The day we moved into the house in Westfield, N.J., several neighbors dropped by to welcome us. One brought her son, Jeff, who was Tory's age. The two hit it off immediately and ran off to play while the movers did their thing.

I had taken the week off to help the family get settled into the new house and, the next day, Judy and I walked the kids to their new school for the first day of classes.

We were there waiting for them when school let out for the day. Tory, all excited, ran up and said, "Jeff invited me to his house. Can I go?"

Thinking it was the Jeff we had met the day before, whose family lived two doors away, we said, "Sure, have fun."

We had been talking with another neighbor and, as Tory began to run toward his new friend, she said, "Wait. That's not the Jeff that lives on our street."

It turns out we were about to send our six-year-old off with a kid we didn't know to a home we didn't know. And Tory had not yet learned his new address or phone number. It could have been disastrous if that neighbor had not spoken up.

We were immediately very cozy in the new house and, after I made my first few commutes to New York City by express bus and my first trip to Newark airport for a flight to a race venue, I felt pretty comfortable, as well.

Meanwhile, the rent/mortgage payments from the Cleveland house arrived like clockwork _ for the first two months. The third payment came in the middle of the month and the fourth payment never arrived.

I tried calling the house numerous times to find out what was going on, but nobody answered and my messages were not returned.

It wasn't very pleasant making two mortgage payments with no money coming in from Cleveland. I didn't know what to do but, as usual, Judy saved the day.

She suggested I call the realtor, Mike. My first response was something like, "Why? He's no longer involved since the house was supposedly sold."

But Judy insisted.

"He's there in Cleveland and, if nothing else, he could drop by and see what's going on," she said.

Expecting little help, I telephoned the realty company. When Mike came to the phone, he sounded nervous.

"Hey, I was planning to call you today," he said.

"Do you know what's going on with our house? We haven't been getting paid," I told him.

"Well," he started, sounding embarrassed, "the husband walked out and the wife couldn't afford to keep the house on her salary."

"Why haven't I heard about this before?" I asked.

"Well," he said haltingly, "we're together now and I didn't want to call you until I could get the situation resolved. But the good news is we've got a buyer for the house. They're going to pay full asking price and we'll pay you what we owe you."

I sat on the other end of the phone stunned. But, in my mind's eye, I could see the young, handsome Mike and the very pretty young wife as a couple.

Again a serendipitous, and totally unexpected, turn of events.

The sale went through without a hitch and I got a check the next week. Coincidentally, Judy's mom was in Westfield for a visit.

I happily wrote her a check to pay back the $20,000 down payment money, with interest. She smiled, thanked me and tore it up.

"Put it toward the children's college fund," she said.

I was obviously living under a lucky star.

One thing that wasn't great about living within commuting distance of the New York office was that I had to go into the city for regular shifts when I wasn't covering a race.

After a while, Judy began complaining that "The AP is taking you away for 35 weekends a year for races and making you go into the office the rest of the time. It's not fair to me and the kids."

My immediate boss at the time was deputy sports editor Terry Taylor, who later became the AP's sports editor, the first and only woman to hold that position. Terry did the scheduling and pretty much ran New York Sports at the time.

I asked Terry if we could have lunch together on one of my New York days so I could bring up something that was bothering me. The next week I found myself sitting across from her intimidating presence in a cafe in Rockefeller Center.

"Is there a problem?" she asked.

I explained the situation, hoping that I didn't sound like I was whining. Terry sat quietly for a few moments before replying.

"I think Judy is right," she said. "Tell you what. I'll take you off the schedule if you'll agree I can call you in when I absolutely need you."

I quickly agreed.

Terry, who was without question the best boss I ever worked for, lived up to the agreement, calling me in only when she needed a temporary replacement for a staffer who had a heart attack and one other time when she was a staffer short for a couple of weeks.

I did volunteer most years to work in the office over the Christmas and New Year's holiday weeks. The holiday pay was good, the city was alive and fun and the office was usually pretty calm. And I loved standing in the office window looking down at the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree and the crowd of tourists.

As Jews, we didn't celebrate Christmas and, on New Year's Eve, when they were older, I alternated bringing Tory and Lanni into the city with me so they could enjoy the Times Square celebration. Each was allowed to bring a friend along and hang out in the office until near ball-dropping time.

I started covering auto racing at what I think was the start of a golden age, two decades of rising interest and importance.

Within several years, it became a year-round beat, keeping me on the road 40 weeks each year. That was tough on me and on the family. I missed a lot of family occasions, school and scouting events and more.

As I approached the end of my first year on the beat, I was really beginning to enjoy the work and even the travel. But I kept thinking there had to be a way to incorporate the family more.

I broached an idea to Judy. How about going on the road as a family for the nine weeks between the end of school and the beginning of the next year's classes?

After checking out the schedule, I knew we could easily drive between venues most of the summer. And the one or two races that I needed to fly to, I figured we could get one of the moms to take the kids and Judy could go with me.

She loved the idea and suggested that we could help pay for her and kids to accompany me by renting the house for two months.

My first reaction: "You can't do that. Who rents a house for two months?"

But, as usual, Judy was right on. She called the realtor who had sold us the Westfield house and he said, "Sure, we do executive rentals all the time. It's people who are building a house or looking for a nice place to live while they house hunt."

Starting in 1981 and each year through 1991, we traveled each summer in our Pontiac station wagon with the clam shell top, covering thousands of miles.

Each year, Judy would have the kids pick out books to read and a language or some other subject to study as we rode. Since she usually didn't know the languages or the other subject matter that the kids brought along, Judy would learn a lesson one day and teach it the next.

One summer, Judy and Tory "read" a German Mickey Mouse comic book and Lanni studied a Spanish book. Judy always had two-way dictionaries on hand. Each of the kids would spend time in the front seat as they did their learning - and I learned a lot, too, as I drove and listened to the lessons.

We all also enjoyed the Encyclopedia Brown kid detective series that Judy read aloud on the trips in the early years. Turned out it was a highlight of our day.

In the early years of the summer trips, Judy and Kids found things to do during the day when I was at the track, wandering through the various cities and towns we stayed in. As the kids got older, they started going to the track with me and making themselves useful in the media centers and press boxes and giving Judy alone time to study and relax.

Judy and I were both sad when Tory, about to turn 16, decided he wanted to stay home to spend a summer with his friends and find a part-time job. But those trips made a huge difference in our lives, giving us time together when I would have been away from the people I love most.

We always did what we could to make my job work for the family. And the things we did were usually fun for all of us.

 

 After arriving home from Indianapolis it was time to pack up the Cleveland house and begin the move to the New York metropolitan area.

It was a bit nerve-wracking not knowing where we were moving to. All we knew for sure was that it was going to be more expensive than Cleveland.

