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HOUSTON DAILY JOURNAL
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Point Standings
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News and Notes
Harvick coasting to
Busch Series title
Through last Saturday’s road course
race at Watkins Glen International, the
23rd race of the season, Kevin Harvick
has a series-best five wins, a series-best
15 top-five finishes, a series-best 21 top
-10 finishes and a series-best record of
finishing all 23 races on the lead lap.
Maybe that’s why he has a 443-point
lead heading into this Saturday’s race at
the Michigan International Speedway.
The deficit represents the second
biggest blowout in Busch Series history.
Jeff Green won the 2000 championship
by 616 points. With 11 races to go, that
record is certainly within reach.
Harvick advantage now is so large,
he essentially can skip three races and
still be assured being the leader.
Yates Racing to shelve
Sadler for rest of 2006
It hasn't been announced yet, but
Elliott Sadler is out at Robert Yates
Racing. Part-time Busch Series driver
David Gilliland will drive the No. 38 Ford
this week at Michigan. His name already
is on top of the car.
Sadler shouldn’t be out of work long.
He probably will slide into the vacancy at
Evernham Motorsports created last
week when car owner Ray Evernham
and driver Jeremy Mayfield reached an
out of court agreement to end their
working relationship.
NASCAR decisive on
pit road penalties
In an example of “be careful what you
wish for,” NASCAR vice president Robin
Pemberton said the penalty to Kurt
Busch last Sunday was the result of the
drivers’ demands the sanctioning body
take control of pit road.
Busch was four feet away from pit
road when NASCAR threw a caution flag
for a crash. Busch was driving about 35
mph and couldn’t veer away from the
entrance, but NASCAR penalized him by
placing him at the end of the lead lap for
coming to pit road before it was opened.
Pemberton admitted he wasn’t sure if
Busch could have avoided pit road, but
he said drivers have demanded cut-and
dry rules for pit road.
“Each week it’s a new call. We put
ourselves in position for NASCAR to
make a call and it didn’t end up in our
favor,” Busch said.
Other drivers said they couldn’t
believe NASCAR didn’t consider the fact
Busch couldn't avoid pit road.
Deadline nears for Georgia
Public Links championship
Special to the Journal
MARIETTA - Entries will
be closing in one week for the
18th annual Georgia Public
Links Championship, which
will take place September 16-
17 at Stonebridge Golf Club
in Rome.
This event is open to ama
teur golfers who are Georgia
residents and members
of a GSGA Member Club
that is open to public play.
Entrants must not have held
privileges since Jan. 1 at any
club that does not permit
public play.
The format of the event is
36 holes of flighted stroke
play over two days. The field
consists of the 72 entrants
with the lowest USGA
Handicap Indexes and 72
drawn by lottery. Last year,
McDonough’s Dave
Womack posted rounds of
72 and 74 to finish with
Autographs: Fans’ gold
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NASCAR is a sport built ‘one autograph at a time ’
By Don Coble
Morris News Service
While it can never be proven, Richard Petty has proba
bly signed more autographs than anyone else in the world.
The Guinness Book of world records doesn’t list auto
graphs in its more than 40,000 entries, but Petty’s ability to
sign his name is legendary beyond the world of NASCAR
For more than 50 years, he’s stood at the back gate signing
everything from photographs to cans of oil treatment. Now
14 years into retirement, he still spends one day a week at
his race shop in Randleman, N.C., signing his name.
“Nobody has signed more autographs than Richard
Petty,” Bobby Labonte said. “Not even Elvis.”
Autographs are a big part of NASCAR’s appeal. Drivers
are exposed to the general public in ways baseball, basket
ball and football would resist. Not only do some fans have
access to the garage area, others can wait near the
motorhome lot to catch their favorite driver walking to and
from work. And if that’s not enough, every driver has an
extensive list of public appearances.
“The Boston Red Sox don’t ask their players to sit in a
mall for two hours and sign autographs,” Kyle Petty said.
“It’s different in racing. We make untold appearances. We
work for a sponsor. I make 75 appearances a year for my
sponsors. It’s getting harder to get an autograph at the race
track, and 1 hope people who come to the track looking for
that special autograph don’t go home disappointed. The
thing is, there are plenty of opportunities out there to get an
autograph.”
NASCAR has an unwritten rule that prohibits auto
graphs in the garage area, which is supposed to be a race
a two-over-par 146 to cap
ture his second victory at
the Georgia Public Links
Championship. Womack
won the event by four strokes
over Travis Moore of Atlanta
and William Murchinson 111
of Acworth.
Qualified players may enter
online at the GSGA website
at www.gsga.org by click
ing the Online Registration
quick link.
Paper entries are available
by request and may also be
downloaded as a PDF file via
the GSGA website. The dead
line for entries is Wednesday
at 5 p.m.
Entry periods are also cur
rently open for the Atlanta
Amateur Match Play
Championship (through Sept.
