Good morning. It’s Saturday, Nov. 13, 2004, and I’m unemployed for the first time in my adult life. I won’t lie to you: it feels pretty scary.
See, I went directly from college in 1965 to teaching high school in Jacksonville, Fla. There were two driving days between that job and my posting as a second lieutenant at Fort Eustis in 1966. There was a weekend between that job and my debut here in June of 1969. I’ve been hacking away ever since, and I thank you deeply for putting up with me all these years.
Friday wrapped it up, 35 years, 4 months and 19 days after Tony Anthony and the late Nick Mayo welcomed me to the Daily Press. They gave me stock car racing, seen by many colleagues — then as well as now — as an outlaw sport beneath their stick-and-ball dignity. I quickly embraced its marvelous and intelligent athletes and its memorable characters. Underestimate them at your own risk.
The job grew to include almost every high school sport at almost every level. Then there were stints with the Redskins, with Sonny Allen and Paul Webb at ODU and with Ed Ashnault, George Balanis, the Parkhills and the late Jim Root at W&M.; There were countless nights with Bev Vaughan, Glen Russell and C.J. Woollum at CNU. More often than not, the teams I wanted to win didn’t disappoint.
But racing was the beat that most clearly defined my career. I’ve long since lost count of the Friday and Saturday night Late Model shows that preceded overnight dashes to Cup races several states removed. The venues were as diverse as the series themselves: Southside to Suzuka, Langley to LeMans, Southampton to Sears Point, Dixieland to Daytona Beach, Manassas to Melbourne. My election into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame at Talladega was among the best moments of my life. Giving up the beat 13 months ago was among the worst.
Daily journalism has fueled a lifestyle I might never have imagined. After all, this kid grew up wanting nothing more than to drive Atlantic Coast Line passenger trains from Rocky Mount to Florence. My late father — the best locomotive engineer on the planet — insisted on college first, figuring that a degree would keep me off the rails. It did that, but it didn’t keep me off the road.
I’ve been into 50 states, most on company business, others on racing-related freelance assignments.
I’ve crossed the Pacific four times and the Atlantic three, and criss-crossed this country almost a dozen times. I’ve been to The White House, the rim of the Grand Canyon, Margaritaville, The Waldorf-Astoria, Diamondhead, Dealey Plaza, Royal Albert Hall, the Eiffel Tower and Hollywood.
The job led to motorcycle rides across Death Valley, the Great Salt Lake, the Golden Gate Bridge, down the Vegas Strip and through the Rockies and Appalachians.
It offered opportunities to land and cat-launch from aircraft carriers, do trail rides in Alaska, meet kangaroos in Australia and scuba dive in Hawaii. It destroyed some meaningful relationships, but more than balanced that scale by introducing me to my wife at a 1986 press conference. For that — with thanks to two colleagues for sticking me with that assignment — I remain ever so grateful.
Someone recently asked what sports moment I’d most remember. That’s easy: watching a certain 15-year-old get her first top-10 in her first international horse show last summer in Canada. If I’d dropped dead on the spot, I’d have gone a happy man.
Thanks for this final read. Stay well. *
Al Pearce can be reached at home at 596-6012 or by e-mail at omanoran@aol.com.