Our worldly goods were picked up by the movers and headed for storage until we found a place to live. There was a lot of uncertainty and a lot of excitement, too, as Judy and I and the kids hit the road in our Pontiac station wagon.

I had made an open-ended reservation _ at least two weeks and maybe four or five _ at a midtown Manhattan Holiday Inn on the east side. My choice of hotel was heavily influenced by the fact that this particular Holiday Inn included parking in its nightly rate.

We took two days to make the 600-mile drive, but I wasn't in any hurry since I had used my credit card to guarantee the room for late arrival.

We arrived at the hotel at about 6:15 p.m. on a Wednesday. The small lobby was jammed with people checking in. I stood in line and, when it was my turn, I confidently gave the clerk my name. He looked at his computer readout and said sourly, "Your reservation has been cancelled. You arrived after 6 o'clock."

I replied, "That can't be right. My family and I are scheduled to stay here for up to a month and I guaranteed the room with my credit card."

He shrugged and said, "Your reservation was cancelled. We have no room for you. Next in line. ... "

I asked to see a manager. I explained the situation to the man calmly and he dismissed me with a bit of a sneer, saying, "We're completely full and you have no reservation."

I suddenly remembered that strange dinner in Cleveland with all the naysayers talking about how awful New York City was and why would we ever want to move there.

There I was, standing in the crowded lobby, my family outside in a car that was packed to its limit and no place for us to go. I was on the verge of panic when a desperate idea popped into my head.

I found a pay phone and a phone book outside the lobby and looked up the number of the Drake Hotel, where I had spent several weeks on my own when I started the new job. I asked to speak to the manager on duty.

When he got on the phone, I told him who I was and that I worked for the AP. I explained what had happened at the Holiday Inn and that I needed a place for my family and me to stay as we hunted for a place to live.

"Can you help me?" I asked, probably sounding pretty desperate.

With no hesitation, he said, "Come on over. We'll take care of you."

I was ecstatic!

When I got to the car and told Judy what had transpired, she said, "That sounds great, but will AP be okay with staying at such a fancy place for a month?"

I said, "Let's check in and we'll worry about the details later.''

We arrived in front of the hotel at 56th and Park Avenue after a short drive. I parked in the loading zone and told the doorman I was checking in. He looked at the car, with a Sears clam shell top and a load of suitcases, bags and boxes in the rear and said, "It looks like you're staying for a month."

I said, "Yes, we are." He laughed.

The manager was waiting for me at the desk. He shook my hand and said, "Let's get you checked in. By that time, Tory and Lanni, then five and six years old, had wandered into the lobby. I introduced them to the manager and the desk clerk and the manager said, "I think you're going to need one of our bigger rooms."

The doorman and a bellman, both smiling and bantering with the kids, helped unload the car onto a number of carts and the manager offered to keep the boxes and bags in a storage area during our stay. After the car was empty, the doorman said, "Are we parking the car? It's $40 a night." Even though AP was paying our relocation expenses, that made me a little queasy.

He suggested a city-owned garage across from the Port Authority Bus Terminal where you could park and lock and go in and out any time. "And it's a whole lot cheaper," he said.

After settling the family in our new hotel home, I drove over to the parking garage and was delighted to find out the rate was $12 a day. I then walked back to the hotel, enjoying the energy of the city.

The next morning, I went into the office and I told my boss, Wick Temple, what had happened. He said, "Good thinking. We have a deal with the Drake, so no problem on our end."

The people at the Drake, including the maids, adopted our family and made our stay there so comfortable and pleasant that more than once Judy wistfully asked, "Can't we just live here?"

She was making daily trips around Manhattan with the kids, learning how to use public transportation and finding her way around the city.

It was an ideal place to stay, within easy walking distance of the office, near Central Park and public transportation and lots of places to eat or take out that didn't cost an arm and a leg.

But, after a few days of fun, we knew it was time to find a place to live. And, thanks to Mom Rosée's loan, we were ready to buy another house. The big question was where?

Talking to people in the office, it seemed our best choices were Westchester County, suburbs north of the city, and the bedroom communities of New Jersey.

After checking with realtors and talking prices, we decided to concentrate on finding a place in Northern New Jersey, within an easy commute of the city and Newark Airport.

We knew that the mother of a friend had been on the New Jersey Board of Education, so Judy got her number and called to ask about school systems. Her advice, find a house in Westfield, which had a great public schools, low crime and at least some affordable housing.

We contacted a realtor in Westfield and Judy and the kids took a commuter bus to meet with him while I was at work in the office. I waited nervously to hear if there was anything in Westfield we could afford.

Finally, she called and said, "I have good news. There are two houses out here that we can probably afford. One of them is big and needs a lot of work and the other is small and needs a lot of work."

Since I wasn't terribly handy in those days, I said, "I guess we should go for the smaller one. What's the yard like?" Judy said, "There's enough of it for the house to fit on."

I said, "Go for it," I said. And we were house-owners again.

The deal for the house in Cleveland meant we would eventually sell it for $42,500. The new house in New Jersey, a tiny Cap Cod style built as a four-room home, cost $77,000. Remember, this was 1980.

It turned out to be a great move.

The first time Judy's mom saw the house, she said, "That's the smallest house I've ever seen." But it was deceptively big inside, thanks to a finished basement that included a bathroom and a summer kitchen and an attic that already had flooring and was ready for expansion.

Eventually, we hired a contractor to build the kids a suite upstairs, with two bedrooms and bath. We wound up living there happily for 16 years, all the way until both kids were away at out-of-state universities.

Our plan was to move into the new house just before the start of school in August. Tory would start first grade and Lanni kindergarten. But that gave us a couple of free weeks.

We stayed at the Drake for a few more days and, when it was time to check out, practically everybody on the hotel staff helped move us out. The doorman and two of the bellmen, sweating profusely in the August heat and humidity, helped put the clam shell top back on the car and load everything.

I tried to give each of them a $20 bill and they acted insulted and refused to take the money, saying, "We don't take money from family." Now that's a New York story you don't hear a lot.

It was too soon to get into our new house, so we drove back to Cleveland to say goodbyes to our friends and to pick up our second car. The plan was for Judy to follow me in the Datsun, but she was nervous about doing such a long drive.

We tried putting ads on school and temple bulletin boards to find someone to drive the second car, but to no avail.

The day before were were to head back east, Judy was out with a girlfriend and saw two young men hitchhiking not far from our old house. They had a sign that read: "Buffalo, NY. We're clean and we have references."

Judy asked the friend to stop so she could talk to the young men, but the woman was afraid of hitchhikers. Judy convinced her to stop a block away and she then walked back to talk with them.

My wife has no sense of geography and had no idea that Buffalo, NY was many miles from Westfield, N.J. After all, isn't New York State next to New Jersey?

No matter. Judy asked them what kind of references hitchhikers had? The clean and well-dressed youngsters both had documentation _ one was going into the Peace Corps and the other into a seminary. They had the time, but New Jersey was too far out of their way.

