CONCORD, N.C.
The All-American 400, run yearly at the Music City Motorplex in Nashville, is a race that holds a lot of history — personally and in the overall scheme of stock-car racing. It was scheduled for last weekend.
In 1986 and again in 1987, yours truly got the chance to be part of the All-American 400 as an official with the American Speed Ass’n. Bob Harmon and Rex Robbins started the race in 1981 as a season-ending bash for the two biggest non-NASCAR stock-car bodies — plus whoever else wanted to come — and it certainly brought the best and brightest.
In 1986, you had the usual hot shoes from ASA like Mike Eddy, Bob Senneker, a guy named Mark Martin, Dick Trickle, Tom Jones, Dennis Lampman and some kids named Kenny Wallace and Gary St. Amant. On the All-Pro side there was Steve Grissom, Mickey Gibbs, Gary “Hot Shoe” Balough, Daniel Keene, Jody Ridley, Billy Bigley, Jr., Mark Day and others.
What a race. Balough kicked everyone’s butt and became the first two-time winner that year. Bobby Dotter, Butch Miller, Mike Alexander and Trickle were the rest of the top five.
The following year, Darrell Waltrip came from three laps down at one point to win over Mark Martin and ACT legend Robbie Crouch.
Waltrip, who won many a race on the five-eighths-mile banked oval, was impressive in victory and celebration. At the beginning of the race, Waltrip’s car dropped a chunk of ballast on the track. I know this because I made the mistake of picking it up. First, it was heavy, and second, it was HOT! He had to come back to pit road to reattach it to the car, and that got him laps down early.
Mostly, the All-American 400 was more than a race; it was a happening. You saw everyone who was anyone at Nashville in October. Bobby Allison was there, driving for Gerry Gunderman. That first year, 1986, Rusty Wallace was the defending champion, and he showed up at Nashville with a mean-looking No. 66 and a blown-out afro do.
Sterling Marlin raced, as did Kyle Petty. Morgan Shepherd was there, and Balough and even Jim Thirkettle, the West Coast equivalent of Trickle, Eddy, Senneker and Ridley.
Miller was a prime sponsor at the time, and it did something I had never seen before at a race track — provided food to all in the paddock. There was beer, too.
The All-American 400 represented a true Super Bowl for stock-car drivers who weren’t in the “big show.” Many of them went on to be involved at the highest level, like Martin, St. Amant, Grissom, Miller and Trickle, but at the time, they were the best of the best on short tracks.
It occurs to me, about this time every year, that I really, really miss the ASA — the Rex Robbins version of it, anyway. Rex had a way of taking something that was inherently complex — how to get various independent-minded drivers and teams to work together — and making it simple.
His partner, Harmon, was one of the last true promoters of short-track racing. A former dance hall operator, Harmon knew all about what his race fans wanted, and he rode that horse until the day he died.
Joe Mattioli III fits the Harmon-Robbins mold better than just about anyone these days, and the All-American 400 legacy those two left is in good hands.
Of course, Mattioli has good role models in his parents, Joe and Rose, and benefits from a lifetime spent watching the best in the business ply their craft on the racing public. But not just anyone can be the caretaker of something as precious as the All-American 400.