As a kid, when I daydreamed about being a sports writer, I pictured myself at major events like the World Series, the NFL championship game (there was no Super Bowl, yet) and the Olympics.

Although I never did get to cover a World Series (I attended games at several), I did get to cover a Super Bowl in 1980 and my dream of covering the Olympics came true in 1984.

It's hard to express how excited I was when I got the letter from AP telling me that I had been selected to be part of the team covering the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. In that letter, was a sheaf of papers to be filled out and sent back asap.

Thanks to the International Olympic Committee, the paperwork to be filled out for the credential was infinitely more complicated and difficult than the mortgage applications for the three houses I owned in my lifetime. But it was certainly worth it.

When the credential finally arrived in the mail, I was over the moon.

It was a three-week assignment and I flew to LA by myself, with Judy and the kids to follow in a couple of weeks to visit family and friends in Southern California and, hopefully, see some of the Olympics in person.

The first week of the Olympics, I worked in the Main Press Center, which was in the LA Convention Center in downtown LA, doing rewrites, short stories on the results of minor events and editing copy. I shared a room at the downtown Hilton Hotel with New York Sports writer Bill Barnard, but our work schedules were so different that we hardly saw each other.

My work day started around 10 a.m. after a six-block walk from the hotel. Along the way, I spotted a real old-time diner called The Clock. Checking it out on my way back to the hotel that first night, it turned out to be a real throwback.

The front door had no lock and the diner had been open 24 hours a day for decades. There was usually a line of people waiting for tables and the specialty of the house, besides burgers, was fried liver and onions.

You might say, "Yuck!" But my dad loved liver and onions, so my mom made it quite often. I ate it and enjoyed it during my childhood. Later, I was put off of the dish after eating it _ or trying to _ while on active duty at Fort Leonard Wood. The army version smelled awful and tasted even worse. I didn't expect to ever eat liver and onions again.

But it was the specialty of the house at The Clock. So, why not?

It was delicious. I wound up eating there almost every night for the week I worked downtown, and I ate the liver and onions several times. It was the best I've ever had. Even better than mom's.

It was only my second time in Los Angeles. I had also been there in 1962 for the Wisconsin-Southern Cal Rose Bowl. But, this time, I got a real Southern California experience.

In the middle of the week, I got back to my room on the 28th floor of the Hilton around 10 p.m. I crawled into bed with a book and was reading quietly when I heard a strange scraping sound. I stopped reading and listened. I couldn't pin down where the sound was coming from, and then it stopped.

I went back to reading and the scraping started again. This time, I got out of bed and walked around the room, listening. I went to the window, felt the building gently swaying and it hit me what was happening: I was in the midst of an earthquake.

As the building swayed, the window frame was scraping on the brick structure around it. I called the front desk to ask if I should get out of the hotel. The clerk laughed and said, "No need to worry. This happens all the time. Our hotel was built to withstand much bigger quakes than this one."

I kept listening for that scraping sound, but there was no more that night and I eventually fell asleep.

Finally, it was time to cover freestyle wrestling, the sport I was brought to LA to report on.

This was the Olympics that the Soviet Union, East Germany and several other Eastern bloc countries boycotted, so the American team, led by coach Dan Gable, was heavily favored to dominate the gold medals.

Dan was one of the all-time great college wrestlers at Iowa State, going 117-1 in his collegiate career. He went on to a great coaching career at Iowa and also headed up the American team in three Olympics.

I called Dan a few weeks before the Olympics to interview him for a preview story. He was less than welcoming _ telling me several times how busy he was _ until I told him I had seen him wrestle at the Midlands Invitational in LaGrange, IL. I had gone there to watch my friend Steve Brown compete in the heavyweight division and Dan remembered Steve.

He told me that his biggest problem he was having was keeping the team from being overconfident since some of the best wrestlers in the world were boycotting the Games. It all turned out fine, though. The U.S won gold in seven of 10 events and silver in two others.

It was a colorful group and fun to write about.

I was paired for the wrestling with Kansas City sports writer Doug Tucker. The matches were at the Anaheim Convention Center, but Doug and I roomed together at a hotel in Long Beach during the two weeks of the wrestling competition. We alternated writing the stories for the morning and afternoon papers.

After the final event, I wrote a quick lede in media center as Doug went to the interview area in another part of the building. As I was finishing my first story, I looked up and saw a telephone company worker taking phones off the tables.

I asked him what he was doing and he replied, "The competition is over, so we're taking our equipment down."

I explained to him that most of the writers were doing interviews and still had work to do for at least another couple of hours. He looked at me like I was from outer space and said, "I have my orders."

