My blogging focus for the last several months has been researching and recapping old school Petty Enterprises wins. Thank you to any who have read them, replied, forwarded a link, tweeted, posted to Facebook, etc. I hope you've enjoyed these trips through history and maybe even learned a trivia nugget or two.
Blogs about the adventures of the Schaefer Hall of Fame and Ring of Honor have not been as plentiful as in the past. The last Schaefer-schentric post was back in January. One reason has been my focus on the Petty posts. But the other reason is its getting dang near impossible to find Schaefer anymore. A limited supply results in limited opps to share in the fun.
The Metropoulos father-son combo that owns Pabst Brewing has all but strangled the life out of the brand. In the end, however, the Schaefer HOF and Ring of Honor is a committed group of good-time-havers. No amount of narrow minded, short sighted, cost cutting, production ending efforts of those two #@%*&!^ will detract from our fun times. With that said, here is a photo recap of some of the fun times had by the SHOF and SROH the past six months.
Rev. Randy had quite the Schaefer Schuper Bowl Schaemorgasborg. When food and Schaefer collide, good times are destined to happen.
While Schaefer HOF co-founder's Schuper Bowl buffet may not have been as extravagant, I've had that scheven-layer bean dip before. Its phenomenal - plus Philly amped his presentation with a Schaefer tall boy.
When a new race season begins, TMC - like many other fans - renews foolish new optimism. I'm always hopeful the legendary 43 will return to its rightful place in victory lane. I tried to convey some positive mojo on Richard Petty Motorsports beginning with the twin qualifying races for February's Daytona 500.
When the checkered flag fell on the Daytona 500, the 43 finished 13th and teammate Marcos Ambrose finished 18th. Not great. But as the Schaefer HOF slogan goes, its not that bad.
With the return of the Indy Car series to Pocono in 2013, TMC bought some 1970s era decals from back in the day when Pocono's Indy race was part of the triple crown.
In February, Rev. Randy truly went old school and back to the roots. He located a statue of Gambrinus - the patron of all brewers - and commemorated his visit with a missing-can-formation Schaefer Schaloot.
He later drove by Boston Brewing Company, brewer of Sam Adams. Before Boston Brewing moved its operations to this location, the brewery was originally the home to ... yep, F&M Schaefer Brewery (some pics and more truth). In between, the location was used to make Smirnoff Ice. But we'll overlook that part of its sordid past and move on.
In March, SHOFer (class of 2012) Kuzzin Kari traveled to New England - the one part of the country that fortunately still sells Schaefer. She found this 12-pack in parts-unknown Massachusetts.
As spring began its return, the SHOFers got the itch to do more than just enjoy indoor Schaefer activities. Philly, Rev. Randy, and Uncle Dave showed 'em who's boss at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Though with the empty grandstands and the fact these three weren't mowed down by fast race cars, I'm reminded of his 2004 commercial featuring Michael Waltrip.
In April, Uncle Dave and Philly hit the right track - Rockingham - to witness the return of NASCAR with its running of the Camping World Truck Series race.
As Uncle Dave and Philly enjoyed Rockingham, TMC flew to Philly. From there, I drove north to Princeton NJ. As part of my stay, I enjoyed a Schaefer reunion with Schaefer Ring of Honor member and fellow life-long Petty fan 200WINZ.
Uncle Dave relocated from Cleveland to establish the South Florida
Chapter of the SHOF. He regularly lets other SHOFers how good life can
be down there.
The Schaefer Hall of Fame and Ring of Honor Annual Conference is held each Memorial Day weekend at Charlotte Motor Speedway - as it was again this year. But as documented here frequently, many regional conferences are held - including the All Star Race at Charlotte the week before the 600.
This year, the All Star event took it up a notch. SROH Cuzzie G made a huge delivery. He transported ten cases of Schaefer tall boys and a cooler full of live New England lobsters and steamers from New Hampshire.
And the weekend's party host, SROH member Pat, grilled several racks of incredible, dry rub ribs.
Rookie loved him some lobstah - even if he did get a bit greedy with them after they were pulled from the pot.