We were staying with another friend that last night and Judy gave the boys the phone number, just in case. Amazingly, after thinking it over, they decided they could visit a friend in New Jersey and then head for Buffalo.

They needed a place to stay for the night and offered to camp out in the backyard of the place we were staying. But the friend with whom we were staying was afraid to have them there. "You don't know who they are," she said.

Another friend offered her backyard to the boys and, when it poured rain that night, she wound up inviting them to sleep inside with no incident.

The next day, we set off in our caravan for New Jersey, me driving the station wagon and one of the boys driving the Datsun. I gave them money for gas and food and said we would meet them at a motel in Bloomsburg, Pa., about halfway to Westfield, if we got separated.

My biggest problem with those boys was that they refused to drive the speed limit and kept falling way behind. But, somehow, we always met up.

When we finally got to New Jersey, we dropped them off at their friend's house in East Orange. They introduced us to the family and we wound up eating a wonderful home-made Italian dinner with the boys and their friend's family before continuing our journey.

Judy, who was very pleased with herself for finding the boys, then followed me in the second car to our new home, where we started yet another adventure.

With the cancellation of the CART season opener in Phoenix in the spring of 1980 due to flooding, I switched signals and headed for another sports car event _ the 12 Hours of Sebring in Central Florida.

I had enjoyed my first Daytona 24 Hours race so much that I decided another International Motor Sports Association event would provide more great learning experiences.

Unfortunately, it got off to a very bad start.

A driver named Manuel Quintana, driving a Porsche 911, spun and flipped during qualifying and was killed on impact, the first IMSA driver ever to die in a racing accident. I had been on the auto racing beat for less than three months and this was the third driver death I had been called upon to write.

It was more than disheartening, it was horrifying to me.

I wrote the story as best I could and covered the race the next day with a heavy heart and a busy mind, trying to plan my escape from the auto racing beat.

I rehearsed over and over in my mind what I would say to my boss, Wick Temple, that would get him to switch me to a beat or a bureau where people weren't dying every few weeks. I slept little for a few nights, with flashbacks to the disastrous days at Indianapolis in 1973.

The race ended without further major incident late Saturday night and I flew back to Cleveland on Sunday. Judy sympathized but tried to persuade me to wait a few days to talk to Wick, giving me time to sort out my feelings.

But I wasn't really listening.

I called Wick on Monday and told him, rather emotionally, that I wanted out of racing and why. His reaction was cool, calm and reasoned.

"Look, you've had a very rough start, but you've seen enough of racing to know that this is just a fluke," he said. "If drivers kept dying at this rate the sport would be abolished. Get through the first year and we'll reevaluate. I need you on that beat for now."

He was very calming and, even though I still had misgivings, I said I would stay the course.

Things settled into a pretty good rhythm after that and, on the home front, we signed the land contract to sell the house, with the stipulation that the new family would not take possession until late May, after the school year ended for Tory and for their children.

That allowed me to call Wick and tell him we would be heading out east for good no later than June 1.

Another part of my dissatisfaction with the new job was being away from Judy and the kids way more than I liked. With Tory in kindergarten and Lanni in preschool, Judy and I decided to make the trip to the Indy 500 in May a family adventure.

It would be my 10th Indy 500, but my responsibilities had taken a quantum leap. I now would be writing the main lede almost every day for 2 1/2 weeks leading up to the race and I was also taking a big part of the story planning and scheduling.

I felt that having Judy and the kids there after I got done at the track would be a wonderful pressure release. And that's exactly what it was.

And, this time, I put them in a very nice motel within walking distance of a park and several shops and restaurants. And I had Judy drop me at the track in the morning so she could keep the car, visit old friends and keep busy during the day.

It was easy to get a ride back to the motel with other out-of-town writers.

It also buoyed my feelings that it turned out to be a safe, fun year to cover Indy. And it was particularly fun because it turned out to be Johnny Rutherford's year.

I had first gotten to really know Rutherford, a smooth-talking Texan known as "Lone Star JR," in 1974 when he won the 500-mile race for the first time.

My biggest job that year was to write a follow-up story about the winner. I came to the nearly deserted track the morning after the race for the traditional winner's photo shoot and got to sit down with JR one-on-one. It was supposed to be a quick hit, since he had lots of obligations. But JR didn't seem to be in any hurry and we talked for nearly an hour - much to the dismay of his PR rep.

By the time we shook hands, we were friends. And we've been friends ever since.

To my regret, I missed his win in 1976, the one Indy race I missed between 1970 and 2012. But, as we moved into the action at Indy in 1980, JR, driving car owner Jim Hall's Chaparral 2K chassis, was the heavy favorite.

The car, painted a brilliant yellow in honor of its sponsor, Pennzoil, was revolutionary in that it had an aerodynamics advantage dubbed "ground effects" by Hall, a former racer and a real innovator. The car quickly got the nickname "The Yellow Submarine."

The ground effects, produced by an underbody that resembled an upside-down airplane wing, kept the car solidly on the ground and quickly became an integral part of race car design.

It was no contest in qualifying as JR won the pole with a four-lap average of 192.256 mph.

Driving by the Indianapolis airport the night before, I was reminded that the Goodyear blimp was on hand for race week. An idea popped into my head and I sought out my friend Dave Hederich, the Goodyear PR rep, at the track.

I reminded Dave about my blimp ride with Buddy Baker at Daytona and broached the idea of taking a similar ride with the Indy pole-winner. It all came together quickly and, on Monday, I found myself floating high above the speedway in the company of JR.

I explained about Buddy's "lap" of Daytona and JR got a big smile on his face and said, "Let's smoke him."

The pilot positioned the blimp near the start-finish line of the 2 1/2-mile oval far below and gave up the helm to JR. Again, I kept the very unofficial time on my Timex.

By my reckoning, JR beat Buddy's time by less than 2 seconds. But, again, it made for a real good story.

Another big story that month involved Indy rookie Tim Richmond, a movie-star handsome youngster with a personality as big as all outdoors. He was very fast on the track, but he also tended to crash a lot at that point in his career.

Some fans and writers had dubbed him "Captain Crunch." But Tim wasn't about to slow down - on or off the track.

I wrote what I believe was the first national feature on him the week before qualifying. On the opening morning of time trials, as I walked through the garage, I heard somebody running behind me and turned around in time to see a grinning Tim Richmond racing after me.

"Mike, that was a great story," he said, pounding me on the shoulder. "Thanks for letting everybody know I'm here. Now it's up to me to keep them talking about me."

On race day, JR led 118 of the 200 laps and won by almost 30 seconds. Tom Sneva started last in the 33-car field and wound up leading laps and finishing second - a truly amazing run.

And Richmond also made headlines. He was voted Indy's Rookie of the Year after leading a lap and finishing ninth despite running out of fuel just before taking the checkered flag.