Not knowing what to do, I decided to hurry to the Olympic office near the interview area and get an official there to stop this guy from taking all our phones. Walking fast, I dashed through a security area, flashed the big credential hanging on my chest and kept going, knowing I had to hurry.

The next thing I knew, I hit the ground face-first - hard. One of the security guys had tackled me from behind. I had the breathe knocked out of me, but I was able to turn over and  show the guy my credential and blurt out, "What the hell?" He shrugged and said, "I didn't see your credential."

"You could have asked me," I said.

Then I remembered I had to keep going. I jumped up and found an Olympic official, told him what was going on and he was able to save our telephones.

I was kind of shook up and decided to wait to write the story for the next afternoon's papers until we got back to our hotel.

 At that point, we were writing our stories on a TRS-80 Model 200, a flip-top PC that displayed 16 lines at a time on the screen.

The stories were sent by attaching a phone handset to acoustic cups, a process that often proved to be difficult and inefficient - particularly if there was any interference on the phone line or any background noise.

For whatever reason, the connection through the hotel phone system would simply not work. After numerous unsuccessful attempts from the room and the lobby, it was getting close to midnight, New York time, and I was getting a little desperate to get my story sent to NY Sports.

I told Doug I'd be back shortly, took the car and went looking for a phone booth. Instead, I saw a 7-Eleven store with two pay phones hanging on the outside wall, across from the gas pumps.

I quickly determined that one of the phones was missing pieces. But I screwed off the bottom of the other handset, took out the speaker and attached the acoustic cups to the phone with handy alligator clips that I had used many times in auto racing press boxes.

Just as I started the dial-up sequence on the laptop, their was a loud roar from the street. In rode a half dozen big men on motorcycles, all of them dressed in Hell's Angels-style leathers.They kept revving the bikes and my laptop kept refusing to connect to the computer system in New York.

Finally, it was quiet for a moment and the story began to send. But a sudden burst of engine noise from one of the nearby bikes ended that attempt.

Several of the bikers were eyeing me, apparently wondering what I was doing with the phone. But nobody said anything. With some trepidation, I set my laptop and the coupler down on the ground and walked over to the bikers.

I explained what I was attempting to do and why and all of them just stared blankly at me for a moment before one said, "Let's see how you do that."

The six of them stood ominously around me, not making a sound, as I sent my story. When it finished, I turned and said, "That's it. It's in New York now."

One of them said, "That's cool. Will it be in tomorrow's papers?" I said, "That's the idea."

At that point, I excused myself, jumped in the car and drove back to the hotel, about as relieved as I could be that the story was sent and I was still in one piece.

One of the biggest disappointments about the LA Olympics was that, despite my best efforts, I never did find tickets to any of the events for my family.

Thanks to Peter Ueberroth's genius idea of pairing with corporate America, the Olympics wound up $250 million in the black. But also thanks to that, most of the tickets, especially for lesser events like wrestling, wound up unused in desk drawers in that same corporate America.

The wrestling competition was held in front of a nearly empty arena while I could not find tickets for my family to come and watch. They wound up going with a friend to a session of the equestrian competition at Santa Anita Racetrack only to find out it was televised from somewhere outside of LA proper.

At least they got to spend time with family and friends, and even a little with me.

My family headed for home before I was done with my event. When I finally did fly home, by way of Chicago, I had the suitcase with most of the souvenirs I had collected stolen, apparently from the baggage carousel.

It was definitely a memorable assignment, both good and bad.

 

During our long summer trips as a family, there were occasional weekends without a major event to cover. I wanted to justify my existence somehow on those weekends without using precious vacation time, so I found events to cover whenever possible.

One of those was a Trans-Am race in Brainerd, MN, in the summer of 1982. We left the kids with Judy's mom in Chicago and drove up to Brainerd, 125 miles north of Minneapolis, where we stayed in a quaint but comfortable motel called the Thrifty Scot.

It was the first time we had stayed in a place where there were all kinds of magazines and hot chocolate and coffee for guests in the lobby and a continental breakfast (doughnuts and coffee) each morning. Judy loved lounging in that lobby and quickly befriended the maids, who wound up taking her out to the field out back to pick wild gooseberries during their lunch breaks.

I was hoping the powers that be in New York Sports would not give me a hard time about spending money to cover a stand-alone Trans-Am event. My ace in the hole was that actor Paul Newman was entered in the race.

Newman rarely gave interviews, but I was hoping that I could convince him to talk with me. My efforts prior to the race were in vain. He refused to grant an interview and ducked me when I tried to "accidentally" bump into him in the pits and the garage area.