After an afternoon of cornhole, Schaefering and generally having fun, SHOFer Kuzzin Kari parted ways with the crowd and used her pit pass of privilege to pay a visit to the 43 pit stall - the team partially owned of course by the King, Richard Petty.
She then went one better by getting the chance to see the King himself around driver introductions.
Throughout the day, SHOFers, Schaefer Ring of Honor members and other distinguished guests schared plenty of food, fun, schmiles and Schaefer.
Because of competing priorities on the home front, I missed the Coke 600 in Charlotte for the first time in several years. The Schaefer Schelebration is greater than one individual's participation; however, and the party continued.
On Thursday's qualifying night, Philly and SHOFer Cuba met a living legend: Ken Squier. Among his many contributions to racing, he was the original voice of Motor Racing Network radio, a track promoter in Vermont, and the lead announcer on CBS' NASCAR broadcasts.
Squier's greatest career call, however, is unarguably the last lap of the 1979 Daytona 500: ... and there's a fight!
Race day for the 600 once again reunited a super-majority of the SHOF - great friends all of them. Three of us sadly had to miss year's annual Schaefer Schoiree: Bruton, Uncle Dave and TMC.
L to R: Philly, Paducah, Cuba, Rookie, Rev. Randy, Kuzzin Kari
Philly and new SROH entrant Dale Jr. claimed the treasured 2013 Schaefer Racing Cornhole Tournament trophy.
As they settled in for a long evening of 400 laps and 600 miles, the SHOFers displayed their true colors.
As Cuba settled into a new dwelling, he made sure his table's place settings were in order.
And his new refrigerator was sufficiently stocked with the basics needed for sustenance.
On a Wal-Mart run to restock some essentials, Cuba ran into this guy. Who knows - a potential Schaefer Ring of Honor entrant? I guess we'll see in May 2014.
In June, I traveled to Las Vegas and was immediately hit in the face with triple-digit heat. Fortunately, I knew precisely where to get some Schaefer to quench my thirst: Lee's Discount Liquor on Las Vegas Blvd. Just 2 years ago, Philly and I found it there - far left hand corner of the store, second shelf from the bottom. So as soon as I got my luggage and rental car, I made a beeline for Lee's.
But when I arrived, OH NO! It couldn't be! But it was. Lee's still had shelf space for Schaefer Light, but they'd been out of stock for weeks. And regular Schaefer wasn't even sold by them anymore.
Temporarily crushed (and still thirsty), I needed a new plan. The next day I phoned the local distributor to see if other area stores sold it. Sure enough, she referred me to a chain called Smart & Final. I was given the address for a specific store that had recently purchased twenty 12-packs. With renewed hope, I headed for the store - which was most assuredly not part of The Strip.
And there it was - just as was predicted. I was practically giggling like a teenage school girl as I bought a 12-pack to bootleg home in my luggage.
Earlier this month, I blogged about a return to trip to the fairgrounds speedway in Nashville. No racing trip would be complete without a Schaefer - even if it is dang difficult to find and needs to be smuggled in as a pocket beer.
SHOFer Bruton submitted this one back in January. So I'll let your deviant minds come up with your own juvenile punch line for it.
I'll close with this video. While the Harlem Shake craze has fortunately passed, it was a phenomenon of the first schix months of 2013. And with a Schaefer theme to this one, I'm willing to let the trend extend a bit.
After posting blogs for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, I realized a few things had fallen through the cracks. Hopefully this entry will catch the lion's share of the remaining memories.
On Friday after plenty of Schaefer and Miller Lite, we stumbled by the Coke Zero promotion booth. Two giggling PYTs offered us a free sample of Coke Zero. We were grateful, but I wondered out loud if the Jack Daniels' promotion booth might boost it a bit. One of them laughed, said they probably would, and pointed us to it "over there". We mis-read her finger-pointing directions and ended up at the regular JD concession kiosk vs. the larger-than-life, can't-miss-it (though we did) JD tent. We told the dude the Coke girls said we could have a free mix of Jack. He said we could for eight dollars a shot. What???? After a good bit of "aw, c'mon mannnn" and "help a brotha out won't cha?", he looked to the right and to the left and topped us off. Nice!