As Rutherford was finishing a victory lap, he stopped next to Richmond, standing near his car at the head of the main straightaway. JR signaled Tim to hop on for a ride back to the pits. With the huge crowd cheering lustily, Richmond rode back to the pits on the sidepod of the winning car as the two drivers shook hands and then waved to the fans. It was a fun moment and a lot of fun to write about.

I again went to the track the morning after the race to watch the photo shoot and do a follow-up on JR's win. Much to my surprise and delight, Tim showed up, too. It turned out to be a lively interview with the two drivers bantering happily.

The wave of good times and good stories from that May did a lot to get me back on an even keel emotionally, and I began to think that maybe this auto racing beat wasn't so bad after all.

During the course of the 1980 auto racing season, every track I visited, with the exception of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, was new to me.

It was both exciting and daunting to be learning the ins and outs of new venues nearly every week. One thing that did help, though, was that I got to know a lot of the people that traveled the racing circuits, making it a bit easier to acclimate to new places.

The hardest thing about that first year was negotiating the traffic on race day.

The crowds were generally small or at least manageable for practice and qualifying days at all of the tracks. But race day was a horror story _ at least for me.

I quickly developed what I called my "rules."

At the smaller tracks, where race day crowds were generally easier to deal with, I had a "three-hour rule," which meant I got to the track at least three hours before the start of the race, thereby beating most of the traffic.

At the midsize tracks, the rule expanded to four hours. And, at Daytona, Indy and Pocono, it was a five-hour rule.

That worked great for getting to the tracks. But leaving was an entirely different story.

I found that, generally speaking, I finished my writing about two or two and a half hours after the races ended. You might think that would mean most of the car traffic was gone by then. But you would be wrong _ very wrong.

With crowds often over 100,000 _ some even a lot more _ getting cars out of race tracks, many of them with limited roadways, often took up to four or five hours. And, once you actually got out of the parking lots, what was waiting for you on those roadways was more traffic.

Talking to veterans of the racing wars, I found out that many of them had "secret" ways to avoid the worst of the traffic. I listened and took notes from them as much as possible.

But that didn't always work, either.

Finally, I decided I would try to develop my own escape routes. It meant leaving the family a day early, but I started heading for the racing venues on Thursday instead of Friday. Some tracks had practice sessions on Thursday and some didn't open until Friday, but getting there a day early gave me the opportunity to learn my way around the tracks and, more important, to drive the back roads and try to find my own ways out.

I spend a lot of time driving on roads that went nowhere near where I wanted to go. I tried dirt roads and gravel roads, turned left when right seemed more likely, and vice-versa. Eventually, I discovered some great alternate routes.

Often that meant driving 10 miles to avoid one mile of crawling traffic. But I'm always happier when I keep moving.

Still, there were some places where there was really no escape.

Dover Downs, which had only two roads in and out, was one. Michigan International Speedway had numerous bottlenecks outside the track grounds and no easy outs. And, in later years, Texas Motor Speedway was a traffic jam waiting to happen. These were tracks where it was best to just bring some extra work or a good book to read or plan on joining the track PR staff for their traditional pizza dinner in the media center or press box and wait for the roads to clear.

After a full day of work, often starting at a very early hour, it was particularly frustrating to sit in traffic for long periods of time on the way back to my hotel or on the way to the airport for a red-eye home, worrying the entire time about missing the flight.

But easily the most frustrating incident came about 10 years into my auto racing career while attempting to leave Watkins Glen International Raceway, a beautiful road course set in the rolling hills of the Finger Lakes in New York.

The track PR man let everybody in the press box know that, if you were heading back toward Concord, your media parking pass allowed you to make a left turn out of the track, drive about a quarter-mile to a dirt road that would take you down a long hill and deposit you out of most of the traffic on the highway toward your destination.

Tory and Lanni, both in their early teens, had come with me that day and worked in the press box, handing out papers and drinks and running errands for the PR staff.

As I approached the highway outside the track, the policeman directing traffic let the car in front of me turn left. I started to follow and the policeman stepped in front of my car and pointed to the right. I pointed to the media pass and mouthed the words, "I'm media and I want to turn left."

Again he pointed to the right. I tried to make my case, but he wasn't hearing me. Finally, I turned right and, in my rear view mirror, I saw car behind me, with a media parking pass, turn left. I have no idea why that guy refused to let me go the way I wanted, but instead of a fairly comfortable half-hour drive, it took nearly two hours in heavy traffic to get back to the hotel.

I was so angry I was pounding on the steering wheel as we sat in a line of cars just outside the track. But Tory, sitting in the back seat, said, "Don't worry about it dad. At least we're together."

I calmed down immediately, turned on the radio to a music station that the kids liked and didn't complain again until we got back to Concord and I was telling Judy the story over a later dinner.

Race day for the Indy 500 was always an interesting experience, too.

I was always nervous the night before the race, both about covering the race and about getting into the track, which in the early days drew more than 300,000 spectators, many of whom came early.

For the first few years, we lived in Indianapolis and I drove from home, trying to take the route of least resistance. By leaving very early, I usually made it to the infield parking with little hassle. But, after I began coming in from out of town, it got a little more complicated.

Since I was the "expert," the other out-of-towners relied on me to decide when to leave the hotel and what route to take into the track. We would line up a half dozen or so cars and I would lead the wagon train, leaving the hotel at about 6:30 a.m. for the 11 a.m. start of the race.

The hotel we stayed in during those early years was less than two miles from Gate 9a, the press entrance to the track. But you just never knew how the traffic would be.

If our timing was bad, we wound up sitting just outside the entrance watching dozens of school buses, loaded with bands from Indiana high schools and Purdue University, entering the grounds. Other times, it went like a well-oiled machine.

One year, Shav Glick, the veteran motorsports writer for the LA Times, and his good friends, PR maven Hank Ives and San Diego Union sports writer Bill Center, decided to forego our little motorcade. Shav left his car parked in the media lot at the speedway the night before the race and the trio walked in the next morning, carrying only their laptops.

It seemed like a good idea, but, since most of the AP's out-of-town crew were counting on me, I decided to keep on making the drive until such a time when it became too frustrating. It never got bad enough to walk.

 The deputy sports editor in AP's New York Sports department was Sam Boyle. We met on my first day in the New York office and he told me I needed to produce a personal racing schedule for 1980 that could be approved by him and sports editor Wick Temple.

I found it more than a little daunting when I sat down at the typewriter and began to put down my tentative schedule on paper. In my head, race-by-race, it hadn't seemed so long and difficult. On paper, it was nearly overwhelming.

But it was also exciting to realize how many new and interesting places I would be going to.

The most difficult part of that schedule for me was the logistics. I hadn't done that much traveling for the AP, and most of what I had done had been set up by someone else.

