NASCAR Then and Now - Ben White [19]
The Rollout
This is one moment of the race weekend that hasn’t changed much over the decades. Aside from winning the race, one of the proudest moments for any team is when the car is rolled out onto the starting grid. Doing so means everything that could possibly be done to the car has been completed. Practice and qualifying are done, checklists have been scanned, and all pieces on the car have been double- checked. There is simply nothing left to do other than push the car into place in front of thousands of cheering fans. The next time the crew touches the car will be during pit stops, and, if all goes well, when it rolls into victory lane.
Richard Petty’s crew hustles his trademark red-and-blue No. 43 STP Dodge Charger down the Darlington pit road toward its starting position prior to a race in 1976. Petty campaigned Dodges and Chryslers for much of his 32-year career.
Although the graphics will change from time to time depending upon sponsorship agreements, the race cars of today are never hard to identify. The Joe Gibbs Racing crew pushes Kyle Busch’s colorful Toyota Camry down pit road at Charlotte Motor Speedway in May 2009.
Pre-Race Ceremonies
Nothing highlights NASCAR’s growth from a humble-but-ambitious race series to a season-long tour of events like today’s pre-race ceremonies. In the 1950s and 1960s the pre-race festivities largely consisted of gathering the competitors at the start-finish line where the announcer conducted brief pre-race interviews to be heard on the radio and over the speedway’s public address system. Today’s pre-race shows are designed to whip up the fans into a frenzy of excitement. Makeshift stages are pulled to the start-finish line on the front stretch and quickly assembled. Equipped with bright lights, eye-catching graphics, and even pods that shoot colorful fireworks, these stages host live music performed by big ticket entertainers and are the place where drivers, team owners, track officials, and dignitaries are interviewed.
In keeping with NASCAR tradition, the pre-race ceremonies conclude with a prayer and a performance of “The Star- Spangled Banner,” with the U.S. military stamping a sonic exclamation point over the proceedings with a perfectly timed fighter jet flyover at the conclusion. The crowd, the drivers, the teams, the officials, and the media are pumped up and ready for four hours of NASCAR-style excitement. Moments later, the drivers climb into their cars. Over the public address system, the famous command is given: “Gentlemen, start your engines!” All the hours of work, preparation, and anticipation are about to be put to the test. The race is about to begin. . . .
Edward Glenn “Fireball” Roberts acknowledges the crowd during driver introductions before the 1960 Rebel 300 at Darlington. Roberts was one of the most popular drivers of his era and his untimely death following a crash and fire in 1964 was a major blow to the sport.
Today’s drivers aren’t just introduced: They are literally paraded before the crowd, as Mark Martin demonstrates before the August 2009 race at Bristol. This was no typical driver parade for Martin, though, as the huge crowd surprised him with a “card trick” celebrating the veteran racer’s 1,000th career NASCAR start.
Pre-race interviews have been a part of the pre-race ritual ever since radio, and later television, began covering the sport. Here Richard Petty (left) prepares to talk with highly respected ABC Sports commentator Chris Economaki prior to the start of the 1967 Daytona 500. At that time the network usually aired segments of tape-delayed races during its Saturday afternoon Wide World of Sports telecasts.
Today, all 36 races of the NASCAR Sprint Cup season are aired live on a major broadcast or cable network. Here former NASCAR-driver-turned-broadcaster Phil Parsons interviews Dale Earnhardt Jr. before the race at Las Vegas in March 2008. Today, pre-race interviews take place not only