Going in Circles... trying to get to Heaven. 

One day on a bookshelf in a tiny little bookshop some where off the beaten path it's hoped you'll run across that title. 

In it's pages you'll find chapters of a life that has revolved around people and places that go round and round- dirt tracks, asphalt tracks, moon around the earth and the earth around the sun all focusing on the same thing- a victory lane celebrating with one's God.

Getting there... those laps... have been and continue to be entertaining and one day there's a Lifetime of Going in Circles trying to Get to Heaven that will be shared with stories like these... only brief and not nearly as full of detail as they will be when in print form, but with an idea to the flow of the race - here are a few laps of Going in Circles:

~ For the old timers nothing could impress more than being served up sausage, eggs, biscuits, gravy and a plate of old school than speeding a cool country morning in the kitchen and at breakfast with Junior and Flossie. 

It's one of the coolest memories of this just out of college life when a Saturday morning in the fall I found myself in Flossie's kitchen while her and Junior prepared a big breakfast for the announcement that Sterlin Marlin would drive the Maxwell House Ford #22 out of Juniors garage- down the driveway. The suppose to be small affair actually wound up near 100 by the time the invited media, Maxwell House officials, all of us from the PR firm and all the shop employees gathered in the driveway at tables set up to eat breakfast and listen to two of country's countriest speak - Junior and Sterlin. 

(There's more laps to be told on this tale... one day.)

~ That was actually the second time Sterlin and myself had been together for a sponsor function, well actually the first time I think it was Sterling Marlin that showed up... but I'd have to check back to history to see which of Eula Faye's sons was there... anyway... again it was the fall and once again ironically enough in the same Wilkes County, NC at a lil motel that I was introduced to Sterling, one of his crew members from Nashville, and four folks from Georgia that was just about as country as Sterlin or Sterling.

As a guest of Norman Partin, me and my dad, who had went to spend a week in North Carolina going to the NASCAR Cup races at North Wilkesboro and Charlotte were invited midweek to a Coors Beer social in a tiny roadside motel in North Wilkesboro. Partin was a Nashville media guy who I had met thru doing some PR work during my college days at Western KY University as PR director for Barren Co. Raceway in nearby Glasgow. Partin, invited me to the function, which also featured one of the Coors Marketing reps. 

I didn't know until a month or so later that the meeting in the motel was actually to help determine who was going to get a national Coors sponsorship for a full season of NASCAR Cup racing... and I didn't know that a month later I'd become Bill Elliott's brother-in-law... but as Bill, Ernie and Dan Elliott and Sterlin and his crew member talked racing and beer, me and Martha Elliott, Bill's first wife, struck up a friendship that would lead to her sneaking me in the garage at Atlanta as her youngest brother. 

(There's more laps to be told on this tale... one day.)

~ There stood Jack Boggs on one side and Terry English on the other side... and Steve Francis in the center. Neither Terry or Steve got along with Jack at the time and Jack knew it, but when I asked "Black Jack" if he would help in honoring Steve, he said for you- I'll do it. 

When Chris Francis pushed Steve's family owned #15 down the front stretch, with My Old Kentucky Home blaring over the Cherokee Speedway speakers... it didn't matter to any of them the skirmishes they had with each other and for a moment in time they was all Kentuckians and for a moment were proud that I was about to officially name Steve as a Kentucky Colonel. There was a couple of other Kentucky drivers there, Steve's family and Steve's crew... but no one any more proud of what was about to happen than Chris. Chris had been my cohort in arranging the special proclamation I was to read from the Governor of Kentucky. When I petitioned the Governor and got approval for Steve's Kentucky Colonel declaration, it was Chris who I first called to share the news... no one was more proud to be a brother that day than Chris. 

As an only child it was fun to watch that day and reflect on how proud Chris was of Steve... his many wins, his STARS Series championships, and now having a huge part in the ceremony of Steve being named a Kentucky Colonel... I never myself had a brother or sister, but could only hope that if I had, we would have made a team as good as what Steve and Chris were. 

(There's more laps to be told on this tale... one day.)

~ I swear that Wolfman Jack and Jerry Clower are the same person.

(There's more laps to be told on this tale... one day.)

~ Just me and the President to be and a secret service agent alone in the elevator. 

(There's more laps to be told on this tale... one day.)

~ An extra in Stroker Ace... On the wrong side of the camera but still got the shot of Tom Cruise and Days of Thunder... Outhouse racing on Nashville TV, growing up being Fonz's pal.

(There's more laps to be told on this tale... one day.)

~ "Moms over there" as he pointed to his left. Darrell Waltrip knew I wasn't coming to get his autograph. Way before I was Bill Elliott's brother-in-law, I was Darrell's brother. 

At a bowling alley in Daytona Beach in February of 1979 a friendship sparked between the Pepsi Cola guy, his sweet southern belle like wife - Margaret and a kid who lived just 45 minutes from their house back in Kentucky. 

Darrell, Mikey, Carolyn and their other brother and sister had a new brother from that night on... Margaret  and LeRoy all but adopted me as part of the clan and be it at Daytona, Charlotte, Atlanta, Nashville, Bristol or back home at homecomings for ole DW at Kentucky Motor Speedway- I got to go to the front of the line to visit with Margaret and LeRoy... Darrell would point the way, knowing I didn't come running up to see him... but to see the two people he called mom and dad.

(There's more laps to be told on this tale... one day.)

There's already hundreds of other laps to share... People and Places and periodically I'll add a few more stories to this hint of the book I hope to write one day... full of moments of trying to make sense of this life and wondering how in the world I keep going in circles...

trying to get to heaven.