Race Day Somewhere

It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane … No, It’s Jimmie Johnson

Guest Column By Cathy Elliott In her classic pop song “Big Yellow Taxi,” Joni Mitchell posed this question: Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone? Sadly, the answer is all too often yes.

Someone did me a very good turn a week or so ago, prompting me to end the thank-you note I sent in return with the words, “my hero.”

The very next day I was watching the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Phoenix and heard someone refer to Jimmie Johnson, who won the event, as a hero. This in turn set me to thinking about the word in general, and what it really means to be a hero in this brave new contemporary world we’re all doing our best to muddle through.

Do we use the word too often, or too seldom? What defines a hero, anyway? Well, lots of things.

Heroes are brave and true. Strength, endurance and forthrightness are usually part of the job description.

Sometimes they come dressed in medal-laden uniforms, other times in bad spandex capes and tights. Heroes can be political or military figures, real or fictional.

A hero is someone who is transformed from ordinary to extraordinary by chance, or by circumstance.

Regardless of how we define the word, or in what context it is used, what it all boils down to in the end is that a hero is usually someone with a good heart, good intentions and good aim, who through his actions becomes the object of others’ admiration.

Sometimes, though, those who should stand out are instead overlooked, or disregarded altogether. The sports arena offers some notable examples. Which brings us back to Jimmie Johnson.

Johnson has a loyal fan base, but I wouldn’t necessarily describe them as rabid. Number 48 tattoos, for example, are hardly ever seen at the track.

Johnson has won a lot of races, but he didn’t accomplish that by habitually knocking other drivers out of the way. He just quietly shows up on race day with a faster car and a better crew than the other guys. What a concept.

Johnson does a lot of media interviews, but he doesn’t use the time to trash NASCAR, or individual race tracks, or his fellow competitors. He just thanks his sponsors and talks about the race.

To win a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship requires the perfect combination of talent, luck and timing. To win more than one is simply remarkable. Johnson, who had won 40 races and two consecutive championships going into the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway, is rewarded for his hard work and achievements by being routinely referred to as boring and bland.

This is hardly a new phenomenon. Flashier competitors with a higher popularity rating have eclipsed other athletes – really great ones – throughout the course of history. Pete Sampras holds the record for Grand Slam men’s tennis singles titles, but was always overshadowed by rival Andre Agassi, although Sampras won 20 of the 32 matches they played.

Roger Maris was the first baseball player to break Babe Ruth’s single-season home run record, but all the fans were rooting for Mickey Mantle that year, and some actually booed Maris’ historic achievement.

It seems important to note that the Olympic diver who makes no perceptible splash is usually the one who goes home with the gold.

We have all seen Jimmie Johnson celebrating in various Victory Lanes on numerous occasions. That’s a very public thing and is always accompanied by lots of fanfare and flashbulbs.

But take it from me, because I have witnessed this firsthand. When the cameras are nowhere in sight and you watch Johnson donating his time and attention to a Make-A-Wish child, for example, that’s really something to see. It may seem like the photo negative of a superhero, since it happens quietly and behind the scenes, but in a small way, it makes a big difference in someone’s life.

It doesn’t happen very often, but once in a blue moon we have enough sense to recognize a good thing when we see one, before it has left the building and it is too late for us to appreciate everything it has brought to our table.

So although he may be too boyishly clean-cut or too carefully glib in his interviews or just too non-controversial in general to suit our personal preferences, let’s not be too quick to dismiss Johnson as nothing more than a modern-day Clark Kent. Don’t be fooled by that mild-mannered facade. When we take a closer look, we can see that mask and cape, safely tucked out of sight in his back pocket.

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May the Best Man Tie

Guest Column By Cathy Elliott 

There’s a lot of talk going around right now about the chances of Jimmie Johnson winning his third consecutive Sprint Cup Series championship, an almost impossible feat. This has inspired plenty of discussion on the Chase for the Sprint Cup in general and whether or not the format needs revising to prevent any one driver from gaining the sort of commanding points lead which Johnson has enjoyed for much of the championship run.

