Mark Bechtel - He Crashed Me So I Crashed Him Back: The True Story of the Year the King, Jaws, Earnhardt, and the Rest of NASCARs Feudin, Fightin Good Ol Boys Put Stock Car Racing on the Map

Copyright 2010 by Mark Bechtel

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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Second eBook Edition: February 2011

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ISBN: 978-0-316-07213-7

He Crashed Me So I Crashed Him Back is the first smart, funny, comprehensive telling of the 1979 Daytona 500. Deeply researched and with scores of interviews, it is an indispensable and entertaining reference to the first season of the NASCAR weve come to know in the decades since. If youre a fan of racing, reading, or excellence, seek it out.

Jeff MacGregor, ESPN.com

True confession: I was part of the legion of living-room layabouts on that February afternoon of 1979 who were mobilized into the NASCAR ranks with one spectacular television moment. Reading He Crashed Me So I Crashed Him Back is like finding the schoolgirl who stole your heart thirty years ago. First love, first kiss are still the best. Wonderful stuff here.

Leigh Montville, author of At the Altar of Speed and Ted Williams

Bechtel paints an excellent portrait of these colorful racers.

Charlotte Hays, Washington Post

He Crashed Me So I Crashed Him Back moves as fast as the race it depicts. This is a worthy contribution to the history of the sport and will be well received by old and new fans alike.

Lee Scott, Florida Times-Union

An illuminating, informative, and entertaining read, as the engaging and droll Bechtel is in complete control from start to finish.

Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Despite being about something that happened thirty-one years ago, its as connected to the current state of things in stock car racing as the past. Its a quick, fun read, with the type of passion and drive the sports brass craves so much. Whether youve been a fan since way back when or are a new follower, theres plenty to keep you entertained.

Marty Kirkland, Daily Citizen

If youre a NASCAR fan, or simply a lover of colorful stories, check out Mark Bechtels He Crashed Me So I Crashed Him Back.

Pam Kelley, Charlotte Observer

Bechtel provides page after page of real-life, wouldnt-believe-it-if-it-werent-true drama. An understanding of NASCAR isnt necessary to read this book, just a fascination with the diversity of humanity which is as present in racing as everywhere else and more so.

Judy Romanowich Smith, Minneapolis Star Tribune

A great read.

Tennessean.com

What Bechtel does best is not just to tell familiar stories, but to put meat on their bones and share more of the details of what really happened. In other words, Bechtel in his book tells the rest of the story.

Mary Jo Buchanan, Bleacher Report.com

Bechtels assessments are spot on. His easy, flowing style in his well-developed account is peppered with vignettes that readers will savor.

Library Journal

Bechtels NASCAR book is a winner. The best suggestion I can make is to buy it.

Mark McCarter, Huntsville Times

For my parents

Sunday, March 11, 1979

Richmond Fairgrounds Raceway

N OBODY STOOD out more than the guy in the nice loafers and the suit. In addition to his sharp threads, he was carrying an eel skin briefcase as he slogged through the muddy infield at the half-mile racetrack in Richmond, Virginia. He was from the New York Daily News. This wasnt the kind of place he was used to.

The small band of writers who did this every week, who covered NASCAR for a living, were all thinking the same thing: What is everyone doing here? There were plenty of other stories out there. Some kid named Bird was finally getting a national audience in the first round of the NCAA basketball tournament. Spring training was under way, and Pete Rose was no longer a Red. Yet the press box at the Richmond Fairgrounds Raceway was overflowing. For a stock car race.

Why?

It all started with a fight.

And it wasnt even a good one.

A few punches were thrown, but mostly it was two mentwo exhausted, middle-aged mengrabbing each other. Looking back on it years later, driver Buddy Baker said, It was more of a slow waltz. If I ever get beat up, I wanna be beat up like that. Indeed, the enduring image of the fracas is of a man in a blue and white jumpsuit grabbing the foot of a man in a white and blue jumpsuit. It looked like Evel Knievel was being mugged by an Evel Knievel impersonator.

Still, it was a fight, and who doesnt love one of those?

Because of the melee, and the last-lap wreck that triggered it, the 1979 Daytona 500 got the kind of national play normally reserved for Super Bowls and All-Star Games, even in cities, such as New York, that were remote outposts in the stock car racing universe. It helped that the people across the country were a captive audience. It snowed everywhere that day. It snowed in Cleveland, Chicago, New York, and Detroit. A lot. It snowed in Atlanta and Charlotte. Not quite as much, but hard enough to put the locals off their game. It even snowed in the Sahara. So millions of people who normally wouldnt be watching TV on a Sunday afternoon were, save for the heartiest of sledders and snowman builders, confined to their couches. And in those pre-cable days, the choices were slim. ABC showed local programming. NBC had a college basketball game. CBS showed the race live from start to finish, something no one had ever tried before.

Ten million people watched it.

They were mesmerized by what they saw. The speed! The crashes! The fighting! The sideburns! And then at the next race it happened again. Another wreck, same drivers. No fight this time, but plenty of racers who lost cars were talking like theyd be up for one, which was why Richmond was packed. They were anticipating round three.

The writers who didnt feel like cramming into the tiny press box spilled out into the pits, where it wasnt hard to tell the racing beat regulars from the interlopers. The newbies were the ones who were wearing nice shoes, looked afraid to touch anything, and jumped every time someone revved an engine. The whole scenethe carpetbaggers coming in to gawk at the feudin good ol boysleft the locals amused. Bill Millsaps of the Richmond Times-Dispatch wrote: The grist of the mass media, publications like the Washington Post, Washington Star, New York Daily News and Time magazine are sending staff writers down here to mix with us fried-chicken-eating rednecks to discover what all the cursing is about.

But saying that NASCAR was discovered in the spring of 1979 is like saying that America was discovered in the fall of 1492. Stock car racing and the New World were both aroundand, the natives would likely argue, doing just finelong before the outsiders showed up. But stock car racing was chiefly a southern phenomenon, born on the winding Appalachian roads where bootleggers souped up their family sedans so they could outrun the revenuers. It was the one sport southerners could call their own. Until the 1960s there were no NFL, NBA, or major league baseball teams south of Washington, DC. There was racing in the North, to be sure, but if a driver wanted to see how he measured up against the best, he would have to move down south.