Besides arranging the travel _ planes, rental cars and hotels _ I also had to make sure that I had a phone installed at each track in the press box and, in some cases, a line in a media center, too.

Each track also required applying by mail for a credential.

Since I hadn't been to most of the tracks, I had no idea where to tell our tech people to put the installations. That meant calling every track to get a contact name and the location information.

Of course, I quickly realized that I would only have to do this part once, since it would likely be the same information in 1981. Still, it was a big job.

With some trepidation, I handed a copy of the tentative schedule to Sam, wondering if he would think I had overstepped.

He glanced at it, tossed it on his desk and said, "I'll pass it on to Wick, but it looks okay to me."

I breathed a sigh of relief and began making the phone calls. I found nearly every person I talked to at the tracks to be pleasant and helpful. It was a great start to my new beat.

It turned out the schedule really was tentative, with the snow-out at Rockingham necessitating a return trip the following week and the first IndyCar race of the year, scheduled for Phoenix International Raceway, cancelled because of flooding that closed the main road in and out of the track.

There were also weeks later in the schedule when I had to choose between NASCAR or Indycar races. I waited until closer to those dates to see if either race was more important or newsworthy. Sometimes, it was a toss-up and, don't tell anybody, but I usually chose the venue that I was more interested in going to.

Another part of my job was to make sure that the races I didn't cover on the major sanctioning body schedules were also covered, usually by someone from a nearby bureau.

I was back in North Carolina the weekend after the snow-out and, this time, the race went off without any problems. Cale Yarborough won on a cold, blustery day and I came away with a chill from sitting in that unheated press box.

The chill turned into a cold by the time I got back to Cleveland. A couple of weeks later, I saw the PR person from the Rockingham track at the Atlanta NASCAR race and complained to him about his frigid press box. 

To his everlasting credit, by the time I attended the October race at Rockingham, there were several space heaters in the press box, including one next to my work area. It was nice and cozy. And I even got some thank yous from several colleagues for opening up my mouth.

The next event was in Atlanta and included a NASCAR Winston Cup race and the finale of the 1979-1980 International Race of Champions (IROC) series.

IROC was a series of all-star events pitting stars from NASCAR, IndyCar (then known as Championship Auto Racing Teams or CART) and road racing in identically prepared Chevrolet Camaros.

The drivers in the finals had made it through three qualifying races in 1979 and then run the first of two final events on the road course at Riverside, Calif.

I had heard of IROC, but I didn't even know what it was until I got to the track and asked a couple of the other writers about it. They raved about the series and also about the husband and wife team that ran IROC.

When I was introduced to Barbara and Jay Signore, it felt like I was like reuniting with a couple of old friends. They couldn't have been nicer or more helpful.

The first thing Barb did was take me around the IROC garage and introduce me to all the drivers, most of whom I had at least met by then.

There were Bobby Allison, Darrell Waltrip, Neil Bonnett and Buddy Baker from NASCAR, Bobby Unser, Rick Mears, Gordon Johncock and Johnny Rutherford from CART, Mario Andretti from CART and Formula One, Clay Reggazoni from F1 and Don Whittington and Peter Gregg from the International Motor Sports Association Camel GT sports car series.

It was a garage full of future Hall of Famers and I had full access to all of them, Talk about a kid in a candy store.

It gave me a great chance to get to know many of them better, and I took full advantage of the situation, hanging around the IROC garage every chance I got.

The driver that I knew the least heading into that weekend was Reggazoni, from Switzerland. He had won five races in F1, including the 1979 British Grand Prix, the first-ever win for Team Williams. For 1980, he had moved to the Ensign team.

Clay was initially a bit shy with me, but warmed up quickly as we talked about family and sports. For some reason, he loved American baseball. When I told him I would be at the U.S. Grand Prix West in Long Beach in two weeks, my first F1 race, he said he would be happy to introduce me to some of the important F1 people.

I was excited to travel to Long Beach, a suburb of Los Angeles. My only previous trips to LA were with the Wisconsin football team for the 1963 Rose Bowl game in Pasadena and earlier in 1980 for the Riverside NASCAR race and the Super Bowl.

But my first look at downtown Long Beach was not what I expected. It was a Navy town and pretty darn seedy.

The front straightaway of the temporary track that wound through the downtown area was on Ocean Boulevard and was lined by palm trees. But the street was also dotted with boarded up stores, tattoo parlors and a XXX movie theater with "Bodacious Tatas" in large black letters on its marquis near the start-finish line.

The media center for the race was in the basement of the new Convention Center, meaning we could watch the race from a media grandstand with no electricity or phone connections or on television from a room with electricity and phone connections but no windows.

I chose to watch on TV and it was a new experience.

Of course, the track PR people brought the top drivers in each session inside to an interview room just down the hall, but it all seemed very artificial.

During the race I also had the "pleasure" of sitting next to a reporter from Germany who broadcast the entire event in his native language over his phone at the top of his voice, trying to make it as exciting as possible even when nothing very exciting was happening on the track. It was definitely an experience.

The best experience of the weekend, though, came when Reggazoni made good on his promise to help me meet some of the important F1 people. Among them was his former car owner Frank Williams.

The team owner from Britain and I hit it off immediately. I asked him about the history of his team and never had to ask another question. He gave me everything I needed for a great, in-depth story about the difficulty of fielding an F1 team. And then he invited me to dinner, and not just any dinner.

His wife's brother lived in Long Beach and had a big dinner at their home each year during the race weekend. It was a beautiful home and a very welcoming group of people.

I was seated between the two Williams drivers, Carlos Reutemann from Argentina and Australian Alan Jones, the eventual 1980 world champion, and across from Frank and his wife. It was an amazing, informative evening.

Long Beach, joining Monaco as the only street races on the F1 schedule, was known to be the toughest and most punishing race of the season for both car and driver.

The start of the race was particularly impressive to this F1 newcomer as the cars zoomed down the front straight, roared past that XXX marquis, braked hard and made a ninety-degree right turn downhill, past the convention center, into the infield portion of the track.

Brazilian driver Nelson Piquet started from the pole and led from start to finish, winning the first of 23 F1 races. But the race was punctuated by several crashes, sadly including one involving Regazzoni.

Clay's brake pedal broke as he raced at 180 mph down the back straightaway and into the track's only hairpin turn. He slammed into Ricardo Zunino's parked Brabham, then hit a tire barrier and careened into a concrete wall. The 40-year-old Regazzoni survived critical injuries but was paralyzed from the waist down for the rest of his life.

That didn't slow him down much, though. The indomitable Swiss driver returned to racing using hand controls and competed in the Paris-Dakar rally and the Sebring 12 Hours in Florida, where we renewed our friendship in the early 1990s.

He later became a commentator for Italian television, but was killed in 2006, ironically, in an auto accident. Clay was 67 years old.

