Friends, former rivals salute Elder

THATSRACIN.COM OPINION

Saturday, Mar. 14, 2009

MOORESVILLE, N.C. - When NASCAR inspects a new car of tomorrow at its research and development center in Concord, it uses a device called a Roamer arm to mark elements of that chassis on a three-dimensional grid plotted on X, Y and Z axes.

Jake Elder would have used a tape measure. Or two. Or three. And his measurements would have been, in every way that matters, every bit as useful as those made by the fancy-schmancy machine used today.

As modern-day stock-car racing takes the weekend off, another era of the sport was showcased Saturday at the Memory Lane Motorsports & Automotive Museum in Mooresville.

Despite a cold rain that washed out some activities outside the museum, the third annual Legends Helping Legends of Racing event was a rousing success. Hundreds of race fans found room indoors to meet and talk with dozens of former drivers and mechanics who turned out to honor one of their own.

That would be Elder, a longtime crew chief known in racing circles as "Suitcase Jake" because of the many stops he had along the path in his racing career.

Elder won championships with David Pearson and Dale Earnhardt, but there's more to him that just what you can list in record books.

Elder had next to no formal education and those who know him will tell you he never wrote anything down. That does not mean that he was not also a great teacher who passed on some of his knowledge about racing and race cars to the generation who followed.

Jeff Hammond, now an announcer with Fox Sports, considered it a great honor and privilege to learn the craft of being a NASCAR crew chief from people like Elder, Herb Nab and Junior Johnson.

"Witchcraft?" Hammond says when asked if it's a term that fits the gift these men had with a race car. "I don't know if that's the term I'd use because it sort of seems like it diminishes the 'black art' they practiced. Maybe it's better to say they were sorcerers."

There certainly are car owners who'd say Elder's talents were Merlinesque.

Jack Roush once said that when he had a 'demon' in one of his car he'd call Elder to come get it out. Waddell Wilson said Elder could walk up to a car, put his knee on each corner and tell you what the rating was for each spring.

The tape measures were part of the spell. Elder had several, ones for different measurements on the car and others for different types of cars. Elder would use permanent markers to put his own lines on these rulers, each defining something he believed to be critical to a car's proper construction and assembly.

Elder sat Saturday in a room lined with tables full of people he'd once raced with and against. It would have been wonderful if Elder could have a told a story about each person willing to tell a story on him, but Elder's health no longer allows that. This was Elder's first trip in a year or so outside the assisted-care facility in Statesville where he now lives.

Elder's friends came to raise money to help the family deal with the financial burden of his long-term care, and whatever amount that will be totaled will provide perhaps what one might consider the precise measure of the day's success.

There was more to this than that. Saturday was also about having racing legends come together to be remembered by the fans and to renew their acquaintances and friendly rivalries.

Any way you mark or measure that, this day was a success.

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