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NASCAR and the King
Published: 1/25/2007 1:17 PM
Last Modified: 1/25/2007 1:17 PM

We looked out the windows of our bus as we approached Petty Enterprises on a small country road near Level Cross, N.C.
We saw a familiar cowboy hat, sunglasses, huge belt buckle and the slender body. It couldn't be anyone else.
Sure enough, there was the King himself, Richard Petty, out there stopping traffic and directing the buses where to park.
How many sports do you know of where the biggest name in the sport is not only happy to see the media coming but is out there helping get things ready for their arrival.
Thus is life on the NASCAR Nextel Cup Media Tour presented by Lowe's Motor Speedway.
In four days we visited every major shop in NASCAR in and around Charlotte, the hub of the sport. We had access and plenty of time to talk with every major driver, crew chief and owner in the sport.
Imagine that happening in any other sport.
We saw the tin building and little garages out in the country that make up Petty's operation, home to 266 Nextel Cup victories.
We saw the 50 acres of Richard Childress Racing in Welcome, N.C.
We saw the huge and grand new buildings that house the shops of DEI, Roush, Hendrick and others.
Then, there's the 400,000 square foot shop of Penske Racing in Mooresville, N.C. Just for comparison, it is approximately the same size as the Expo Center in Tulsa. Penske devotes half of it to NASCAR operations and half of it to other forms of racing such as IRL, CART, Formula 1, 24-hour racing, off-road, etc.
The other beauty of the stock car racers is their candid interview. They aren't scared to say something a little sticky about other drivers, teams or manufacturers. In fact, Jack Roush went on a long rant about Toyota the other day.
In other words, I've been on a lot of media tours and media days in the last 30 years.
But I've never ever been on anything quite like this.
And, oh by the way, we had fried chicken, fried catfish, meatloaf, macaroni and cheese, cole slaw, cornbread...well, you get the idea. We are, afterall, in the south.



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Klein's Korner

Tulsa World senior sports columnist John Klein is in his fourth decade of covering sports. He started his newspaper career at The Daily Ardmoreite in 1977 and moved to the Tulsa World in 1978. He served 10 years as sports editor for the Tulsa World before being named to his current position in 2005. He also spent five years as the Southwest Conference beat writer for the Houston Post. He has won many writing awards and is a former Oklahoma Sports Writer of the Year.

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