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NASCAR Trick or Treat

Guest Column By Cathy Elliott When I worked as the public relations director for a race track, I always commented when NASCAR Sprint Cup Series event weekends rolled around that I was going to have T-shirts printed up reading, “No I can’t get you any free tickets.”

I wasn’t kidding. This is real problem for a track employee. One minute, you’re being introduced to someone new and answering the old standby question, “What kind of work do you do?” Following your answer – “I work at Thrillseeker Speedway”, for example – suddenly you become a shape-shifter in their eyes. No phone booth or spandex leotard required. Where mere moments ago you were perfectly normal, now you have become a human ATM.

Automatic Ticket Machine.

It seems our old buddy Bruce Springsteen may have experienced something along these lines, inspiring him to pose the question, “Is that you, baby, or just a brilliant disguise?”

Good question.

Obviously it’s Halloween season now, the time of year when we go out of our way to disguise our real selves by dressing up in outfits ranging from beautiful to bizarre.

The tradition has Celtic roots. On Halloween, when it was believed that ghosts came back to the earthly world, people thought they would encounter these ghosts if they left their homes. In order to avoid being recognized by them, people would wear masks so the ghosts would mistake them for fellow spirits.

All that seems fanciful and more than a little silly, but still the tradition of the Halloween costume continues. It is a chance to indulge your fantasies, to recreate your ordinary average self, to release your inner princess or pirate for just a few hours and present yourself to the world as something other than you really are.

Sometimes we do this brilliantly, a la Mr. Springsteen, but other times, not so much. (The shower curtain outfit, for the record, is never such a great idea.)

But what does all this talk of ghosts, ghouls and ghastly garb have to do with NASCAR? More than you might think.

It is tempting at this point to start matching drivers up with the Halloween costumes that might seem best suited to each individual – Jeff Gordon as an all-American astronaut, Jimmie Johnson as the indomitable Superman, Dale Earnhardt Jr. as brand-new superhero Awesomeman – but that would be too easy.

Something a lot of people get confused about is the difference between a person and a persona. In sports, this is particularly prevalent, and it’s all too easy to get wrapped up in the face an athlete presents to the public, and either refuse or fail to recognize the character of the person hiding underneath. But just as Halloween is the holiday of masks, inevitably it will end and some real faces will be revealed.

Take Kevin Harvick, for example. During his career, Harvick has earned a reputation as a guy who is willing to stand up and fight – sometimes literally – if he feels the situation warrants. Fellow drivers Carl Edwards and Kurt Busch have been the objects of Harvick’s “attention” in the past.

Recently, Harvick heard about the hardships being endured by  Hall of Fame driver Sam Ard, a former NASCAR champion who in addition to battling Alzheimer’s was also suffering extreme financial difficulties. Shortly thereafter, the Chevrolet van used in one of Harvick’s sponsors’ 2008 TV commercials miraculously found its way into Ard’s garage, courtesy of racing’s “Prizefighter”.

Tony Stewart has had several well-publicized run-ins, both verbal and physical, with members of his own team as well as media folks.

What you might not know about Stewart, however, is that this “Bully” has a soft spot for animals and kids. He has donated millions of dollars to the Victory Junction Gang Camp, a facility for chronically and terminally ill children founded by the Petty family. Stewart rescues greyhounds and has paid for bullet-proof vests for police dogs.

How about Kyle Busch, the driver everyone loves to hate?

NASCAR’s current version of “Darth Vader” decided, after visiting an orphanage in 2006, to start a foundation with a primary focus on kids with compromised living situations. The Kyle Busch Foundation has participated in lots of charitable events designed to help kids, like the collection of pajamas for orphans. Pretty good behavior from such an allegedly bad guy, wouldn’t you say?

In NASCAR, as in life, what you see is not always what you get. Sometimes, if you take the effort to take a look behind the trick, you’ll find there’s a real treat hiding in there somewhere.

