Dale Jr. is 8 Dale Sr. was 3 and yes Mark Martin is 6. When I was walking around Kiev I thought it was really funny to see all the Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Sr. Racing Jackets. I could see Jr. for the Budweiser. Maybe the Ukrainians have speedvision?
As for Hockey and being a ex player that ventured into Canada to play as a youth, It is the only sport I have supported the players. Their risks are not justified by the rewards.
I do have a good Dick Trickle Story. Back in 1981 at Winchester speedway I was in the pisser relieving massive amounts of Alcohol
when this drunk dude started shooting his mouth off about how tight him and Trickle were. About 4 guys down the long metal urinal was Trickle pissing also. Tickle was in jeans and just kicking back when I yelled at him, hey Dick you know this guy? Trickle with a grin looked down at the guy and said, Never met him before now! That poor bastard couldn't find a hole deep enough to crawl into. Trickle went over to the guy and autographed his shirt and said, now son we are friends. I miss the ASA days with Martin,Eddy, Miller, Trickle, Wallace and Allison and Richmond. One I'm an old race fan I watched Darrel Waltrip win the Tecumseh 300 at Salem speedway in 1972 before he got big in Nascar. Yeah I'm a race junkie a sport where you truly get paid for performance or your ass gets canned, there are a lot of good drivers without rides this year. I have my father to blame for my racing addiction he took me to my first race in 1964 to the Daytona 500 and I have been hooked since!!!!
I was very surprised also when I saw a couple of Home Depot #20 Tony Stewart jackets my last visit to Russia. I also saw Goodwrench racing jackets, and these were in Rostov, not Moscow or St. Petersburg.
I grew up watching North East Modified racing on both dirt and asphalt. This led me to get involved in kart racing and later in mini mods and outlaw mods (4 cylinder). I still race when I can, but not every weekend. When I lived in Louisville I visited several dirt tracks in southern Indiana...Charlestown and Brown County and Bloomington. Love that dirt!
Fortunately my Russian girl likes racing also. She watches F-1, and loves to see pictures of my racing. I just can't picture her at the local dirt track in her make up and high heels!!
I know those places well. I live in Madison Indiana about 35 miles from Charlestown and worked mostly in Louisville. The surprising thing when I moved down here it is mostly dirt racing. I grew up in northern Indiana and they race on asphalt. I've been to Camden Indiana and a friend of mine races 4 cylinder sprints. I've thought about getting into carting again just for fun. Larissa is really curious to see what my fascination with racing is. She says she's watched some rally racing in Ukraine, but I think Indianapolis and Bristol will blow her away.
Now I live in Florida so I have tickets to Homestead, and also visit Daytona to race during kart week and watch great dirt and asphalt racing during speed weeks.
I remember watching Mark Martin race at Charlestown in the early 1980's for a special apperance. They started him one lap down at the rear, and he smoked the field!
I'm leaving for Russia next week so I'll miss a couple of races. I better set the VCR now while I am thinking about it.
Like him or loathe him, Schumacher is still the best driver, but in F1, the cars are not as evenly matched, hence bad car and not so good tyres and its almost impossible to win a race