The Hoosier Race Report: Country Music, Racing, and Changing Times

By Danny Burton

Danny Burton’s Hoosier Race Report appears courtesy of OpenWheelRacers.com

A few years back I read a book by an author named Paul Hemphill, who is one of the South’s better writers. It was called, as I recall, “Wheels” and was a snapshot of the NASCAR in the mid to late 90’s before it really began to dominate as it has for this decade.

Mr. Hemphill compared how NASCAR had evolved with the way that country music has evolved over the past 50-60 years. Both began as hard core types of entertainment among mostly poor and white Southerners. As both began to grow in popularity they both began to soften at the edges, bit by bit. While Bill France, the original, carefully crafted his empire and tried to emulate, then eventually conquer, his biggest form of competition, namely open wheel racing, Chet Atkins introduced the “Nashville Sound” that rivaled country music’s largest competitor, rock and roll music, then dominated by a kid from Tupelo, Mississippi. More and more so, NASCAR began to attract drivers and fans from outside the old South, people like Jim Reed from New York and my dad, born here in Indiana. And country music did the same, as people like Hank Snow from Nova Scotia bucked the trend of southern singers, followed by guys like Eddie Rabbitt, who was from that hotbed of country music, New Jersey. And I should add that my dad was a fan too of this music, taking my mom and me to Nashville many times to see folks like Ernest Tubb and Marty Robbins. By 1970 it was obvious that both forms of uniquely American entertainment had become something that anyone from A.P. Carter to Red Byron would have trouble recognizing. And more evolution/revolution was to come in both industries, thanks in large part to television.

Perhaps the point here, or maybe another point here, is to say that TV is the great common denominator when it comes to the sports/entertainment world. Name any sport, game, or type of entertainment that has been shown on TV and I’ll show you one that has very little in common than its beginnings. Granted, true racers still want to race, no matter how many people are watching and singers still want to sing, but the rules and the trappings have changed greatly. I have to wonder if someone like my dad, who has been dead for 20 years, would enjoy racing as it is now as opposed to 20 years ago. Would he think there is too much racing on TV? Would he feel that the product has been diluted? Or would he be like his buddy Denny, who remains a devoted NASCAR fan who has rolled with all the changes over the years in NASCAR?

It’s been written that if God didn’t exist, we’d have invented Him. Perhaps the same could be said of television, that we’d have come up with another way to communicate the wide variety of entertainment we have at our disposal. It is a pity of sorts that way too many of us get the mistaken perception (which is their reality) that whatever happens on TV is real. We forget that what we see on TV is merely a reflection of what is real. I look over my shoulder here and see a multitude of pictures of my family. None of them are literally here now of course, but I do at least have that intangible feeling of their closeness. By its very nature TV distorts; that is no indictment of the medium, by the way. It’s merely reality of sorts.

So in this way television has distorted our vision of what we think racing is. It has given more meaning to the phrase, “there is nothing like being there.” Television cannot yet begin to replicate the live racing experience, be it at a superspeedway or at your local bullring. Nor can it replicate the feelings that one gets from a live concert of your favorite singer. And it has changed not only the way racing and country music is presented to us, but also their very content. This is neither bad nor good as much as it is inevitable. Think of the progression of the generations of all the racing families and the different situations they all faced. Be it the Andrettis, Earnhardts, or even the families closer to home for me, namely the Kinsers, all generations have raced and raced well under vastly different conditions. It’s hard for us to imagine that, at some point, a long gone old timer groused that this Richard Petty kid would never be the racer his dad was. But this year’s rookies might be the grizzled veterans of the future, griping about the snot nosed kids who show no respect.

The other day I took my grandson over to my mom’s to visit. While he kept her entertained I watched old videos of country music stars of the past and it made me think some. Without Bill Monroe, for example, could there have been a Ricky Skaggs? Those who went before have paved the way, for better or worse, for those who are here now. So without an A.J. Foyt, could there have been a Sam Hornish? For that matter, if one such as a Monroe or Foyt was starting out now, would he succeed now? Talent still wins out, but how many get stuck at one level, never to reach the pinnacle?

Our choices are fairly simple, if not easy, as if that makes sense. We can reject all that we see now and live totally in the past. We can mindlessly ignore the past as well, and just accept all that we see as the real thing and the best racing/entertainment that has ever been. Or we can try and have the best of all worlds, remembering the past fondly, but realizing that not all things of days gone by were so outstanding. In addition we can live in the moment, enjoying racing as it is, but without blindly following or accepting all the changes that have occurred over time. And we can also realize that what we see on TV, be it racing, sitcoms, news, or even Austin City limits, is a distortion, not the same as being there besides being heavily edited and slanted so it can appear to be more attractive and viewable. In other words, watch TV with a critical or question eye might well be our best option, should we choose to do so.

Now excuse me as I try and find the Hemphill book and a Roy Acuff CD for a really, relaxing time.

(To put things in perspective, this was written Saturday after switching back and forth from old movies on Turner Classic Movies to NASCAR time trials on SpeedTV. Since I couldn’t be there, it made for a decent substitute.)

Working the phones, trying to get Paul Tracy a ride in IndyCar, or even bumpercar, I’m…

Danny Burton

Visit OpenWheelRacers.com for all of the latest open wheel racing news, results, and information.