RECOGNIZING POTENTIAL

 

Racing media and public relations expert Barbara Burns has been around for awhile.

Um, no, a poor choice of words to say about any woman but, then again, Ol DC seems to be on a recent roll of ill-advised expressions.

Nevertheless, racing-media and public-relations expert Barbara Burns’ DNA (oxyribonucleic acid minus a little oxygen, thus the “De”) has been around the sport for a long enough period that there’s little she can’t or won’t do, given legal and moral limitations, of course.

Indeed, Burns was born into racing. Among the residences her family claimed as “home” was a rural race track just up the road from a town once owned by a movie star (and native Georgian) Kim Bassinger.

More than one or two more interesting stories over the years have in some way, directly or indirectly, involved Road Atlanta’s once seriously rural environs and upon which Atlanta today is seriously encroaching.

Road Atlanta is a magical place where one could’ve seen Mark Donohue to Tom Kristensen plying its turns, never mind Calvin Fish (yes, he once drove; quite well, too).

Much like a Who’s Who of the racers – whether drivers or teams or cars – who’ve traversed Road Atlanta’s hillside course, a perusal of Road Atlanta’s real estate title abstract likely would produce similar interesting results, as well as finding names appearing on both lists.

One such name: “Whittington.”

One-time Road Atlanta owners Bill and Don Whittington, along with the littlest Whittington, Dale, now deceased, were powerfully good racers in their own right.

In 1982 the Whittingtons became the only three-brother “team” to make the same Indianapolis 500 field.

Unfortunately, when life pulled one of its unexpected left, well, actually, make that “right” turns, the three brothers didn’t get much farther than a couple of pace laps before mayhem ensued and, officially, Dale Whittington didn’t officially take the race-starting green flag

The 1982 Indy 500 was a race from which emerged were famous phrases like, “This is what happens when you have children doing a man's job up front,” credited to Mario Andretti, along with this assuredly classic A.J. Foyt one-liner: “The guy had his head up his ass.”

Yesiree, full of hyperbole and metaphor, that latter thought.

No, the Andretti and Foyt comments didn’t refer to any of the Whittingtons, though one, Dale, was ultimately involved in a front-of-field melee started when Penske Racing Indy 500 rookie driver Kevin Cogan took that unexpected right turn, directly into Foyt’s side.

Cogan somehow managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, proverbially if not actually, having combined in just one race both his best and worst starts.

On a high just two weeks earlier, Cogan, who’d come to U.S. open-wheel racing by way of two years in Formula One, had on Pole Day set one- and four-lap track records of 204.638 mph (329.333 km/h) and 204.082 mph (328.438 km/h), respectively, only to have Penske teammate Rick Mears soon after wipe both, setting a then-blistering four-lap 207.004 mph (333.141 km/h) average. (By comparison, the slowest driver to make the 2011 Indy 500 grid, Brazil’s Ana Beatriz, turned a 223.879 mph/360.298 kph four-lap average.)

Wedged in the middle of a front row that on Cogan’s left had Rick Mears – whose brother, Roger Mears, also made the ’82 field – and A.J. Foyt to his right, Cogan at the very end of the final pace lap Cogan had nothing but empty race track directly before him and roughly 30 soon-to-be highly agitated racers behind.

As the race-starting green flag was unfurled, Cogan, for some still-debated reason, hung a right straight into Foyt.

Behind them, an inside-Row 2 Mario Andretti, somehow was also into someone or something and, presumably “digging deep” from his 23rd starting spot was Dale Whittington, whose momentum apparently was to be stemmed only by Andretti’s car, ending the ’82 race, before it had officially begum, for both drivers.

(See it for yourownself, including the complete pictorial starting lineup, among who was Indy 500 rookie Chip Ganassi, with hair, here.)

Gordon Johncock, who nearly always seemed to be on the wrong end of a hard-luck tale (at least from his viewpoint), won the race by 0.16 ahead of a hard-charging Rick Mears, who delivered the first real “hint” of the feats to come from one of Indy’s best, if not most storied contestants.

Now, what’s all this got to do with Burns? Not much, really; certainly not in a direct sense. Yet, it’s a great story, huh?

Among those great Whittington stories, which starts to get a little closer to “The Burns’ Road Atlanta Chapter,” is the drug-money millions buried in various places scattered around Road Atlanta’s environs.

While it’s best to allow Barbara Burns to take the lead in speaking of the many funny stories to come from that Road Atlanta era, it’s fairly safe to say Burns didn’t get any of that stash because she likely would be on permanent vacation somewhere along the French Riviera.

Still, despite his propensity for brain farts even then, in early 2006, Burns asked this reporter for a dinner-time meeting.

So, over a quiet dinner on the hardwood floors, echo-perfect walls and most excellent cuisine at a packed VIRginia International Raceway Oak Tree Tavern, Burns asked for help in educating a newly budding 16-year-old in the ways of the motorsports media.

The “kid” hadn’t raced much before earnestly undertaking the sport the previous year but, if not standing on every podium, he was winning darn near every Skip Barber and karting race he entered. Indeed, his greatest competition, like the Whittingtons, often came from a younger brother, but that’s another story for another day.

“Don’t let him slide,” Burns implored, “Ask some hardball questions. He at some point will be facing a much larger audience.”

So, it was with some measure of pride that Ol’ DC watched 21-year-old Ricky Taylor, co-driver of the No. 10 SunTrust Racing Chevrolet Dallara, handle himself so well last week while appearing “WindTunnel with Dave Despain.”

Later,

DC