iNSIDE SCOOP: Saying Thanks

As we get ready to sit down and stuff our faces full of whatever graces your Thanksgiving table, it is as good a time as any to say thanks to some folks for the past year’s worth of everyday occurrences and special moments.

First, I’ll say thanks to all our Members, for without them I’d have no place to say thanks or things for which to thank them. I’ve known a lot of Members over the eight years here, and there are many, many fine people among you. From seeing you at the tracks and National Conventions to hearing from you via e-mail and phone, it’s been a pleasure.

My At-Track VIP crew—Ryan Mosher, Deandra Danch, Nick David, David Scism, Whitney Bryant, Max Fulginiti and Chris Ball—deserves thanks for being always on the spot, helping our Members and making their time at the track a great one. 

All the people who help us do what we do—Mary Kay Chandler, Tracey Brady, Parrish McIntyre and Dave Hickson—deserve thanks too (and with next year’s budget under consideration, I’ll be effusive!).

The folks at NASCAR who help us each week, at the track and away from it, deserve thanks as well, including Mike Lentz, Forrest Frazier, Janet Wise, Janet Bolin and all the behind-the-scenes personnel that make this whole thing work. It’s a pleasure each week, and we thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

I’d like to say thanks to my family—Chris, Jordan and Devon—for putting up with me when things are busy and I’m hopping planes, trains and automobiles to get wherever I’m going. They are the rock upon which my life is built.

Thanks to Ken Schrader, Mark Martin and Bobby Labonte for making the past 20 or so seasons greater than they would have been had they been doing something else. Schrader and Martin are heroes from my youth, and Labonte is a class guy who deserves a chance to continue his career. 

Thanks to Juan Pablo Montoya for racing hard and never being boring. He’ll be around, I’m sure, both in open-wheel and occasionally a stock car.

Thanks to Tony Stewart, also for never being boring and doing things his own way, no matter what the cost. He’ll be ramming around the track next year, and that will mean all is again right with the world.

Thanks to Jimmie Johnson and the entire No. 48 team for being classy champions and giving the rest of the sport a high bar to aim at next season.

Thanks to Richard Petty for being The King, to Dale Earnhardt for being the anti-King in some ways and to the NASCAR Hall of Fame selection committee for putting in both Wood Brothers, all the Petty dynasty and Ned Jarrett in its hallowed halls.

I’d also like to thank each and every one of you who read this. It’s fun putting down thoughts for consumption and having folks answer back.

On Thursday, please thank your heroes, family and the important people in your life. It’s the time, and there’s always a reason.