THE MAP
Bryan McDonald

I met Dale Earnhardt twice.   Each time I was just another extended hand in a long line of extended hands.  Hands he took time to shake even though he had a hundred other things he could’ve or should’ve been doing at the time.   Both times were race days…. I’m sure he had a lot on his mind… great demands on his time… family, sponsors, fans…. all sorts of things… not to mention getting mentally prepared to race.   But then… if you ever looked in that guy’s eyes…. you knew he was ALWAYS ready to race.

My introduction to car racing came via two routes.  The first was through WINSTON when they were involved in rodeo and helped rodeo get set up to do the WINSTON PRO TOUR--featuring rodeo teams representing sponsors.  (By the way… that was the first and only REAL rodeo tour that you’ll see… EVER.    Those times are gone…. way gone.   Like Dinosaur gone).    Kelly Riley and Bill Armour were a young guys working for RJ Reynold’s (Winston).   Kelly (a former bull rider) handled the rodeo program while Bill was a young lion in the media/sponsor arenas of the race circuit.   Both bright, both energetic, both willing to help rodeo make a move. 

The second avenue to racing was through David Allen.  David had been a photographer who got hired by the PRCA (think he ran the media department), got tired of working for idiots at the whopping salary of $20,000 a year… and went to work for Wrangler.   Wasn’t long before he was a young executive and through him we got a better licensing agreement, the judging program, and the bullfights.  He also made Wrangler the number #2 player in regard to the Winston PRO TOUR financing.   Actually might’ve put in more money than Winston.   He also got Wrangler more involved in NASCAR and country music.   Eventually he started his own marketing firm and his #1 client (might have been his only one initially) was Dale Earnhart.

When I first attended a Winston Cup race it was as if locks on all the doors protecting the hidden treasure map had been picked.   One door—where all the gold was—wasn’t there.   We didn’t have the key to it but we at least had the map to get to it.  I figured—if I can hotwire a John Deere I dang sure can pick one more lock.   But behind those first few doors was a map leading to the amazing world of sponsors… non exclusive sponsors… how that related to television, fans, and merchandise sales…. and the driver’s responsibilities in regard to those things.  Unbelievable.   For the first time I saw what was possible in regard to rodeo’s future. 

Naturally I traced a copy of the map…. on a bar napkin.   It wasn’t a complicated map to follow….  it was all there— you take this road and don’t detour and you can be successful.   More sponsors, more television, more fans, and more MONEY.  

Unfortunately twenty years later rodeo still hasn’t been able to get past the first rest area.  Kept wetting its pants, I guess   In the highly competitive world of sports entertainment where millions of dollars are spent trying to do things perfectly in order to gain a competitive edge, in rodeo everything is half-assed… kinda sorta… but not really.   Kinda have a tour… but not really a tour.   Kinda have sponsors… but not really that many and we do very little for them.   Kinda have fans but most of them are over the age of 50 and we’re doing nothing to encourage or create new ones.   Have contestants who like to take sponsor’s money but do very little to promote those sponsors or rodeo—or are even given the opportunity too.   Have lots of television that we PAY for.... the program content and presentation of which is the same ol’ same ol’--as it was thirty years ago.  Put you too sleep faster than three doses of  Nyquil.  And the percentage wise viewer ship numbers are no better.   Rodeo. Half-assed… half-assed… half assed.     

Half assed and no BALLS.  I think I saw a mannequin in a store window one time with that anatomical structure.  Might have been at the HALL of CHAMPS modeling  PRCA merchandise.  Not sure Wrangler doesn't have an official jean made that way.   Not COWBOY cut, RODEO cut.   That’s where rodeo has failed and will continue to fail.  It takes courage to follow the map no matter what.   Take your best contestants, contract personnel, and livestock and have a Tour of the best of the best on television… really take care of the sponsors, create new ways for sponsors to spend their money, make your venue productions and telecasts exciting to even non rodeo fans, make stars out of the animals, produce and GIVE away human and animal interest television pieces ( at any moment there should be something running somewhere)... We have to touch people on an emotional level… have contestants constantly interacting with those fans… stroke the local and national media….  follow the MAP.

