Blog by Johnson
Late last night a video clip from 1997 popped onto my Twitter feed of Benny Parsons interviewing Darrell Waltrip on pit lane after a qualifying run that landed D.W. temporarily on the pole for the inaugural event at California Speedway. Waltrip seemed to know his time wouldn't stand but that didn't stop him from basking in the glory for a few moments. During his celebratory interview with Parsons, Ernie Irvin set a new new-track-record and the party was over. That's where the clip ended and I wish I let it end there.
The video first caught my attention because of Waltrip and Parsons. Earlier in the day Dale Jr. put a little spotlight on the 1980 World 600 where Parsons and Waltrip swapped the lead at least a half dozen times in the final 20 laps. It was absolutely electric and I won't spoil the end if you haven't seen it yet. Check it out here.
So I thought it was neat that in the same day, two moments, 17 years apart, shared between legendary drivers and broadcasters Benny Parsons and Darrell Waltrip, were the topic of conversation in the Twitterverse. I'm not sure what made me open a new tab and dive deeper into that day. But I did and here's what I found notable.
Once I identified the track, I just had to figure out which race it was to satisfy my curiosity of the usual-- who won, who was doing well that year, who was at the end of their careers, who was at the beginning, etc.. I enjoy the fun facts. It wasn't hard to find the race because it was the very first California 500 at the future Auto Club/Fontana. That in of itself is a bit of a fun fact.
The first thing I noticed was that Ernie Irvin didn't get the pole that day despite the clip ending with him setting fast time. He was knocked off by Joe Nemechek. No shock there, after all, he was known as "Front Row Joe" for a reason, right? But to my surprise this was actually Nemechek's first pole of his career and it so happened to come just 10 days after the birth of his son, John Hunter Nemechek.
However, despite qualifying on the pole in the first ever event at California Speedway, it wasn't Nemechek who had the track record going into Sunday's race. Greg Sacks was called to substitute for Robby Gordon in the Felix Sebates Coors Light #40 car after Gordon suffered injuries in a wreck during practice. Sacks, with limited practice, failed to qualify in the top-25 in first-day qualifying but in round 2 set a new track record beating Nemechek's fast-time and earning himself the 26th starting position. It's very weird (to say the least) when they're doing the starting grid rundown and the graphic shows the guy in row 13 being +.738 to the pole sitter.
Another fun fact, Sacks, a Long Island modified guy, started that 1997 season driving the #20 Hardees car for Ranier-Walsh with fellow Long Island modified guy, Tommy Baldwin Jr. as the crew chief.
Last but maybe most notably, before any action started on the track, ESPN 2 cut away to report on news out of Washington D.C. that the attorneys general of 46 states along with the four major tobacco companies had come to agreement on what was then known as the 1997 National Settlement Proposal but would later become the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement. In short, the settlement awarded the states hundreds of billions of dollars in damages and tightened restrictions on sports marketing and event sponsorships for Tobacco companies. Although Winston maintained their partnership with NASCAR for several years after, it was ultimately this settlement that lead to massive financial losses for Winston (and others) and ended the decades-long partnership in 2003.
