 | gt40boy (0)
07/20/2004 |  I've just done one of my periodic googles for Fireball Roberts and landed at this site.
Refreshing to find others still interested in Fireball. The web has not been as big a resource as I would have hoped for info, pictures, and stories about Fireball.
Like other people, as a kid, I became a fan and follower of Fireball; the nickname, the success on the track, the cool crew cut, the reports of what a decent person Glenn Roberts was; all attracked my interest in racing and this racer. There was not much tv, radio, track-pass (haha) or real-time news. Just the print articles in daily papers, weekly racing rags, and (could we wait a whole month?) monthly magazines.
My uncle built engines and chassis for the local half-mile dirt track and he let me hang around for hours, and hours handing him tools and helping a little at his old barn which was his shop.
I can still see, tacked to the wall, a clipping he'd taken from a magazine with a picture of Fireball and that flat-top haircut. In Memorium it said above his picture and name.
Nascar today is corporate, big-bucks, and has at least a few (in my opionion) spoiled brats.
The contemporary youth of any time, though, are not always interested in history very much. (not true of real fans of a sport)
And corporations are interested in money. Those Saturday nights at the dirt track 40 years ago were so much more akin to the racing that Fireball, Junior Johnson, Lorenzen and Jarrett were doing at the time. Nascar racing (I'm still a luke-warm fan) today is far removed from the spirit of true racing that existed then on the big tracks and still exists at the grass roots today.
Many of us should look at and take a good example from the past - especially if we call ourselves true fans. Baseball fans can tell you what pitch was thrown to the lead-off hitter in the 6th inning of the first game in the 1962 World series. How many of todays Nascar fans know as much about their sport?
(2 voted this helpful, 0 funny and 0 agree) |