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That Poor Jeff Gordon

Guest Column By Cathy Elliott

At the end of the race at Martinsville Speedway on October 19, I heard these words spring from the lips of an actual human, with my very own ears: “That poor Jeff Gordon.”

Say what? You have got to be kidding. Surely I didn’t hear that right. Gordon had just finished fourth in the race and moved up one spot in the driver standings.

It seemed ludicrous to me that anyone, anywhere, under any circumstances, could ever feel sorry for this particular driver.

Much like Pigpen in the old “Peanuts” cartoon series, Jeff Gordon seems to move through life surrounded by a constant cloud of dust. The difference is that Gordon’s cloud is made of gold dust.

In an arena known to be the most competitive in all of professional sports —- the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series circuit -— Gordon has thumped 42 other teams in the head four times during his career to win as many series titles. That ranks him third on the overall championship list, behind Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt, who each earned seven titles.  Even if Jimmie Johnson manages to accomplish the nearly impossible feat of winning a third consecutive title this season, Gordon will still be one up on him.

Part of NASCAR’s 50th anniversary celebration in 1998 was a comprehensive list of the sport’s 50 all-time greatest drivers. The 26-year-old Gordon made the list. That’s a great accomplishment, but just so there would be no question as to whether he deserved such an honor, Gordon went on to win the championship, his third, that same year. Then he followed it up with a fourth title in 2001. Jeff Gordon likes a lot of icing on his cake.

With 81 career Cup Series wins, Gordon ranks sixth on the all-time win list. Two more victories will tie him with Cale Yarborough for fifth. Three more wins would tie him with Darrell Waltrip and Bobby Allison for third place.

Gordon is included on Sports Illustrated magazine’s list of the 25 richest American athletes. Not the richest NASCAR drivers, mind you, but the most financially successful athletes in all of sports. Some of the other names on the list are Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning, New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter and some guy named Tiger. I think he may be a golfer.

You can probably understand now why my first reaction to that overheard comment was to say something along the lines of, “Yeah, cry me a river for that poor Jeff Gordon.”

But then I thought about it, and I kind of understood where the guy was coming from.

In life, there is a distinction to be made between things that you do, and things that you are. For example, we do know how to ride a bicycle, but Lance Armstrong is a cyclist. We do write, but Pat Conroy is a writer. Some of us do play the guitar, but Eric Clapton is a guitarist.

And make no mistake about this. Most of us do drive cars, but Jeff Gordon is a racecar driver.

There is a quality every NASCAR competitor seems to have indelibly stamped on his or her personal DNA. Appropriately enough in this instance, it is often referred to as… drive.

It is desire and determination. It is the unwillingness to accept anything less than the ultimate prize, and the utter inability to give anything less than your personal best.

So while four championships are great, five or six would be even better, and eight would be best of all.

If Gordon does tie Allison and Waltrip for third on the winners’ list (my money’s on him), second-place David Pearson (105 victories) just might start looking a little squirmy, if you know what I’m saying.

The 50 greatest NASCAR drivers of all time? How about the top 10, or the top five? 

It is unlikely that Gordon will win this year’s Sprint Cup Series championship. He has an outside chance, at best, at this late point in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. He will don his designer tuxedo and make a charming speech at the awards banquet in New York City, but you can bet it will gall him that some other driver is hoisting the trophy at evening’s end. He will consider what would constitute a banner year for plenty of other racers to be just not good enough. He will present a gracious face to the public — yet another thing he does remarkably well –and then he and his team will head back to the shop to puzzle and ponder and problem-solve until the 2009 Daytona 500 rolls around and they can give it another go.

Like that elusive brass ring on the old carnival carousels, perfection is something we all know we cannot reach. But as we grow and progress and our arms get longer, we can come a whole lot closer with each attempt, and we never stop trying.