Over the next 30 years I covered just about every Formula One race run in North America, including races in Canada and Mexico. They weren't always easy to cover because I was never an insider and only knew a few key people. But those events and many of the people involved always seemed very exotic to me and I looked forward to them.

 Flying back from Daytona Beach to New York's Laguardia Airport following the Daytona 500 I made a decision.

I missed Judy and the kids and leaving the family to fend for themselves for an indefinite period just didn't feel right.

Getting off the plane I headed straight to the office to see if I could have a talk with Wick Temple about my situation.

I walked into his office and closed the door behind me. Then, nervously, I told him my concerns about my situation at home and about my discomfort in the new job. Wick listened quietly and took a few moments before replying.

"Look, you're doing a great job on a tough beat," he said. "I can understand that you're worried about your family and feeling homesick, so let's fix that situation. I'll talk to the seventh floor (executive suite) about sending you back to Cleveland on a temporary basis.

"Go spend time with Judy and the children, sell your house and we'll get you back here full-time. As for the auto racing beat, you're a natural. You'll grow into it. And, in the meantime, Cleveland has a decent airport, so you can keep covering races."

I called Judy right away and told her I was coming home. She didn't say anything for a moment, but I heard a big sigh on the other end.

"Thank goodness," she said. "Just come home."

I was on a plane to Cleveland the next morning after checking out of the hotel that I had lived in, on and off, for four weeks.

It was great being home, at least for a few days. But there was absolutely nothing happening with the house sale.

I called our realtor, a young man named Mike, and he explained again that with interest rates over 10 percent there simply wasn't a lot of buying and selling going on in the housing market. Judy and I tried to remain optimistic, but it was hard when we weren't even getting anyone coming to look at the house.

I said, "Well, at least I'm here now."

Judy replied, "Yup! You can shovel that damn driveway."

Knowing that I was now working out of Cleveland made it easier to continue on the auto racing beat.

Very early that Friday morning, I took a taxi back to the airport and flew to Charlotte, N.C. Knowing I was going back to Cleveland after the race made leaving a lot easier.

After renting a car, I drove the 70 miles to North Carolina Motor Speedway in Rockingham, where the next NASCAR race was scheduled that Sunday.

NCMS was nothing like Daytona International Speedway. It was in a rural setting, a long way from any big city. The track officials had gotten me a room at the media hotel, a Holiday Inn in Southern Pines, which was a 30-minute drive each way.

And the track itself, a flat one-mile oval, was not very exciting to look at.

It was a cold, windy day and the press box was unheated. People around me were talking about possible snow that night, a thought which didn't make me feel any warmer.

They got qualifying in that day and, after finishing my writing, I headed for Southern Pines, a very touristy town just down the road from the Pinehurst Resort, a famous golf venue. The motel was your typical Holiday Inn. One of the other writers suggested a nearby restaurant for dinner and I went there alone.

Behind me was a table filled with other writers and public relations people and the rest of the big room was dotted with other people whose faces I recognized. Again, I felt very isolated and wondered why I had taken this job.

It began snowing as I drove back to the hotel and light snow quickly turned to wet, heavy flakes. By the time I woke up Saturday morning we were in the midst of a blizzard. At breakfast, I found out the race had been postponed to the next week, but the roads had become treacherous and the Charlotte airport was closed anyway.

I was stuck in Southern Pines along with a large contingent of writers, photographers and NASCAR officials staying at the motel.

It turned out to be another serendipitous moment in my career. As I sat alone at breakfast, feeling sorry for myself that Saturday morning, several of the other writers came up and asked if they could join me.

Tom Higgins of the Charlotte Observer and Steve Waid, then writing for a NASCAR-themed magazine, were highly respected insiders. Both had appeared distant and mostly unapproachable at Daytona. But I found out that couldn't have been further from the truth.

Stuck in that Holiday Inn for two long days and nights, I got to know Tom and Steve and many of the other NASCAR folks.

There was a constant poker game that I quickly found out was too rich for my blood. And a few brave souls ventured out to play in the snow drifts. That's where the "Fiji Islands 5-man bobsled team" was born.

There were also plenty of volunteers to trek through the snow to the nearby 7-Eleven for snacks, beer and soda. It was definitely a fun-loving group of people.

By the time I headed for Charlotte on Monday morning on the slush-covered roads, I felt more at home in the NASCAR milieu and better about my new beat _ although I still had my reservations.

A few more weeks went by before Judy greeted me upon arriving home from another race with the news that Mike the realtor had called to say he had a couple interested in the house. It was exciting since we had had zero interest up to that point.

They came by the next afternoon and took a tour of the house and told us how much they liked it.

Mike took us aside and explained that it was the second marriage for both the husband and wife, neither of whom looked old enough to have been married before, and that each had brought a child to the new marriage. He also said that they were both working but did not have enough money saved to get a conventional mortgage.

Would we be willing to take a land contract?

That meant no down payment, monthly payments that would go toward the eventual sale of the house and a bubble payment at the end of five years.

We had little choice at that point and I said, "Draw up the contract."

I was relieved that we were going to be able to move out East, but I was also concerned that the land contract meant we wouldn't have a down payment for a house when we got there. Our equity remained tied up in the house until it actually sold.

"I guess we'll just have to rent," Judy said. "I'm sure we'll be fine."

After we signed the deal, I called Wick and told him I was ready to make the permanent move to New York. He sounded relieved.

Judy's mom came in to help with the kids while we packed up the house. One night, she overheard me lamenting the fact that we'd have to rent instead of buy.

Mom Rosée asked why and I explained to her about the land contract and the fact we wouldn't get our money out of the Cleveland house for five years.

"I don't want you two to fall behind economically. It's important to invest in a house," She said. "What if I loan you the down payment? Judy's dad would have wanted to help, too."

Judy and I were stunned at the offer. It didn't take us long to gratefully accept.

When we finally found our house in Westfield, NJ, mom's check for $20,000 was our down payment. We loved that little Cape Cod bungalow and lived in it for 16 years, all thanks to the generosity of Mom Rosée. 

It was now time for the next step in my career and in our lives.

Packing for my first trip to Daytona Beach in February I included short sleeve shirts, lightweight pants and a couple of pairs of shorts. After all, I was going to hot, sunny Florida.

When I walked off the plane in February of 1980 in Orlando, it was 55 degrees with a cold wind.

My first thought was, "I didn't even bring a sweater."

Since I flew in from New York City, I did have a heavy winter coat, but that was certainly overkill.

So my first stop that day was not Daytona International Speedway. It was a K-Mart, where I bought a sweater, a sweatshirt, a light jacket and a pair of jeans. I put all of them to good use during the 24-hour race weekend.

By the time I flew back to Florida the next week to cover the events leading up to the Daytona 500, I was properly prepared for February in Florida, a month that can leave you shivering or sweltering. It was a good lesson to learn since I spent parts or all of 31 consecutive Februaries in Daytona Beach.