13) and the Georgia Women’-s
Team Championship (also
through Sept. 13).
Call (770) 955-4272 or 1-
800-949-4742 for more.
Driver Behind
Jimmie Johnson Leader
Matt Kenseth -124
Kevin Harvick -323
Jeff Burton <362
Kyle Busch -370
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team’s sanctuary. But every driver, plus NASCAR president
Mike Helton, carries a Sharpie pen to speed up the process.
In a normal day, a driver will sign as many as 500 auto
graphs at the race track. Away from the track, that number
swells into the thousands.
For Richard Petty, it’s estimated he’s signed his name
more than one million times during is career and into retire
ment.
‘You lose track,” said Greg Biffle. “When you sit down
and sign for two hours it’s hard to know how many you sign.
It’s part of the job. It’s what your sponsors want; it’s part of
what made NASCAR great."
Kyle Petty agrees with the long-standing notion that
NASCAR was built one autograph at a time. He remembers
being a child at the race track, waiting after the main event
for hours while his father granted every request.
“That’s one of the few perceptions that was real,” he said.
“He signed until everyone was gone. But back then, there
were only 15,000 people at the race, not 150,000. The King
(Petty), David Pearson, Bobby Allison, they all signed.”
Some drivers are just as accommodating today. Others
are more reserved. Kyle Petty, for example, doesn’t like to
sign things sent to the race shop. He has boxes filled with
requests that haven’t been opened since 1998. Bobby
Labonte is just the opposite. He signs requests sent by mail
when he’s on his airplane flying to the track.
“My home time is my time,” Kyle Petty said. “That’s not
the way Bobby Labonte thinks. That’s not the way Richard
Petty thinks. He still signs every Tuesday, all day long.
That’s him. But I’m home so little, I want my time to be my
time.”
Complete
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Driver Behind
Kevin Harvick Leader
Carl Edwards >443
Denny Hamlin -497
Clint Bowyer >570
J.J. Yeley -657
PHOTO BY DON COBLE-MNS
NASCAR drivers sign
hundreds perhaps
thousands of auto
graphs every race
weekend.
[s2o Off When You Present ThisAP]
SATURDAY, AUGUST 19, 2006
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WHERE: Michigan International
Speedway in Brooklyn, Mich.
WHEN: 2:30 p.m., Sunday
TRACK DIMENSIONS: 2-mile tri-oval with
18-degree banking in the comers
BROADCAST: Television TNT; Radio
Motor Racing Network
LAST YEAR’S WINNER: Jeremy Mayfield
TRACK RECORDS: Qualifying -194.232
mph (Ryan Newman); Race
173.997 mph (Dale Jarrett)
COMPANION EVENTS: Friday - Pole
qualifying (3 p.m., Speed), ARCA
Series Hantz Group 200 (5:15 p.m.,
Speed); Saturday Busch Series
Carfax 250 (3 p.m., TNT.
RACE NOTE: Six of the last seven win
ners of Michigan Cup races are outside
the cutoff for the Chase for the
Championship but within 400 points
of the top-10.
Drivers agree there are ways for fans to make the auto
graph process easier. First, be nice. Second, be ready.
“Don’t be obnoxious,” Bill Elliott said. “Don’t stick some
thing in my face and say, ‘Sign this.’ I don’t mind signing an
autograph. Just be nice.”
Rookie Reed Sorenson said a woman asked him to sign
her pregnant stomach. Kyle Petty said he once signed a
hairless dog. Tony Stewart signed an ostrich egg and just
about everyone has signed their name on a body part, only
to have it turned into a tattoo.
“I ran across a man who had a tattoo of me crashing my
Sprint car on his arm,” said J.J. Yeley. “He had me sign
under the crash, then he ran out and had that tattooed, too.”
Biffle said the idea of having his name tattooed on some
body’s body is “creepy.” That’s why he won’t sign a body
part, real or prosthetic.
The most-revered autograph in racing comes from Dale
Earnhardt Jr. The demand also makes it one of the tough
est. Earnhardt Jr. has an entire room at his home dedicated
to mail-in requests. He periodically sits down for hours and
signs until his hand cramps. He also offers two different sig
natures, depending on his mood - one with a cursive capital
“D,” the other with a capital “D” that looks like an arrow
head. Regardless, he’s shortened the process by simply
signing, “Dale Jr.”
There is nothing short and simply about Richard Petty’s
autograph. He not only signs his entire name, it comes with
his traditional loops and swirls. Each autograph is complet
ed with meticulous attention to detail, each completed with
unparalleled appreciation.
One at a time, a million times over.
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592 Carl Vinson Pkwy., Warner Robins, GA
478-329-8100
Driver Behind
Todd Bodine Leader
Johnny Benton *144
David Reutimann >194
Ted Musgrave -239
Rick Crawford *255
This Week’s Race
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WINDOW Hill
3B
00037133