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closeDon't care who you are - that first car was special in a way
THATSRACIN.COM OPINION
SCOTT FOWLER
The Charlotte Observer
Saturday, May. 24, 2008
Like our first date or our first baseball glove, we all remember our first car.
Even NASCAR drivers, who have driven millions of miles in their lifetimes, don't forget them. First cars represent freedom. They are sometimes cool. Sometimes geeky. Always memorable.
With a little help, I gathered up memories from a half-dozen drivers in Sunday's Coca-Cola 600 about their own first cars. The drivers I interviewed for this story grew instantly nostalgic when I broached the topic - none more so than Dale Earnhardt Jr. He talked about his first car - which was actually a truck - like it was a long-lost girlfriend who suddenly moved to Paris and took up with some suave French guy.
Recalled Earnhardt Jr.: "My dad gave it to me for my 16th birthday. It was a 1986 (Chevy) S-10 pickup truck. Single cab. Short bed. Black and silver. Two-tone. Nothing tricked up about it at all. Stock wheels and tires. I loved it. I loved that truck."
When Earnhardt Jr. got his high-school diploma, however, his father tried to trump the original gift to his son but misfired. "When I graduated high school," Earnhardt Jr. said, "I got a full-size extended cab, short-bed truck that was two-tone brown with no carpet. And I hated that truck. And I missed my black-and-silver single-cab truck. I missed the hell out of that truck. I used to drive by the used-car lot where it was parked and just look at it."
Tony Stewart's first car was a 1979 Plymouth Volare, and it got him in hot water pretty quickly.
"I'll never forget it," Stewart said. "I got it two weeks after I got my license. It was blue, with a white vinyl top. A cop pulled me over not long after I had it for going 95 in a 55 mph zone. I went on probation after that."
Like Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Gordon’s first car was also a truck - a 1980 Chevrolet.
"It was supposed to be red, but it was really rust-colored," Gordon said. Gordon's stepfather, John Bickford, found it in a used-car lot in Jamestown, Ind., about 10 miles from Gordon's home.
Remembered Gordon: "One day, I got home from school and he said, 'OK, I found the car. We're going to pick it up.' "
They drove to the used-car lot. Bickford had bought a truck that was "rusted out, had a camper shell in the back and had snow tires on it," Gordon said. "I got in - he had told me it was a stick - and there was no stick. There was a clutch, though. It was a column shifter. I had no idea how to get it in reverse. I had to drive it straight off the end of the curb and then run it in third gear all the way home."
After that, Gordon and Bickford worked on the car together. This element seems common among today's NASCAR drivers - they often worked on their first cars in the garage at home with an older mentor or father figure.
"We fixed up some aluminum wheels on it - fire-engine red," Gordon said. "A little chrome. Lowered it down. I drove it to high school."
For Ryan Newman, his first car was a British sports car - a yellow 1974 Triumph TR6. "It was my Grandpa and Grandma Newman's car," Newman said. "When my grandfather died, I got it. My dad and I took that car and restored it together. I rebuilt the suspension and my dad did the engine. There was a lot of blood, sweat and tears that went into that car. I drove it to college (at Purdue) and I still have it. I drive it occasionally."
Not everyone loved their first car. I didn't, for instance. I loved the independence it represented, but it's hard to want to embrace a gray 1976 Ford Pinto with a cracked navy blue dashboard and a bad radio.
Matt Kenseth wasn't so fond of his, either. "I don't know that I have a soft spot for my first car like most guys," Kenseth said. "It was a four-door '82 Honda Accord that my sister had. She pretty much drove it into the ground. I had to work on it more than I drove it."
Before we come to one last first-car anecdote, a word about how this column was put together. I interviewed Earnhardt Jr., Gordon and Kenseth myself. The quotes from Stewart, Newman and Clint Bowyer were provided by their PR representatives, who asked my e-mailed questions to their drivers themselves.
And it should be noted that this is not the first time a "first-car" story has ever been written about in these pages. In 1994, Observer sportswriter Liz Clarke asked several drivers of that generation about their own first cars. Among the respondents: Dale Earnhardt Sr., who told Clarke that his own father, Ralph Earnhardt, had acquired his first ride.
"It was a '56 Chevrolet," Earnhardt said then. "My dad paid $25 for it. No motor. Had the right side tore up on it. We put a new door on it and fixed it up like new. Dad built me an engine. It was a neat car."
And now, Clint Bowyer's story. If you had your first car taken away quickly by your parents for some reason, you'll particularly like this one.
"My first car was a brown 1981 AMC Concord with a tan vinyl top that I got from my brother," Bowyer said. "We had a set of railroad tracks in Emporia, Kan., where I grew up, and my brother used to always jump those train tracks with the car. Well, as soon as I got my license, I got that car.
Continued Bowyer: "As soon as I got the car, I wanted to go jump the tracks. Sure enough, we went and jumped those tracks. But I knocked the oil pan out of the car - and that was the end of it.
"My dad owned a towing service. So we had to call the old man and have him come tow it back to his shop. Needless to say, he wasn't very happy. I think I had my first car for about an hour and a half before it was junk."
