Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 27, 1994 TAG: 9403270085
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: DARLINGTON, S.C. LENGTH: Long
Most of the people in Winston Cup racing once did something else for a living.
Ernie Irvan welded seats at Charlotte Motor Speedway when he first came to North Carolina from California. Wally Dallenbach was a plumber's assistant.
It's difficult to imagine six-time Winston Cup champion Dale Earnhardt inside the tank of a gasoline truck, spot-welding the seams. But that's exactly what he did for a time. They must have had safety standards, because Earnhardt is alive.
Most racers spent at least a part of their lives working with their hands at manual labor - the kinds of jobs many of their fans have.
"I've had lots of jobs outside racing, but probably the most interesting was snaking logs with a mule," says Ned Jarrett, a former driver. "We had mules to pull the logs to the sawmill.
"I raced 'em. Had to make a competition of it, you know. I tried to see how fast I could get back to the sawmill, weaving in and out of trees."
"I was a forklift driver for Chevrolet in Detroit," says another former driver, Benny Parsons. "But I had to work nights, so I quit that and worked as a taxicab mechanic so I could get off and go racing. I had a license to drive the cab, but I drove it only a few times."
"I was a yard dog for a drilling company in Midland, Texas," Bobby Hillin says. "That was pretty interesting. I worked out in the drilling yard, took care of the pipes and stuff like that."
Not everyone had it so rough. In 1955, a teen-ager named Bobby Allison found his dream job.
"After I graduated from high school in Miami, I went to Wisconsin and went to work for Mercury outboard motors at their proving grounds," Allison said. "I was a 17-year-old kid running a motorboat around the lakes and rivers of Wisconsin all day long. And they gave me a paycheck every Friday."
Some found it difficult remembering everything they've done.
"I worked on the assembly line making cabinets at a woodworking factory for five days shy of a year when I got out of high school," says Dave Marcis. "I hated it. But I've done a lot of things. I put a roof on a barn. I spent one summer picking beans and another summer picking cucumbers. I worked on pea-viners. In the Army, I was a cook. I like to cook. I worked at a Chrysler dealership. I had a garage and wrecking yard. I ran a tavern. I've done a lot of stuff."
Rick Mast has had a similar range of experience.
"I drove a dump truck, I drove a bulldozer, I spread lime with a fertilizer truck, I pumped gas at a filling station, I worked as a mechanic, I sold auto parts, I sold cars," says the driver from Rockbridge Baths. "But the thing I enjoyed most was installing satellite dishes. We couldn't get any television stations where I lived, and I couldn't afford to buy a dish, so I started selling them."
Says Johnny Hayes, who is with Mast's sponsor, American Tobacco: "The first thing I heard about Rick Mast didn't have anything to do with his driving. It was, `You can get a good deal on a satellite dish from that guy.' "
"I worked on a loading dock at a place called Kentucky Electric in the 1960s," says Darrell Waltrip. "They made little wires and parts that went in radios. I unloaded the parts and put them in inventory. When I took the job, the warehouse was dirty and unorganized. When I left, it was immaculate."
The three Bodine brothers have three very different stories.
"I was the head fabricator in a paper cup factory in Kensington, Conn.," says Todd Bodine, the youngest. "It was Brett's sponsor on his modified car. I built all the guards and different things that go on the cup machines."
"I worked on the farm," says the middle brother, Brett. "It was interesting and I enjoyed it. I used to do the morning feeding and milking in the winter, and during the summer I was baling hay and straw and working on maintenance."
"I worked at the Strohman Bread Factory in Sayre, Pa.," says the eldest Bodine brother, Geoff. "I was on on the cutting, slicing and packaging machine. I had to get up at 3 in the morning. And the smell of that bread - the dough - at 3 in the morning. Ugh! I think I lasted two weeks. I realized right away that being a race car driver sounded like a pretty good profession. To this day I'm not a great bread eater."
The Pettys have been such hard-core racers for so long that it's difficult to find anything but racing in the Petty resume for the past two generations.
"I've never had a job outside racing," Kyle Petty says.
"I never worked for a living, but growing up I used to work in the tobacco fields with my uncle," Richard Petty says. "I'd hoe the tobacco, sucker it, kill all the worms. And I'd help him cultivate it, put it on sticks and put it in the barn. But I was a kid, so that really wasn't work."
Some drivers worked in family businesses. Chuck Bown, Ricky Rudd and Terry Labonte spent long hours in the family salvage yards. "And I sold tickets for a while at Charlotte Motor Speedway," Bown says.
Steve Grissom was a washboy at his father's car lot in Gadsden, Ala.
But no one had a more dangerous or memorable job than Lake Speed's car owner, Bud Moore, a World War II veteran.
"I was in the infantry in Patton's 3rd Army," Moore said. "I was in a heavy-weapons company. We had a .30-caliber machine gun. We hit the beach June 6 [D-day] at 5 o'clock in the morning. We went in at Utah Beach. Glad it wasn't Omaha. But it was bad.
"I was carrying the tripod. It weighed 51 pounds. I had just turned 17 years old, going into a big World War like that. That was something. You could hardly believe it. You couldn't imagine people shooting at you, trying to kill you. But men were falling beside you, getting blown up by shells. You just could hardly comprehend something like that. It was something.
"You know that scene in the movie `Patton,' where he's standing there directing traffic? I saw that happen. I was riding by on a tank. I tell you, it was something."
Keywords:
AUTO RACING
by CNB