces trailing behind. Thats when Shepherd, a daily jogger and fitness perfectionist, sprang into action.
"I just got out and took off after them," Shepherd said. "I caught one of them just as they were getting ready to hop a little wall at the end of the parking lot. I yanked him down and got on top of him." Shepherd said in a matter of seconds a Las Vegas police officer pitched the ageless NASCAR driver a pair and handcuffs and continued pursuit of the other two suspects, along with the store's security force.
"I cuffed him and sat on top of him," Shepherd said. "The police department officers showed up and asked if I could hold him a while longer while they ran down the others. I told them he wasn't going anywhere."
Shepherd said while the young shoplifter pleaded with him to let him go and about the possibility of going to jail, Shepherd used the time to lecture the youth about his poor choices. (Faith Motorsports)(3-1-2011)
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