Jeff Gordon’s arms have grown longer and stronger with the passing years and have embraced a great many accomplishments along the way.  On our own individual roads to success, we could do a lot worse than to emulate his driving style, both personally and professionally.

After thinking it through, I’ve decided I’m sticking with my first reaction. That poor Jeff Gordon? I don’t think so.

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Jeff Burton Proves Nice Guys Do Finish First

Guest Column By Cathy Elliott . The theme song to the environmentally-conscious movie “Hoot,” penned by Nashville Hall of Fame songwriter Mac McAnally, reminds us that, “Now and then, just when you think it won’t happen again … the good guys win.”During the 2008 Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, driver Jeff Burton is reminding us of the same thing. One of the most difficult roles to fill in any professional sports arena, NASCAR included, is that of “the guy nobody dislikes.” You have to race well enough to keep your job and make your sponsors happy, but if you win too often, you alienate the fans of every other driver, so it follows that they will begin to dislike you. (Kyle Busch, with eight wins on the season so far, could attest to this.)You can’t straddle the fence, but you can’t plant yourself firmly on one side or the other. If you try to play both sides you can never hope to win. You can try to play both ends against the middle, but that’s ill-advised. Sometimes you might come out on the front end, but all too often this tactic could land you in the back of the field, literally.You have to perform well enough to make the Chase, meaning you need good finishes each week, but you can’t be the guy who always beats Dale Earnhardt, Jr. If you do that, well, then you’re the guy who always beats Junior, and dislike may be too delicate a term for the reaction of his fans. You must be willing to follow in the footsteps of others, but not eclipse them by leaving a larger footprint. Case in point: The old Baby Ruth car, which competed in the Nationwide Series during the ’90s. The 1991 Nationwide Series Rookie of the Year Jeff Gordon (you may have heard of him) used his performance in the Baby Ruth Ford as a springboard to a full-time ride in the Sprint Cup Series and a job with Hendrick Motorsports the following year. Gordon’s successor in the Baby Ruth car? Jeff Burton. Gordon piloted the car to a fourth-place finish in the driver standings in 1992. Burton followed that with a 14th-place finish in 1993. That’s pretty good, but not as good as Gordon. You would think all that fence sitting and line-walking would make a guy sore after a while, but not Burton. In general, each major league baseball team has at least one member of the team who can be described as a “utility player”. Pete Rose, his later illicit behavior notwithstanding, was a great example of a utility player. During Rose’s career, he played left field, right field, center field, third base, second base and finally, first base. Whatever skill was deemed necessary at the time, he delivered it. Wherever he was needed, he was there.Rose was not known as a slugger or a power hitter. Instead, consistency was his key strength. He holds the Major League Baseball Record for career base hits. When the job needed doing during a game, he did it. In a sense, Jeff Burton is NASCAR’s ultimate utility player. With 21 Cup Series victories, he has won more than some, fewer than others. He raced well enough to make the Chase in the past two seasons, but never seriously contended for the title, finishing seventh in 2006 and eighth last year. He has plenty of fans, but his souvenir hauler is not the most crowded at the track on race day. He has emerged as a sort of de facto spokesperson for the Sprint Cup Series drivers. He has been tactfully critical or wholeheartedly supportive of various “hot button” issues in the sport, as he has seen fit. Somehow, he never seems to get in hot water with NASCAR for his willingness to speak his mind. He is honest and forthright. No one ever gets mad at him. What the heck, it’s an election year. Let’s go ahead and say that where the Sprint Cup Series championship is concerned, Burton is a terrific candidate for the job. Dare we go so far as to call him a role model? Yes, I believe we do. NASCAR news of late has concerned things like R-rated radio communications and shoving matches in the garage. In an atmosphere so absolutely fueled by adrenaline, emotions can’t help but run high. But in the midst of all this flash and fury, instead of being a “character,” Jeff Burton displays character. So let’s not be too quick during this year’s championship Chase to hitch ourselves up to the “nice guys finish last” bandwagon. This contest is far from over, and so far, there seems to be a better than fair chance that Jeff Burton — a very nice guy indeed — just might finish first.I believe it would be an outcome nobody in general, and true NASCAR fans in particular, could possibly dislike.

