Race Officials Review Saturday Night Spectacular at Bristol Motor Speedway

Harold Crook grew up attending NASCAR and late model sportsman events around the East Coast, often soaking in three events during a single weekend.

Crook loves the tales of struggle and triumph associated with the formative days of stock car racing. That’s why he was so excited about the March 21st Saturday Night Special legends race at Bristol Motor Speedway.

“Drivers like Jack Ingram, Junior Johnson and L.D. Ottinger are icons to me,” Crook said during a Saturday afternoon phone interview. “They helped to get this sport started, and more fans need to understand what these guys accomplished.”

Crook had a unique vantage point for the Saturday Night Special, serving as the pace car driver for both the celebrity and legends portion of the event as part of his role with the United Auto Racing Association. Crook offered a few suggestions to inject more suspense, including combining the UARA late models and legends into a distinct program.

“In my opinion, there would have been just as much interest if the drag racers and celebrities stayed at home,” Crook said. “And when you consider the [NASCAR] Nationwide race on Saturday afternoon, there was just too much piled on for one day.”

For the final piece of that old-school puzzle, Crook feels that fans should be allowed onto the track to meet the drivers.

“That’s the way it used to be,” Crook said. “Instead of having hurrying up to get on a helicopter after a race, drivers would stick around and talk to the spectators.”

According to Crook, drivers such as Ingram were just as enthused as the fans for their fast trip back in time.

“You could tell these guys were serious from the moment they arrived for their first practice session,” Crook said.

The signature moment for Crook was watching 70-year-old L.D. Ottinger charge through the 12-driver field en route to a third-place finish. Sterling Marlin, will still competes part-time in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, led all 35 laps of the late model race, and Rusty Wallace finished second.

“Once L.D. found his groove, he just took off,” Crook said. “I think he could have caught Rusty with a few more laps.”

Bristol Motor Speedway vice-president of events Wayne Estes, another devotee of stock car racing history, explained via e-mail that BMS officials invited the popular Marlin to participate in the Saturday Night Spectacular before older drivers such as Cale Yarborough and 77-year-old Junior Johnson actually agreed to race. They never expected that the 52-year-old Marlin would also be a competitor in Sunday’s Food City 500.

“After you extend the invitation, you certainly don’t want to withdraw it, so we moved ahead, satisfied that it would be very entertaining simply to see Harry Gant, Jack Ingram, Cale Yarborough and Junior Johnson back on the track again,” Estes said. “From most of the fan e-mail we received, that assumption was on target.”

Estes said the process of selecting the legends field dictated that Bristol winners at the Cup or Busch/Nationwide Series level would compete, and none would be “full-time” competitors in either series.

“This gave us the opportunity to keep Terry Labonte in the field,” Estes said. “Considering his ties to the two most famous finishes in our history, we wanted Terry in the race.“

As is the case with all events at the track, Estes and BMS staff will review options for improving the legends show.

“Clearly, we learned a lot that will be applied if we do this again,” Estes said. “The question now is, do the fans want to see it again. Most of them tell us that they do, with some adjustments.
“I talked to Cale Yarborough and his comment was, “‘Take the young guys out and let just us old guys race.”’ That seems to be the prevailing feeling, and open it up beyond Bristol winners so that Buddy Baker and Ricky Rudd can take part.”

When the possibility of the legends race was first proposed, Estes said he asked BMS vice-president of finance Fred King about the overall timing of the event during what was already a busy race weekend.

“Looking back at that question, I remember thinking, yes, we can do this,” Estes said. “Now I know we needed more time, but we still made it happen. It just didn’t look like something Bristol Motor Speedway would stage.

In retrospect, Estes admitted that the Saturday Night Special could have more been compelling with additional planning and tinkering.

“Given a little more time – or no other distractions like, say, a NASCAR weekend’s normal workload or Food City Race Night moving to the speedway, or selling Cup tickets right up until race day – we would have met expectations,” Estes said.

Race officials were forced to operate under a tight time frame as they approached the live television window for national coverage on ESPN 2. Estes said he regrets not having a public-address announcer available for the two celebrity heat races that preceded the legends race.

“I wish I could apologize to every fan in the stands about that,” Estes said.

Despite the challenges, Estes said he came away from the legendary experience exhilarated. Estes shared a story of how the always innovative Johnson instructed his crew to find a can of black pepper in hopes of stopping a leak after Johnson’s car was involved a practice crash with Jimmy Spencer.

“Then there’s the picture of Yarborough standing next to that car, wearing a 30-year-old uniform that fit perfectly, saluting the crowd. That’s the image I take away from the day,” Estes said.

Suggestions for improving the legends race include having all the racers compete in UARA late models, or at least running the same engines.

“All in all, this was the first time in a couple of decades that anyone has had this kind of success putting this level of drivers – Hall of Famers – back on a real NASCAR track in real race cars in front of a real NASCAR crowd,” Estes said

Crook returned to his roots Saturday at Lonesome Pine Raceway, an asphalt short track located in Coeburn, Va. While small weekly tracks across the country face peril due to the ongoing recession, LPR is scheduled to open on April 4 with five divisions of competition.

“Fans are still hungry for the old style of racing,” said Crook, who serves as an official at LPR. “We’re hoping to have a car count of around 80 for our first show, and we plan to have 23 nights of racing.
“Times are tough, so you just have to work hard and reach out to the true fans every way you can.”

agregory@bristolnews.com|(276) 645-2544