Benny's Drive

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The death of former NASCAR champion Benny Parsons Jan. 16 brought back a lot of memories, reminding me that my roots aren’t in horse racing but in another sport where horsepower is just as important.

I was born and raised in Concord, N.C., the home of Lowe’s Motor Speedway, known back then as the Charlotte Motor Speedway. Nearby was Kannapolis, the hometown of the great Dale Earnhardt. James Russell, a man who attended my church, owned a garage, and his son, Tommy, was a friend of Dale’s and of one of my uncles. The Russells provided Dale with cars during his dirt-racing days, and one of my uncles would help out sometimes on the pit crew. Dale’s brother, Randy, worked at the Russells’ garage and repaired my parents’ car.

When I got out of college and became a sportswriter, one of the things I wanted to cover was NASCAR. I started at a twice-a-week newspaper in Wadesboro, N.C., which is not too far from North Carolina Motor Speedway in Rockingham. I met Benny Parsons at a luncheon there. The publisher of my newspaper knew Benny, and asked if he would give me a ride around the track.

Wearing a skirt, I awkwardly climbed into the window of the race car. There wasn’t much inside, except for the driver’s seat. I sat on the floor. Benny told me to brace my right hand on a piece of metal on the inside of the door. But, he warned, “Don’t wrap your fingers around it. If I hit the wall, it will cut them off!”

Then we took off, roaring around the oval at more than 100 miles per hour. It was fun, but there was no glass in the window on my side and it was quite windy and my skirt was blowing up. Frantically, I tried to tuck it under my legs, forgetting I was in a rather precarious position, riding in a speeding race car without a seatbelt.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but Benny thought this was awfully funny. When he pulled up the car at the end of trip, he announced to everyone: “She wasn’t worried about whether she was going to live or die; she was worried about her skirt!”

I would go on and cover numerous NASCAR events over the years. But eventually I wound up at a newspaper in Aiken, S.C., where a well-known winter training center was located. I fell in love with racehorses and even worked part-time as a hot walker in one of the stables. When it became time to look for another job, I decided to give up NASCAR and try to find a full-time position writing about racing, which brought me to Kentucky.

I have never regretted my decision. But it is sad to see how much NASCAR has grown since then and how much horse racing has declined in popularity with the general public.

NASCAR is run by the France family, and pretty much what they say is what everybody does. Not all their decisions are popular, and some are controversial. Because of NASCAR’s decision to promote its sport to a wider audience, new superspeedways have replaced many small tracks on the top circuit, including the oval in Rockingham now known as North Carolina Speedway.

NASCAR races appear on major television networks. It still has its beer-drinking redneck fans, but it also attracts a more upscale audience than in the past.

Horse racing, in comparison, is just muddling along. We’ve got the National Thoroughbred Racing Association, but the sport’s leaders still have trouble working together. Nearly all the stories about horses have been pushed back to the inside sections of newspapers’ sports sections, if they even appear at all. Even though the Breeders’ Cup’s move to ESPN was hailed by some industry leaders as a positive development, I think we would be better off it it was still on NBC.

While I wouldn’t want our sport to be overseen by an iron-fisted family like the Frances, it needs to be overseen by some sort of ruling body that has the power to make decisions that will benefit horse racing as a whole. We also need people as leaders who can work together.

This is not a new or an original suggestion. But it is still relevant. We’re eating NASCAR’s dust, and it doesn’t taste very good.

(Dierdre B. Biles is Bloodstock Editor of The Blood-Horse)

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