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Can’t Fight The Fever For The Chase

Guest Column By Cathy Elliott

The Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup is halfway finished, and I’m not feeling so good. A friend once told me she is unable to enjoy the last day of a vacation because she worries about going back home. This feeling is totally understandable and not all that uncommon. In fact, I’m guilty of exactly the same thing, but it hits me earlier in the week. Around Day 4 of a week-long trip, I start preparing for the return journey, which I affectionate refer to as “the ordeal.” First, I make sure my important documents, stashed in the hotel safe and locked with a combination that I check and recheck a half dozen times each day, really are safe. Then I do it again, just to be on the safe side. Midway through the week, with plenty of fun still left to be had, I inevitably open my mouth and chirp, “So, where do you want to go next year?” I realize this throws a wet blanket on even the sunniest of days, but I can’t help myself. I review which items I have worn so far and regretfully pack them away. I know I will enjoy them some of them again next year, in a different locale or with another style of shoe, but for now I have to set it all behind and move on to the next day at the beach, the next night on the town. Or the next race. This worry-wart syndrome is by no means exclusive to vacationing fashionistas. Among NASCAR fans, it is a veritable epidemic with no apparent cure. We wait all season long for the Chase to begin. Endless discussion of points and paint schemes and potential performances of drivers with new teams begins long before the green flag drops on the season-opening Daytona 500 in February. The 10 races that comprise the championship battle manifest themselves as nothing more than a low-grade fever at this point, a slight tickle in the back of the throat. Still, we know we’re definitely coming down with something.We don’t even try to make ourselves feel better; quite the contrary. Like taking off our shoes and walking barefoot in the rain while in the clutches of the common cold, we actively do anything we can to make it worse. We watch the races, of course. We speculate about the driver standings from the very first week. If our favorite driver is in the top 12, we know exactly how many points out of first place he is, and how many points separate him from the guy just ahead of him. If he is out, we know how many spots he needs to finish ahead of the guy in 13th in order to claim that position for himself. In other words, we don’t fight our illness. We figure it’s chronic anyway, so why not just go ahead and embrace it?Things hold pretty steady through the spring events, but when summer arrives, the symptoms really begin to escalate. Accelerated pulses are commonplace, often accompanied by some slight queasiness at times. Night races can induce night sweats. There have even been some reports of restless leg syndrome, as fans are simply unable to watch an entire race without leaping off the sofa at least twice. At this point, our condition begins to deteriorate rapidly. Race No. 26 looms. We can see it gleaming in the distance like the Emerald City of Oz. The Chase is near. We wait so long and experience so much, from feverish highs to sometimes chilling lows, before it finally arrives. Then, everything changes. Instead of looking forward, we begin counting backward, from 10 all the way down to one. There is a nagging sense of dread that accompanies the start of each race in the Chase. Whether it turns out to be tame or Talladega, its conclusion just moves us inexorably closer to the end of the season. The final 10 numbers seem to move so much more quickly than the first 26. All those months of attention, anxiety and anticipation have come down to this: Be careful what you wish for. For months, all we wanted was for the Chase to begin, and now that it has, we never want it to end.Difficult though it may be, it is critical to our various long-term prognoses that we enjoy each race we have left to the fullest, and try not to worry about what in the world we’re going to do when they’re gone. How can anything so contagious make a body feel so good? Maybe the only cure for this type of NASCAR fever is another dose of the disease itself. The best interim treatment available is to pop a couple of patience pills after the season-ending race at Homestead, in just five more weeks, and start counting the days until February 2009. The late comedian Jackie Mason once observed: “It’s no longer a question of staying healthy. It’s a question of finding a sickness you like.”Call the doctor, stat. I think we have a terminal case on our hands.

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