I was excited about covering my first Daytona 500. There was definitely a buzz in the air after the 1979 race, which had ushered in a new era of national awareness for NASCAR.

The redundantly named National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing had been born in the south and was still considered by most a regional sport for Good Ol' Boys, rednecks and moonshine runners. But the 500-mile race in 1979 produced a lot more attention from around the country.

It was the first 500-mile race broadcast live from flag to flag. The broadcast introduced in-car cameras and speed shots from cameras on the track surface.

The audience for the race was buoyed by a snowstorm in the Midwest and Northeast that kept many people inside their homes and watching TV. And then there was the fight.

On the final lap of the race, Cale Yarborough and Donnie Allison were battling for the lead. They collided on the backstretch of the 2 1/2-mile oval and wound up in the infield grass. Richard Petty, who had been a half lap behind, drove past to win his sixth Daytona 500 as Yarborough and Allison argued over whose fault the crash had been.

Bobby Allison, Donnie's brother, parked his car near the crash site and joined in the argument, which soon turned into a helmet-swinging brawl among the three drivers.

All of that action was caught on camera and NASCAR suddenly became a major subject around office water coolers around the country the next morning.

I missed that event, but I was definitely the beneficiary of all that interest as readership for the 1980 race was boosted considerably.

The first few days were not easy for me. The NASCAR media was a close-knit group and I was definitely an outsider. I got smiles and greetings, but that was about it as I made my rounds of the garage or worked in the press box.

I quickly found out that most of the NASCAR media regulars had nicknames like Blue Grass, Pappy, Weird Harold and more. Reporters and public relations people would make arrangements to go out to dinner with me sitting nearby and pretty much ignored.

I felt very isolated.

Then I caught a huge break. Alexis Leras, the PR woman for NASCAR, invited me to the annual awards dinner, which was then held in a convention center in downtown Daytona Beach on Monday night of race week.

The place was too small for the event and some of the tables had to be set up in wings off the main room, which had no view of the head table or of the dais where the awards were presented.

That's where Alexis put me.

It was strange just listening to the awards show going on in the next room. But I was not alone.

I introduced myself to the people around me, including a freelance photographer named Lewis Franck and Goodyear's newly named racing PR person Dave Hederich, both late additions to the dinner..

The three of us got into a conversation and we pretty much ignored what was happening in the next room. By the time the dinner was over, the three of us had formed a bond that has lasted ever since. Lewis and Dave remain two of my best friends.

It was still early days for NASCAR's national popularity, so I was working the event solo. In later years, AP would send an entire team to Daytona for 500 week, often including one of the national sports columnists and a deputy or assistant sports editor to oversee the coverage.

But, in 1980, it was just me.

Being there by myself meant I had to write at least three stories a day _  a lede for the morning papers, a notes column and a lede for the next afternoon's papers. Add in any breaking news and things could get pretty crazy. But I actually loved it and the days just flew by.

Pole qualifying was run the first weekend and Buddy Baker easily won the top spot in the race field with a lap of 194.009 mph. He was immediately the odds-on favorite to win the 22nd running of NASCAR's biggest event.

My new friend Dave Hederich offered me a ride in the Goodyear Blimp that Monday and it turned out that another passenger that day was Buddy Baker.

As we floated serenely through the sky on a clear, warm afternoon, the pilot asked Buddy if he'd like to steer the blimp. When he said yes, I blurted out, "Hey, Buddy, you want to do a timed lap around the track. Let's see what this thing can do."

Everyone, including the pilot, loved the idea and that's what we did. The time, which I kept with the second hand of my Timex, was certainly unofficial, but it made for a great feature story in the next day's papers around the country. Of course, AP had a photographer on the blimp with us, so there were some great pictures to go with it.

Unfortunately, there was another huge downer that week as a 28-year-old Michigan driver named Ricky Knotts was killed in a crash during one of the twin 125-mile qualifying races on Thursday. It was a shock to my system as I wrote about a racing death for the second time in as many events on my new beat.

I hated it, but I had to shake it off to cover a huge event that Sunday. I told Judy how bummed I was about the situation and how more than ever I wanted to cover a different sport as soon as possible.

As usual, she was the voice of reason, saying, "It will all work out. Just keep working hard and getting to know people and you'll be okay. I know it's hard, but you can handle this."

Then Judy called me on Sunday morning just after I arrived in the press box to tell me that my by-lined race preview had appeared in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, meaning it certainly got used in a lot of other papers around the country and abroad. That definitely boosted my spirits.

The race went off without any problems and Buddy, the soft-spoken giant _ he was 6--foot-6 _ with a heavy accelerator foot, ran away with the win. The race was slowed by only five caution flags and the winning speed average of 177.602 mph was the fastest 500-mile race run to that point in any form of racing.

Bobby Allison was the only other driver to finish on the lead lap as the race ended under caution, thanks to Neil Bonnett's blown engine on the backstretch on the penultimate lap.

I easily won the majority of the competitive play against UPI and the bosses were happy.

I did tell Wick Temple that I would appreciate some help at Daytona the next year. And, to my surprise and relief, Dick Brinster, a writer and editor from New York Sports, became my regular No. 2 in Daytona, starting in 1981.

There was a journeyman driver named Blackie Wangerin in the 1981 Daytona field. He wasn't very good, but Dick decided to do a feature on him, based mostly on his name. It was a good story and I started calling Dick "Blackie."

Of course, he had to come up with a nickname for me and I quickly became "Wheels." The only people who call me that, though, are Dick and Lewis, who still use the nickname today.

Dick and I had a great relationship and he was a very hard worker and a fine writer. It was especially important in 1986 when I came down with the flu at Daytona. We were sharing a condo on the beach that year and Dick was trying to keep his distance after I took to my bed on Thursday night.

I had been almost done with my race preview before I got sick, so I was able to finish that and get it on the wire despite feeling like death warmed over. Dick handled everything at the track on Friday and Saturday but I knew I had to get myself out of bed for the race on Sunday.

As the race went on, I was alternately shivering and sweating. Somehow I managed to keep a lap chart and stay alert enough to write my stories. Nobody sat near me and I certainly couldn't blame them.

Geoff Bodine won the race and his wife, who I had gotten to know during the week, came over to say hi before the winner's interview in the press box. I must have looked like hell because, before I could even shoo her away, the smile left her face and she turned and scooted away.

I flew home the next day and, much to Judy's chagrin, I went to bed and stayed there for several days.

I think that was the most sick I have ever been.

I left Judy and the kids in the middle of a typically brutal Cleveland winter to fly to New York and begin working at the AP's worldwide headquarters at 50 Rockefeller Plaza in the heart of Rockefeller Center.

I felt terrible leaving Judy to deal with the sale of the house _ which was going very badly _ and taking care of the kids on her own for who knows how long.