The race was run on a cool, dreary afternoon and the drivers took the green flag in a steady drizzle. Newman, who had made a name for himself in amateur racing, started third in only his second professional race.

To everyone's astonishment, Newman drove his Datsun 280zx to the lead by the first corner and never trailed on the way to his first professional racing victory.

My first thought as I saw Newman take the checkered flag was "Nobody in NY Sports is going to give me trouble about this decision."

The only reporters at the rural track were me and Charley Hallman from the St. Paul Pioneer-Press. When Newman walked into the media center after celebrating his win in Victory Circle, he was carrying a bottle of champagne and a wearing a huge smile.

As he stepped into the room and noticed Charley and I were the only people in the three rows of chairs set aside for media, he asked, "Where is everybody?"

Charley, bless him, said, "Don't worry Paul, Mike Harris here is with AP and that means you'll be in all the papers tomorrow."

It was the first and only time that I can remember that the winner of a race walked over to me and shook my hand before grabbing the microphone and sitting down at the table in front of the room. What ensued was less of an interview and more of a conversation, which was great.

Newman was bubbling with excitement over his win and more talkative than usual. But he still didn't want to talk about anything but racing. That was fine. It gave me more than enough for a story that appeared all over the country the next day and began a long aquaintanceship that sometimes over the years bordered on friendship.

Another of those "extra" weekends wound up changing my by-line.

As I worked on my 1987 schedule, I realized that there was a weekend in July on which there wasn't a single professional auto racing event anywhere in North America. That was truly a rarity. I told Judy we would have to find some place to stay and use one of my three weeks of vacation, which we preferred to save for after the racing season ended. 

Then I noticed that the Thunderboats were racing in Detroit that weekend. I hadn't covered an unlimited hydroplane race since my days in Indiana. But I figured why not? It should produce some good features and we could also visit family and friends in Detroit.

One of the things I liked most about my beat was the autonomy. I had to run my schedule by the bosses in New York, but they rarely made any changes. The thing is, I had not included the Detroit Hydroplane Regatta in my original schedule and I didn't tell anyone in New York that I was going to cover the Regatta.

It was a blistering hot weekend in Michigan and spending time on the shores of the Detroit River, where there was a nice breeze off the water, was actually pretty pleasant. The racing was fun and interesting and I felt like I had gotten some pretty good human interest stories along the way.

On Monday morning, I got a call from Darrell Christian, the AP General Sports Editor at the time.

"What the hell were you doing covering boat racing in Detroit?" he demanded.

"Well, it's a motor sport and I'm the AP Motorsports Writer. I replied.

Darrell was not impressed. He said, "No more boat races. Stick with race cars."

At the end of the summer I got a copy of a letter stating that, as of the next racing season, my title would change from Motorsports Writer to Auto Racing Writer.

Another non-auto racing event I got to cover was the U.S. Sports Festival in Syracuse, NY in August of 1981.

Since it was during one our first summer tours as a family, I got permission to bring Judy and kids. It was a strange week right from the start.

I parked in front of the Hotel Syracuse and left Judy and kids in the car while I checked us in. When I came out, the kids were bouncing around the back seat in excitement and Judy had an odd look on her face.

"What's going on?" I asked.

Judy told me in hushed tones that she and the kids had witnessed a knife fight just down the block from the hotel entrance. Thankfully, someone broke it up before either participant was badly hurt. But there was blood shed and lots of cursing.

The kids, eight and seven at the time, thought it was cool. Judy thought it was horrifying.

The hotel was a dowager that had been remodeled numerous times. We wound up getting a "renovated" room that obviously had once been two small hotel rooms. It was elongated with the bathroom in the middle and beds at both ends. And the bathroom had only a shower, no bathtub, a problem since the kids didn't shower.

For some reason, the hotel people couldn't (or wouldn't) move us to a room with a bathtub. But, as usual, Judy found a solution. She befriended the maids and they wound up letting her bathe the kids during our stay in an unoccupied room on the same floor.

I handled rewrite and editing and covered wrestling at the Festival, which was the prelude to my assignment at two Olympics during the 1980's.

My career was dotted throughout with wonderful dinners and parties. One of the most memorable of those events came in May of 1982 in Indianapolis during the lead-in to that year's Indy 500.

Most of my colleagues and I received an invitation from Caesars Palace in Las Vegas to attend a gala at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in downtown Indianapolis to celebrate the announcement that the CART series would replace Formula One in the grand prix in Las Vegas, beginning in 1983.

Caesars Palace turned the ballroom of the Hyatt into a casino, flying in gaming tables and dealers as well as a few of the beautiful, leggy showgirls that are always part of the Vegas glitz and glamour.