We spent much of Saturday and Sunday repeating the key line from this great scene of Oh Brother Where Art Thou. DO...NOT...SEEK...THE..TREASURE...
We must have said the line a thousand times, and it was as funny to us the last time as it was the first time we said it. It was an inside joke at the expense of another friend of ours. He didn't make the trip, but he lived vicariously through our phone calls, pictures, texts, and tweets.
And hey there oh friend of ours. I know you read this blog. We hate you had to learn you'd been punk'd this way. But...um...uh...we can explain. Ya see...
This advertisement in the underground passageway headed to the Neon Garage pretty accurately described our Saturday night / Sunday morning adventures.
When we got to the track Sunday, my bud said the first thing he wanted to do was get something to eat. Said he was starving. Truthfully, I didn't think I was that hungry - until he explained. "Man, I ain't had nothing to eat since yesterday afternoon." That comment didn't make a lot of sense to me since surely...I mean... didn't I? ...but...noooo, really?... wait.
Dang, he was right. I had a corn dog about 2 PM Saturday afternoon. From there until 11:30 AM Sunday, it was all liquid "nourishment". Once inside the track, I skeptically saw this sales pitch:
It served its purpose. But folks, let me tell ya. Vegas may know gambling, glitz, and purty gurls - but it doesn't know barbeque. It looked and tasted like Alpo slathered with Bulls Eye BBQ sauce on it. But it hit the spot in the moment, and it may have been the best $8 we spent all weekend. Once I got the taste washed down with a quickly warming Schaefer, it was go-time for the race!
We caught sight of this twosome in front of us at the Nationwide race. We weren't exactly sure what was going on here. Clearly they didn't listen to their mother while growing up because everyone's mom has that whiny voice guidance: "Don't put that plastic bag over your head. You'll suffocate to death."
We couldn't tell if they were:
afraid of a few drops of rain
"sealed for your protection" (can never be too careful in Vegas)
avid fans of Eric McClure and his sponsor
After Saturday's Nationwide race, we headed for the Stratosphere to have a drink with the spotter for the Tommy Baldwin Racing entry. You may recall TBR fielded a car driven by Mike Bliss and sponsored by Kardashian Fragrance. The spotter is a former neighbor of my friend. We challenged him to deliver Kim Kardashian as well. We'd buy her a drink too, right? After all, who wouldn't want to hang with her? I'm not so sure its funny for you to read about it, but it was funny for me sitting in the car as my friend barked at the guy: "we'll be there soon - but you better get that Kim chick there man." Kim Kardashian - Stratosphere - spotter for a start-and-parker. Um, yeah. Right. Sure.
In Saturday's Nationwide race, Tony Eury Jr. had to talk Danica through just about every single lap she ran. Where to go, when to pit, where to line-up, what fans to run, what switches to toggle, etc. While she didn't seem to have a clue what she was doing and was learning on the fly, Tony Jr. was a super coach to her. Also, I enjoyed listening to the scanner and learning as a fan.
Most Cup guys are not much fun to scan anymore. The drivers, crew chiefs, and spotters know what is going on. Plus, they know others are listening and tend to keep radio chatter to a minimum. As a result, most of what you get is stuff like:
Green, green, green
Inside, inside
3 wide - you're in the middle
Clear
That's it. Rent the Racing Electronics scanner for a day, and that's about all you'll get for your money from most teams. So hearing open dialog between Danica, her crew chief, and the spotter was a pretty neat change.
Daytona 500 champ Jamie McMurray had a race sponsorship by McDonald's. Notice Jamie's name over the window.
By the way, is it just me or does it still sound odd to say "Daytona 500 winner Jamie McMurray"? Not near as weird as saying "Daytona 500 champ Derrike Cope" or "4x Cup champ Jimmie Johnson", but its still strange nonetheless.
Once in the Neon Garage, I wanted to seek out the garage bay of the #43 of A.J. Allmendinger. Once there, I was a bit stunned. As with the phrase "Daytona 500 winner Jamie McMurray", standing before a "Richard Petty Motorsports Ford" still doesn't quite compute.
The Vegas strip at night is something truly to behold. I've been to Vegas plenty of times before, but the scene at night still makes me shake my head in awe each time. The only things I've seen personally that compare is Times Square in New York and Picadilly Circus in London.