But, once I arrived in New York and checked into the luxurious Drake Hotel at 56th and Park Avenue, I couldn't help but get excited. I was amazed AP put me up at such a high end place, but it turns out the AP had a long-term deal with the Drake to take care of out-of-town visitors.

My first morning heading for the office was amazing. The six block walk to 50th and Fifth Avenue was crowded with people and there was a hum in the air that was almost electric.

I had eaten in the hotel coffee shop that morning and was appalled at spending more than $20 _ even if it was AP's money _ for two eggs, two pieces of toast and coffee. On the way to the office, I noticed a small deli with a sign in the window: "Quick breakfast: Two eggs, bacon, toast and coffee - $4.95."

That became my go-to place for the next week and beyond. It wasn't fancy, but it was tasty and, as advertised, quick and cheap.

I spent that day and the next few days learning the computer system in the office, getting to know the people who worked there and writing up a few handouts. Even though most of it was menial, I couldn't get over being there and being part of New York Sports.

There was little turnover in the sports department, particularly among the beat writers. These were elite jobs and the people who held them had no reason to go anywhere else. And now I was one of them, although not the way I had expected.

I actually felt a little embarrassed to tell people my new beat was auto racing. It seemed somehow to lack the luster of other professional sports _ at least to me it did.

Nightly calls home were tough. I kept wanting to apologize to Judy for not being there and she kept telling me everything was going just fine, although no one was coming to see the house.

She also told me that it was pretty much a full-time job to keep the driveway and sidewalks clear of snow in case anybody did show up to look at the house. She even shoveled after coming home from work at 1 a.m.

That did not make me feel any better.

I was just getting comfortable in the office when it was time to head for the first event of Daytona Speed Weeks, the 24-hour sports car race.

Since I knew nothing about sports cars and the idea of watching them go round-and-round for 24 hours didn't really appeal to me, I asked the boss if I could find a stringer to cover it and stay in New York, especially since the Winter Olympics were just underway and NY Sports was understaffed.

He told me that it would be a good opportunity to meet people and get to know Daytona. "I want you to go. I'm sure it will be worth your while,'' Wick said.

It turns out he was absolutely right. I wound up covering the 24-hour race, which eventually became known as the Rolex 24, for 31 consecutive years. It quickly became one of my favorite events.

That first day at track was not easy. I knew nobody and nobody knew me.

I walked through the garages and along pit lane the day before the race without talking to one person. I was absently watching practice when Daytona International Speedway's sports car publicist, Ron Meade found me.

"I was told you needed some introductions and some background," Ron said. "Well, you've got the right guy."

He took me by the arm and walked me up to one of the top sports car drivers in the world, Al Holbert.

"Al, this is Mike Harris from the AP. He's new to our kind of racing." Ron said.

Al shook my hand and said, "No problem. We'll bring you up to speed."

That was the beginning of a great friendship that tragically ended in 1988 when Al, who was also a pilot, was killed in the crash of a private plane.

The rest of that day was a whirlwind. I met so many people it was hard to keep them straight in my mind. Drivers, owners, crew chiefs, sponsors. And every single one of them was friendly and open to my ignorant questions.

The race was set to start on Saturday at 4 p.m. and, of course, end on Sunday at 4 p.m.

I dutifully went to the press box that Saturday morning and found it almost completely empty. I set up at the AP position, where our phone jack was located, and sat down to wait for the start of the race. It got very lonely and I didn't know what to do.

Finally, the only other person in the press box, Bob Carlson, the public relations boss for Porsche, walked over, introduced himself and told me how most people cover the twice-around-the-clock race.

"You can do your writing from here, but most people stay in the infield so they can talk to the drivers as they get out of the cars after their stints," Bob said. "You can easily walk into the infield, although it's a bit of trek. I wouldn't try driving because most of the car traffic during the race is on the infield roads.

"And we're tied in to our teams by radio, so somebody is always up here to monitor the situation. Any time you need an update, just ask."

I took his advice to heart and, after watching the start of the race, with more than 70 cars in four classes beginning the event on the Daytona road course, and sending a quick lede about the start. I walked into the infield and strolled along pit lane.

I now knew somebody in almost every pit. And, even though they were very busy, people had no qualms about stopping to talk for a moment or two.

I walked back and forth to the press box, my notebook brimming over with quotes and notes, writing updates every three hours.

As darkness fell and the car lights came on, the whole place became surreal. There was a constant roar of engines and lights flashing everywhere. I stood behind one of the pits in the middle of the action and became a bit mesmerized.

That's when Ron Meade found me again.

"C'mon, there's something you need to see," he said.

We got in his car and drove around the outside of the track to an area near the first turn of the 2 1/2-mile stock car oval, which is also used for part of the road racing configuration. He then walked me up to the concrete wall on the outside of the track, which came up to my neck.

As we stood there, we were looking down the track from Turn 1 of the oval to what would be Turn 4 in a stock car race. It was a very long straightaway and I could hardly make out Turn 4 in the darkness.

In  moment, I could see tiny lights on the front of a car coming out of the darkness. As the car careered toward us, the lights grew bigger and the sound of a powerful engine grew stronger and louder. Suddenly, a Porsche 935, traveling at more than 200 mph, was upon us. And, just as suddenly, it was gone, braking into the sharp left turn turn into the infield portion of the track and zooming away.

We stood there for about 15 minutes, watching car after car go through the turn. Some were a lot slower and the engines sounded very different from the Porsches, the fastest cars in the field. Ron pointed out the different cars as they went past and taught me my first - and best - lesson about the different classes of sports cars.

I had a hotel room nearby, but I decided to stay up for the entire race. I thought that's what the veteran writers did.

But I was wrong. Most took a break during the early morning hours, having track officials contact them if anything major took place. It was my biggest mistake of the weekend.

I had been awake since 8 a.m. the previous morning. By the time the race was nearing the end, I was a zombie. I sat in the press box, trying to keep my eyes open and keep my notes up to date. I wrote my post-race stories in a trance. But, somehow, they turned out fine.

The race was won by the German trio of Reinhold Joest, Volkert Merl and Rolf Stommelen in a Porsche 935, with Americans Holbert and John Paul finishing second in another 935. The winners' quotes weren't particularly exciting, but the event left me feeling happy, if exhausted.

I could have stayed over and gotten some much-needed sleep before leaving Daytona Beach, but I had gotten permission to fly home for a couple of days. I admit it was touch and go on the 40-mile drive to the Orlando airport if I would stay awake at the wheel, but I made it.

I then slept from the time I got into my seat on the airplane until the wheels touched down in Cleveland around midnight. By the time I got home, I could barely think. But it was wonderful to be in my own bed with my wife at my side and my children sleeping just down the hall.

After two days at home, much of the time spent outside, together with Judy, shoveling, I found it even harder to get back on a plane and head back to New York.

Next: My first Daytona 500.