Bench Racing's 4th Anniversary

December 19, 2008 - four years ago - the inaugural post of this blog was published. Remarkable. While banktruck and I thought a forum was needed to open our thoughts about racing to others, we really had no plan or concept as to how to proceed with it.

BT: We spend all this time dissecting the race. I wonder if anyone else would even read the stuff we trade back and forth.
TMC: What if we set-up a blog. You know, just to post on the web all the crap we trade back and forth by e-mail.
BT: Who knows. Set it up and let's see what happens.

So I did. And here we are four years later.

Though we still haven't settled on a specific direction of this blog, I'm proud of a couple of accomplishments over the last year.

• With incredible assistance by Jerry Bushmire and contributions by many others, I was able to post a blog entry for each of Richard Petty's 200 wins (well, a couple of them slipped through my fingers). Spending a ton of time that probably should have been directed elsewhere, I really wanted to do a bang-up job on the posts. Many folks were kind with their feedback, and I'm happy with the results.
• As silly as it may seem to all but a core of us, we hit it out of the park for the 20th Anniversary of the Schaefer Hall of Fame. The Schaefer tradition started as a Talladega bender between two of us in 1992. Twenty years later, many new friendships have formed, creativity has abounded, and I've used this forum to document as best I can the adventures of the Schaefer good-time-havers. Thanks to the members of the Schaefer Ring of Honor and my fellow Schaefer Hall of Famers: Philly, Paducah, Rookie, Uncle Dave, Cuba, Rev. Randy, Kuzzin Kari and Bruton for the continuing good times.

As year five begins and 2013 looms, a couple of goals loom.

• An index page for The King's 200 Wins posts will be developed. The page will provide a hyperlink to each of the posts. As I hope the entries will be available for a long time to come, the index should make it easier for readers to quickly jump to a win of their choice. Its long overdue, and I need to get it up and running before the new NASCAR season begins.
• I want to start a new series about wins by other drivers who raced for Petty Enterprises. King Richard obviously had the most wins for the family-owned business. But other drivers such as Lee Petty, Jim Paschal, Buddy Baker, Pete Hamilton, Bobby Hamilton and John Andretti won for PE as well, and I want to blog about them. Getting info for Lee's 1950s-era wins will definitely be the biggest challenge for that effort.
• Lastly, I'd like to post content more regularly and with differing perspectives. As such, a new crew chief has been enlisted to contribute when and what he can: SHOFer, Bruton! In other corners of the interwebs, most know him as GaPettyFan. 

As you'd expect based on his nickname, he is a life-long Petty fan. He is a regular at the Atlanta and Daytona races and has attended dozens of races at other tracks. He also has a blogging past having written for other sites. And he has a gifted talent as a model builder. GPF built what may be the only models of the D.K. Ulrich-owned, Al Loquasto-driven, Schaefer beer-sponsored Buick from 1981. Welcome aboard Bruton!

So with Christmas quickly approaching, toomuchcountry, banktruck ... and now GaPettyFan wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy Schaefer-filled Holiday Season.

 TMC