Savage Words: Their accessibility is unmatched in sports

I strolled out to Huset’s Speedway on Friday, not for the races, but for the South Dakota BBQ Shootout.

It’s a cool event that’s part of the three-day World of Outlaws show at the track over Labor Day Weekend. The races, obviously, are the main attraction as the top sprint car drivers in the world converge on Brandon.

The BBQ deal is an add-on, and to be honest, I was a little shocked when I saw the format. 

On Friday, BBQ teams from all over the country were cooking, and according to the schedule of events, they were to (hopefully) be paired with a World of Outlaws driver. Initially, event organizer Trent Vanderheiden told me weeks ago that he had two-time defending WoO champion David Gravel lined up to participate.

I actually asked him a couple of times if I did indeed have the date right. David Gravel, the current championship points leader with the World of Outlaws who was racing later that night, was also barbecuing in the afternoon…on race day?

Trent confirmed it, and said he was working on some other drivers to do the same.

“No way,” I thought.

I spent the balance of my career working in the NBA, NFL and IndyCar. I had my fair share of media requests for those players and drivers. I asked a lot of them. But one of the first rules I learned was that you never bother a player/driver on game/race day. 

Never. Ever.

It didn’t matter if ESPN called, or any of the top radio shows around the country called, or even if the local newspaper writer that typically covers the team on a daily basis called. You simply never bothered the players/drivers on competition day.

It was hands-off. 

I recall one time when I was the Director of Public Relations with the NBA’s Seattle SuperSonics. We were in Portland to play the Blazers. About two hours before tip-off, I approached our point guard, Luke Ridnour, and reminded him of a media interview he had to do the following day for a Seattle radio station.

Luke, in not so many words, made it very clear that I shouldn’t be talking to him about it on a game day, and he was right.

I knew it the second it started coming out of my mouth that I was in the wrong.

Which is why the BBQ contest last week was so cool, so different, when it comes to asking competitors to break out of their normal routines on competition day.

Trent not only got Gravel on Friday, he also got three other WoO drivers to participate in Garet Williamson, along with brothers Carson and Cole Macedo.

I was astonished that they showed.

I talked to Carson Macedo at 4:30 – again on race day. I asked him when he was scheduled to be in the car for the night.

His answer?

6 o’clock.

“So, you’re telling me it’s 90 minutes before you need to lock in, and you’re out here as a celebrity BBQ chef surrounded by fans and media,” I said. “And that doesn’t bother you?”

It didn’t.

“This is normal for us,” he said. “I think if you let it get into your head that it does bother you, then it does. Racing’s different. It’s one of the things that makes sprint car racing unique – the engagement with the fans. I mean you can walk up to us during the night and basically be right in our dugout.”

He wasn’t the only one that basically treated it as business-as-usual. Again, that was fascinating to me.

“I wish we had stuff like this at a lot of our events, especially three-day weekends at the same track – it’s cool,” Williamson said to me as I listened with a bewildered look on my face.

When I was the Director of Public Relations at IndyCar in the early 2000s, we used to hang our hat on the fact that our drivers were accessible.

And they were, but not like these guys. These dudes are amongst the masses, even 90 minutes before they climb in the car. That’s incredible, and here’s to hoping that sprint car fans in this area – and around the country – know how lucky they are.