As we walked into the ballroom, one of the showgirls handed each of us a gold, cloth bag with $500 worth of gambling chips. Of course, you couldn't gamble legally for cash in Indiana, but Caesars had set up a booth with all kinds of racing paraphernalia.

You could play the games with the chips and cash them in for things like jackets, hats and sun glasses at any time.

Of course, there was also plenty of food and drink available, with several different stations _ shrimp and crab legs, sushi, roast beef, etc. It was like a Vegas hotel buffet.

Shortly after arriving at the party, I was approached by an older, dapper man in a tuxedo who introduced himself as Harry Wald, the president of Caesars Palace. Mr. Wald knew members of my family from Cleveland and had been asked to say hi.

We talked for several minutes about mutual acquaintances and history before he said, "Go have some fun, Mike. I'll talk to you later."

Fifteen minutes later, I was almost flat broke (at least in terms of casino chips). I couldn't buy a winning hand in 21 and the young lady who was dealing, despite being pretty and pleasant, was running out of nice ways to say "sorry you lost."

Just then, Mr. Wald walked up to the table and asked, "How are you doing, Mike?"

My reply: "I'm losing my ass."

He turned to the dealer and said, "Young lady, this is Mr. Harris from The Associated Press. He's a very important man and I really hate to see him losing."

She replied: "I'm sorry, Mr. Wald. But the cards just aren't going his way right now."

He smiled brightly and said, "Well, we can only hope that changes soon."

Mr. Wald walked away and I proceeded to win eleven straight hands with the lovely dealer smiling and seemingly doing nothing different. Since that night, I no longer play blackjack. My game of choice at the casinos is video poker.

After my last win - a blackjack, of course - I took my chips and went to "buy" Judy one of the cool, silver satin Caesars Palace jackets. I was pleased with the purchase, but I don't think she ever wore it.

Meanwhile, my friend Dave Hederich, the racing PR man for Goodyear, had gotten a full head of steam at the craps table. He was winning steadily and didn't want to stop playing - not even long enough to eat. He played for so long that, by the time he decided to cash in his huge stack of chips for some souvenirs, there was nothing left but key rings.

Dave and I had a lot of great adventures together.

He earned the nickname "A.R. (alternate route) because Dave never liked to go the same way twice, if he could help it.

One year, when we were in Sebring, Fla., for the 12 Hours of Sebring, we decided to sneak away from the track for dinner at a very good seafood restaurant called The Pepper Mill. It was in a rural area, about halfway between the town of Sebring and the race track. And it was a little tricky to find at night.

Dave was driving and we soon found ourselves making our way down a dirt road through an orange grove that Dave was certain was a short cut to the restaurant. We eventually came to railroad tracks and, as we looked down the tracks, we could see the lights of the restaurant in the distance.

So Dave drove onto the railroad bed and bumped along the tracks for a couple of hundred yards to the restaurant parking lot. I'm not sure that rental car was ever the same.

We took a more conventional way back to the track after dinner.

Sebring was always an interesting and fun racing venue. The race, run on the runways and taxiways of a World War II training base for the U.S. Army Air Force that was later turned into a regional airport, began on Saturday at 10 a.m. and ran until 10 p.m.

Sports car racing always attracted a lot of celebrities and one of the better racers among them was actor James Brolin, who later gained fame by marrying Barbra Streisand.

He was a nice guy who only wanted to talk about racing at the track. One night at Sebring, during a practice session, he narrowly avoided disaster. A wild boar was unfortunate enough to cross the tracks as James hurtled down one of the long, dark straightaways at nearly 200 mph.

The resulting collision wrecked the front end of his Porsche 934 and turned the poor pig into little more than ground pork.

After he was checked out at the medical tent, Brolin returned to the pits and the only thing he would say about the accident was "poor pig." Brolin's team went on to finish 12th in the race the next day in the repaired car.

There were a lot of fun times for me at Sebring and several of them involved the Goodyear blimp.

My second year at Sebring, Dave said there was room on the blimp if I wanted to take another ride. It was pretty cool gliding over the sprawling Sebring layout in the quiet of the airship.

Even better, though, the next day Dave walked up to me in the media center and said, "Come outside with me."

After we walked out onto the balcony behind the media center, Dave pointed up at the blimp and said, "What do you think?"

There, in huge letters blinking across its enormous screen was the message, "Hi Mike Harris!" Very few people who saw it would have had any idea who Mike Harris was but, because I always had a soft spot in my heart for the Goodyear blimp, it was thrilling for me.

One of the racing photographers was kind enough to take a picture for me and that picture now hangs on my office wall, along with my awards and a lot of other memories.

