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Pepsi 300 - Elton Sawyer Notes STARTER/HOT TAMALES DRIVER SAWYER REFLECTS ON PAST NASHVILLE VISITS WHILE LOOKING TO THE FUTURE With a new era of Nashville racing beginning with the opening of the new Nashville Superspeedway, it is also the start of the closing chapter of racing as it has been known for many years. For Starter/Hot Tamales driver Elton Sawyer there have been a number of Nashville racing memories that go back to 1984. Sawyer's first visits to Nashville came in 1984 and 1985. In those years the Winston Racing Series awards banquets were held at the Opryland Hotel and Sawyer attended as the Mid-Atlantic Regional Champion both years. "Those banquets were a big deal. The trophies were about as big as the ones they gave the Winston Cup champion," said Sawyer from the office in his home in Greensboro, NC, as he sat eyeing the two trophies he received. " We were expected to wear tuxedos there, even before it became mandatory at the Busch Series banquets. One year Joe Carver, who had worked with Darrell Waltrip and was then the promoter at Langley Speedway where I was doing the bulk of my racing, took us over to the Nashville Speedway and showed us around. Darrell was driving for Junior Johnson, sponsored by Pepsi, and Joe gave us some of the promotional items they had. We were excited and impressed. At that time I would never have dreamed that I would one day drive Junior's cars too." Sawyer's next Nashville racing adventure came in 1988. Now, he was running full time in the NASCAR Busch Series, and for the second time the series had scheduled a race at Nashville Speedway. The first one had been run in 1984. "I had become good friends with Mike Alexander that year and the week before, when the Busch Series had raced at Langley, Mike and his crew had brought their car to my shop in Chesapeake, VA to finish preparing it for the race. The next week he returned the favor when we came to his home track and we worked on our car at his shop. Things were a lot different then as four of us drove out to Nashville in a doolie truck, towing the car on an open trailer. Ironically, Mike and I got together early in the race and I finished 25th, winning $790. Darrell Waltrip won that race and the highlight for me was I qualified 4th." The Busch Series ran Nashville 1988 and 1989, then it went off the schedule for a while. It came back on in 1995 and there have been Busch Series races at the downtown track through last year, and Sawyer has raced in all of them. "I really thought I would win at that race track," said Sawyer. "It was the kind of track I'd cut my teeth on, where the tires went away pretty quickly and you would slip and slide around. I might have won in 1995, but I got impatient with a lapped car and when I tried to move him out of the way, I knocked a hole in my radiator." Now with the new track opening, Sawyer will again journey to Nashville and participate in another chapter of the area's racing history. "With the new track, we really don't know what to expect," he said. "This week, Nashville Superspeedway will begin to grow its own identity and with this race, we'll write the first story."
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