Rodeo took a detour into the World of CAN’T …. we can’t… you can’t… they can’t…. can’t work…. can’t be done.  

This world might as well be known as the World of WON’T.   Like in WON’T EVER HAPPEN.   The fact is… although rodeo people at the upper levels of all ilks bitch and moan… they all are satisfied with their OWN situations enough that they aren’t willing to risk getting better if there is ANY chance that it might cost them (money or power) on the short term.  

They whine about “WE NEED A BIGGER PIE” but they are doing so while spitting pie crumbs since they have every bit of THEIR piece of the pie—already in their mouths and have a vacuum cleaner for the crumbs.  They (the hired folks, the board, the membership)—sure can talk the talk but when it gets close to nut cutting time… feet start dragging… troops start going AWOL…. weak hearted… gutless…. butt coverers.   Water things down… kinda sorta… not really…. but… you know… no waves….  stagnant pond… dead carp…. smells bad… kinda sorta… half assed….

The kind of behavior that I’d guess Dale Earnhardt couldn’t stand.  I can’t say for sure because I didn’t know him.  Like most folks… my opinions were formed from watching him compete or in interviews.  In fact, prior to my first personal introduction I’d always thought Dale Earnhardt was Richard Petty.  The one with that jicky Gilly’s feathered-up hat.   Different guy.  Both great race car drivers but different guys.  On my way to the autograph line I’d even worried about not saying something offensive to him about that hat when he got to me.   But once I WAS standing in the long lines, as the actual Dale Earnhardt guy got closer—wearing a sponsor ball cap--each time I found myself staring at his eyes.  I’m not into looking guys in the eyes, you know… but I wore/wear shades so I could kinda be looking off somewhere else and still checkin’ them out. 

I’d seen those eyes before.   Bruce Ford…. Neal Gay…. Tuff Hedeman… Walt Garrison…. Don Gay… Nolan Ryan…. Lane Frost.   No matter what their faces happened to be doing at the time—if you looked in their eyes you’d see… WINNERS… MEN… no back-up in them… no grey areas…. no kinda sorta B.S…… tough enough to follow their own map.   The only DETOUR signs they’d ever notice would be in their rear view mirrors….and they’d be flattened ones.   Catch you putting one up on THEIR road and they’d run over YOU, too.

See, Dale Earnhardt should have been Commissioner of Rodeo.   No... make that---he should have been appointed KING of rodeo.  Commissioners have to answer to wishy washy, do nothing, cover their own asses (or their buddy’s), or out to screw their competitors, POLITICALLY appointed, I’m-in-it-for-the-two-NFR-tickets-and-the-room-at-the-RIO board members.  Commissioners can get fired. Commissioners strive to pretty up resumes then move on to better jobs for more moola.  Commissionerships work okay if you’re a big bloated rodeo club with a few selfish, power hungry Tribal Chieftains.  KINGships on the other hand can implement immediate and effective change.   Kings are rich to begin with.  Kings don’t move on.   Kings lead.    Kings start WARS then WIN them.

King DALE would have had to answer to no one except GOD, of course.  He knew how sports business worked at its highest level.  How to build a machine that would win.   Strong enough to say… “Hey… that’s bullshit” to anyone.   To say…”listen… here’s where this train is going--either get the hell on or get the hell off“—using more appropriate language of course.   And it wouldn’t have been a slow moving CHOO CHOO either.   Strong enough to put together a team of the best of every area and keep it together.   Strong enough to take rodeo farther than anyone except me—thought it could go.

But anyway…. I never knew Dale Earnhardt… to me he was a concept.  A way of living…. a way of competing… a way of winning… a way of handling people…. a way of doing business … a way of HANDLING business.  

I went into depression when I heard he’d been killed.  Couldn’t figure out why.  I’d been in the lambing barn for 80 hours… smelled worse than usual… seemed like every third lamb was born intent on dying… while the dead beat college professor had assured me that sheep had TWO teats… mine only had one (that worked)…. Every white faced ewe seemed to think I was Wiley frickin Coyote….I was being reminded on a minute to minute basis that sheep, like people, are stupid…-- maybe that was it.  