As we packed and left the Excalibur for the airport, we realized we committed a huge beer faux pas. We overbought on Schaefer. The plan was for more trackside fun and sharing of the Schaefer experience. As it turned out, that wasn't our destiny.
Pre shoe bomber, liquids could be brought aboard a plane. But thanks yet again to those fundamentalist ragheads for ruining a good thing because we can't do so anymore. So we had to leave the Schaef behind. However, we tried to leave a little memento for the room maid. We hope she got a good laugh and some free beer out of it. Sing it with me!
Oh Schaefer tree,
Oh Schaefer tree,
Drinking lots of Schaefer made us pee.
My friend and me.
Enjoyed Vegas with glee.
We will so terribly miss thee.
After a Saturday evening (and lengthy portion of Sunday early morn) of Vegas activities, we headed to the track for the main event: The Shelby American Sprint Cup race.
This was my first NASCAR race to attend where the race name didn't include a number - whether it be laps, miles, or kilometers. From the time Watkins Glen returned to the schedule in the 1980s, their race name has always been "[Sponsor X] at the Glen". But I've never been there (though I want to go).
Last year's race was the Shelby 427 I think - named for a Ford engine. This year's race was just the Shelby American. By dropping the number, NASCAR and the speedway kind of hid the fact from everyone the race distance in 2010 was shorter than in 2009.
It was just as well because the race was boring enough with the length they ran. With the way Jeff Gordon stunk up the show, I would have been OK with them calling it The Shelby Delaware and running a 25 lap heat race.
Our plans were to arrive at the track bright and early to tailgate with other fans. That's our M.O. at just about every other race we attend. But our M.O. also includes packing the coolers the night before, loading the truck, and hitting the rack at a reasonable hour - three things we didn't do on this trip.
As a result, we got a late jump towards the track and were greeted with the inevitable volume of race traffic - many folks who most likely were out until the same hour as us.
At many other tracks I've attended, most of the parking isn't controlled by the track. Entrepreneurs and volunteers often staff pastures, small businesses, and roadside shoulders selling parking for $10 - $20 per vehicle. However, Vegas controls its own lots (from all that we could see), and there was zero charge for it. Props to Bruton Smith for that decision!
Once we parked, I reached for the cooler. My head and stomach said "no" but my heart and race tradition screamed "Yes!". A couple parked next to us were from Reno, but they were originally from New Jersey.
When she saw me pull the Schaefer sign from the trunk, she said "Shayfa? That's a northern beeah. I haven't seen a Shayfa beeah in yee-uhs." When I retrieved four of them from the cooler for all of us to share, she exclaimed "OH MAH GAHD, it really IS a Shayfa!" She quickly started drinking it and then laughing between sips like a teenager sneaking her first brew and wondering if she'd get caught. We had her autograph our Schaefer Ring of Honor sign.
After sharing one with our new friends, I retrieved a second Schaefer to drink as we walked and packed two more in my gear bag to smuggle into the track. Knowing this would likely be my only visit to a Vegas race, I wanted to have one in the parking lot AND another as the race itself began.
After a night of Vegas, though, neither of us were moving too quickly. The first Schaef went down better than I thought it would. The second one was a major challenge as we walked. Because outside beverages can't be (legally) brought into the track, we had to finish it off before entering. Whether it was the beer getting a bit warmer or the fact I was running on 7 cylinders I don't know, but that final 2 ounces was some of the roughest beer I've ever had the displeasure of consuming.
We got to our seats in the Richard Petty Terrace just as the command of "Gentlemen start your engines!" was given. Unlike Saturday, the weather was perfect. Clear, blue skies - warm temps - a nice breeze - and an incredible mountain vista in the background of the track.
The view behind turn 2:
The view behind turn 3:
I settled in and turned on my scanner to listen to PRN, A.J. Allmendinger, Tony Stewart and a handful of other drivers with reputations of chatting a bunch - either with legit information about the car or with colorful descriptors about the day's events. Once those engines fired and my head started to pound though, I was kind of wanting to find a frequency streaming some relaxing Miles Davis jazz.
