WALKING ABOUT CHARLOTTE

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (08 Oct., 2010) – What comes to mind when someone throws a “North Carolina” reference into a conversation? Tar heels? Tobacco Road? Southern Bells with Southern drawls? Basketball and Michael Jordan? NASCAR?

While undertaking a short 20-or-so-block downtown Charlotte walkabout, seen by your faithful scribe Friday was a cosmopolitan-looking, 40-ish business-type smartly dressed in clothes that weren’t even remotely close to everyday dollar-store closeouts and, perhaps more telling of Charlotte having become something other than what it was even just a couple-or-three decades ago, the dude was looking at the world through blue-colored compact glasses.

Then, there were the urban shoulder bags. Lots of ‘em. Not your momma’s shoulder bag, a.k.a. “purse,” mind you, because when in a male’s possession they’re variously named “messenger” or “laptop cases” or, perhaps, “satchel,” but they darn sure weren’t “urmamma’s” bag – though it’s reasonable to expect within many men’s bags today are found a tissue pack or two, some spare change and, maybe, a nail file or, given “male liberation,” a pacifier here and there (whether his or a child’s is a tossup, for sure).

Be assured of one thing: 30-years ago a male Southerner wouldn’t have been caught dead with something hanging from his shoulder, other than, say, a shirt, a golf bag, a holstered .45 or a plow horse’s reins.

But an influx of folks from faraway lands – which Charlotte and the surrounding area surely have experienced over the last three decades – brings different folks having different strokes.

Backpacks – by contrast assuredly in Charlotte’s downtown minority Friday – at least had a reasonable chance at acceptance when, after all, John Wayne wore ‘em, too.

Still, chalk up yet another computer-age change.

HALL MONITORING

The NASCAR Hall of Fame is the site of Saturday’s 2011 Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge Awards Banquet.

Also in Charlotte’s downtown, NASCAR’s HOF opened in May.

On the first floor of the three main floors within are the Belk High-Octane Theater – wherein the pretty trophy girls will strut Saturday evening – and an incrementally increasing “racing surface” named “Glory Road” – that starts from flat and runs to 33-degrees and upon which are a dozen or so cars made famous over the years by NASCAR’s drivers and “wrenches.”

Bobby Allison’s famed No. 22 Buick LeSabre/Regal is there too, with a glaring error that surprised this viewer. A usually fastidious museum historian, Buzz McKim, who has lived and breathed the tiniest of NASCAR history details for decades, appears to have missed.

Ranging from a Red Vogt-prepared, Red Byron-driven pre-World War II Ford Coupe, which won NASCAR’s first national championship in 1949, to Jimmie Johnson’s No. 48 Lowe’s Chevrolet (Car Of Tomorrow ver. 1.0), found between are famous NASCAR race cars of the equally famous drivers they carried. Dale Earnhardt’s No. 3 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet is there along with Bobby Isaac’s winged, 1970 championship-winning Dodge Daytona – a car that would also the same year set a number of still standing Bonneville Salt Flat records.

To this exhibit-wanderer, though, the real goodies were found on the Hall’s second and third floors.

The second floor contains a dedicated exhibit room for the Hall’s most recent inductees (soon to be replaced by the 2011 batch) and some objects – personal clothing, cars, trophies, rings, fishing gear and a conference table (Bill France Jr’s) – most associated with the first class of inductees.

With no intended disrespect shown toward the Hall’s first class, the third floor was this writer’s favorite.

Dedicated to both the famous and a little less famous – but every bit as important – members of NASCAR’s racing community since its founding, one exhibit is video roll call of well-known and not-as-well-known, but nonetheless significant, NASCAR “contributors” – from track owners to race officials, a few surprisingly young when they passed.

Also found on the third floor is found Jim France’s 1992 “Carmichael’s Downtown Daytona” drivers suit, in which he won the 1992 Legend’s National Championship, and ½ of a Union 76 Ball shell – this writer having spent the better part of the last century within a similar one (he knows it isn’t the same Ball, because his didn’t have a fire-sprinkler system).

The biggest glaring omission of all: not a single word about NASCAR’s Grand-Am community or championships! Surely such addition would bring at least a few folks down from VIRginia International Raceway (where a new DP endplate will be introduce later this month, Oct. 18-20).

The Belk High-Octane Theater offers plush, comfortable high-back rocking chair seating, and it will at the least provide a very comfortable place to watch the pretty trophy girls, listen to acceptance speeches, see tears, hear giddiness and those who’ll vow of “even better racing next year.”

Frankly, one wonders how the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge can top its 2010 action.

Later,

DC