I seldom watched any races and if I did it was the last few laps—to see who won.  Being a bull rider--I hated the wrecks.    The only time I’d get to see Earnhardt was on brief clips of Sports Center or the Sports Machine.  But for some reason it was like a friend dying.  That’s unfair to his real friends—the people who really knew him.   I remember how Lane Frost’s REAL friends were offended by the thousands of people who during the mourning period claimed they were Lane’s bestest buddies.   I wasn’t one of Lane’s close friends.   I liked him… thought the world of him… rooted for him… talked to him…. all that stuff… but CLOSE friendships are more precious than that.  

Living with a good Christian woman who daily pounds the REBORN message into my pea brain the thing about reborn Lane’s death that affected me the most was of course the loss to his family and Kelly… but also being there and seeing the expressions on his best friend’s faces.   The hospital… the funeral…. all that stuff was really tough… but I still see a couple of those faces… in the arena at Cheyenne…. standing over him—watching the paramedics feverously work…. ah….  I’m tearing-up again.  That and that danged Garth Brooks song “The Dance” still wreck me.   I’m just not tough enough.  

Being an old guy and having most of my best friends die –I teared-up for the first time when I thought of what David Allen and Bill Armour must be experiencing.   The mind numbing… zombie-like state you get in and hopefully eventually come out of--but maybe never really do.  The first time I actually cried was when I was watching the interviews of Dale’s fans… regular people who (like me) didn’t know him.  But they LOVED HIM.   Loved him for what he did… loved him for what he represented.  Unlike me—they understood racing and could fully appreciate his greatness on the track.  The things he could and WOULD do—that made him the best ever.   But their appreciation of him went FAR beyond the race track.   To them--like me—Dale Earnhardt was a concept.   He was John Wayne…. only he wasn’t acting.   He provided a map for them to get through the difficult parts of their own lives.   He raced for them one day a week and gave them strength to live seven.

On a smaller scale Lane had had that affect on even non rodeo people… people who had only seen him on TV or at a distance.

It seemed every channel had Dale’s wreck on every 10 minutes—24 and 7.   No way he’s supposed to die.   Same deal with Lane.   No way.   So then you mentally get into the GOD and fate things.  Car Racing and Bull Riding.   Men are going to die doing them.  As crazy as it may seem it may be the only REAL reason for MEN to do them.   Screw the money—that ain’t it.   No matter what safety precautions they take or how good they are—men are going to die riding bulls and driving race cars.  

Quite likely—the best ones.   And although I read in the newspapers that lots of journalists think that the possibility of death thing is why most people watch NASCAR (and I’d assume they would also think bull riding)—I disagree.   I think people get interested in and emotionally invested in watching REAL people involved in life threatening sports.  Witnessing how they face fear and ante up.  Sometimes they win… sometimes they lose… sometimes they die.   But they ALWAYS FIGHT… they always TRY.  

Regular people need to see that—just so maybe they can find the strength and courage to face another day.   Their lives aren’t glamorous or exciting… but they take courage to live.    Being able to witness people like Dale Earnhardt perform bravely… defy death… take chances… speak frankly…. go about his work in a professional manner—do whatever it takes to be successful-- was better than anything prescription pharmaceuticals or street drugs had to offer.   While many people could not “GET” GOD or religion because of the immense scope of either…. they “GOT” Dale Earnhardt.    He gave them a SIMPLE contemporary MAP they could understand and apply to their lives.

Most people have a hard time getting close to GOD at least prior to their passing.   But when your life is playing a game where both winning and losing can result in death I’d have to think that maybe you get to be close to GOD every time you mount up or drive out of the pit area.  Trusting something bigger, better, smarter, stronger, and more formidable than yourself to handle the unknown.   

For many people, GOD is just a concept.   To me Dale Earnhardt was and is a concept.

Two MAPS to follow.    People die… concepts don’t.     Two maps.   One destination.

Bryan McDonald
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