The race itself? Terrible. One of the worst I've attended. Jeff Gordon jumped out front, stayed there, and built a monstrous lead. Everyone else soon dropped in single file and stretched around the track.
Kasey Kahne had a reasonable day for Richard Petty Motorsports and finished 9th.
A.J. Allmendinger's weekend pretty much stunk from the time they unloaded the 43 until they put it back on the hauler. At least his car looked cool in the Valvoline retro-look.
Here he is behind the pace car - before they gave him the wave-around to make up a lap. Sadly, this was as close as A.J. would get to sniffing the lead.
After the pot hole incident in Daytona, NASCAR surely wanted to put that incident to rest. Instead, two races later Vegas had not one - but two - cautions for a faulty caution light. I'm not sure now well it was explained on TV. From what we could tell, the race had a caution, followed by a green, followed by an immediate caution again because the yellow light never went off and the green on (forgive the fractured grammar - it was tough to watch and understand much less explain). This happened twice. Bizarre.
The Kim Kardashian-sponsored car driven by Mike Bliss didn't run too many laps before Bliss scrubbed the wall. This prompted the PRN Radio announcer to re-name the sponsor Kim Carcrashian.
The only real excitement of the race (other than the little catfight between the two Chip-N-Dale, Inc. drivers) came with less than 40 laps to go when the final pit stops took place. We decided we wanted to be near victory lane regardless of who the winner would be. So it was off to the Neon Garage where we watched the final 20 laps and the quickly-settled battle between Hendrick teammates Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson.
It was a conundrum for me. I really enjoy seeing Jeff Gordon lose, but I've equally tired of seeing Jimmie Johnson win- particularly at those races I've been fortunate enough to attend. Yet, you can't help but give kudos to the 48 team. Jimmie may well have to end his career before I begrudgingly give him his due. But Chad Knaus? I'm ready right now to say he is indeed amongst the top 5 crew chiefs of all time and maybe the best ever.
Even with a ton of people already surrounding victory lane, we surprisingly were able to stake a pretty good position along the rail in the upstairs concourse overlooking the ceremonies. I had a birds' eye view of the #48 as Jimmie did a screamer between the barricades to victory lane.
After the "hat dance" and tons of press pictures taken, Jimmie quickly moved to his left to join Speed TV's Victory Lane show with John Roberts, Kyle Petty, and Kenny Wallace. We moved along as well. I was able to snap this pic of Kyle using his cell phone to take a pic of Jimmie. Great timing on my part because Kyle then tweeted that very picture.
Once the victory lane hullabaloo wound down, we made a final trip around the Neon Garage. Here's a view of the start/finish line of an emptying track:
Four Richard Petty Motorsports haulers:
Finally, we exited through the infield tunnel and headed lazily towards the parking lot. Along the way, we were passed by several haulers getting ready for the long trip home. Among them were rigs for Montoya, Newman, Elliott Sadler, and Kasey Kahne.
It took us a good long while to find our car. If I could make a recommendation to the track, it would be to install reference markers. All the lots look the same - they are all flat and covered in fine rock. For a while, I thought we were going to face the daytime version of the nighttime car search two days earlier when the Pontiac was hauled away. After roaming around a bit aimlessly for a while, I thought about changing my nickname from toomuchcountry to Moses because it felt like we'd been wandering the desert for 40 years.
But shortly thereafter we found it. The race had been over for about 90 minutes, but traffic was still at a standstill. It made no sense to force the issue. We still had iced Schaefer in the trunk, and I had my iPod with a Vegas-tailored playlist of tunes. So we popped one, queued the tunes, and spent time lounging on the hood and in the front seat with eyes partially closed waiting for the right opportunity to head back to the hotel.
From there, it was time to clean up and head back ... somewhere. Following a shower and change of clothes, we decided the excitement of Vegas had taken its toll on us. We ate dinner at the Luxor and went to Paris to meet a fellow Allmendinger fan. (Read her blog about her Vegas experiences as well and follow her on Twitter @dingerworld. She's been a race fan for a long time, but she was a race rookie and a Vegas rookie and had a great time too.)
Beyond stepping out for those new happenings, we opted out of further yada yada yada as we had a plane to catch on Monday. All good things must come to an end.