And, talking about the blimp this week, Judy reminded me of the time she and her girlfriend Anni Higgins got to take a ride at Indianapolis.

Anni and then-husband Jim, the head keeper at the Ape House at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago, came to visit us in Indy sometime in the late 70's.

That week, I got an invitation from the Goodyear PR person, before Dave, to take a ride on the blimp. I was told that some customers scheduled to take rides that week had canceled their visit to Indy.

The only time that was available coincided with a press conference at the track, so I turned down the ride. But I asked if possibly my wife could take my place? He said yes and gave me the information.

When I told Judy about it, she said sadly, "I can't go. I'm working." But Jim said, "Hey, I'll do your area. You and Anni go take the blimp ride."

I called the PR person and he said Anni was welcome, too.

At that point, Judy had to get permission for Jim to replace her for the day. Of course, he was qualified. But her zoo partner, another Jim, had to be talked into it. Judy can be pretty convincing when she wants something and everyone agreed to the switch.

Judy and Anni took the blimp ride and loved it. Meanwhile, Jim worked her area, which included the big cats, her young chimp, DOC, and a baby elephant.

The only incident was when the chimp, seeing the new keeper, decided to challenge Jim, hooting and banging on its chest. Jim answered by channeling one of his adult chimps from Lincoln Park, roaring back at DOC and scaring the little girl so much she ran to a corner and pooped.

Another fun thing about the Sebring weekends was that they usually fell during the NCAA basketball tournament's sectional weekend. A whole group of media people and PR reps stayed in the same apartment complex during the race weekend and it wound up being a really big party, particularly on Thursday night, before most of us had obligations at the track.

We brought in all kinds of food and drink, turned on the TV and watched basketball until the wee hours. There were a lot of games and almost everyone had a rooting interest. Some money changed hands but, mostly, it was just fun.

 

I

This week on the TV show Jeopardy, NASCAR was one of the categories. One of the questions was to identify a picture of a famous driver. No one was able to correctly identify Richard Petty, easily the most famous stock car driver ever, other than Dale Earnhardt.

That makes me sad for a few different reasons.

First, Richard Petty was for decades the face of NASCAR. His exploits as a driver are truly legendary: 200 wins (no one else has more than 101), seven championships (tied with Earnhardt) and seven Daytona 500 wins (no one else is close).

Since he retired from the cockpit in 1992, at the age of 53, Petty has continued as a team owner. His cars have not been particularly successful, although they have won more than 50 races over the years since his retirement.

Knowing Petty, still going strong at 83, easily identifiable in his feathered cowboy hat and cool sunglasses, was one of the great highlights of my career.

From that day I met him at Riverside, CA, in January, 1980, when we sat on a stack of tires in the garage area and talked for near an hour, I have admired Richard - not just for his accomplishments, but for the incredible person I found him to be.

In one of our later conversations, I asked Richard how he felt about the constant requests for autographs. He had what I believe is a unique attitude about this often annoying part of being a celebrity.

"I practiced signing my name hundreds of times so I could get a good, clear signature," Petty said. "I hate it when I see other autographs and they're completely unreadable, just a couple of lines or a circle or something.

"I want to give the fans something they can actually read and still look up and make eye contact and give them a personal moment. I got it timed down to about 20 seconds so, when there's a line, it keeps moving."

If Richard had a one-hour autograph signing, when it got to about 50 minutes, he would send his PR person to the end of the line and tell the last person in line, "Richard will keep signing until he gets to you." He would then turn away anybody else who tried to get in line, saying, "Sorry, Richard won't be able to stay long enough to sign for you. Please come back another time."

Near the end of Richard's driving career, I attended a pre-race drivers' meeting in the garage area at Daytona. As it was breaking up, I saw two big name drivers heading toward a back door to try to keep from having to sign autographs on the way out.

Richard stopped them and said, "Don't you fellas understand that it's the fans who pay your salaries and are the reason why you're famous. Go out there and meet 'em, talk to 'em and sign those autographs."

Shamed, the two big names turned around and walked out into the crowd.

Richard's birthday, July 2, always fell during the summer Daytona race weekend. One year, Judy and I attended a birthday party for the man known as "The King."

People were having their pictures taken with Richard and the photographer came up and asked if Judy would like a picture taken with him. Judy, who is the least star-struck person I know, politely said, "No thank you."

But Richard heard her and believed she was just being shy. He came up, put his arm around her shoulder and said, "Come on, darlin'" I'll make it easy on you."

Judy got red in the face, but posed with The King. The picture showed up in the mail a couple of weeks later and we still have it somewhere. The look of Judy's face is priceless; somewhere between embarrassment and resignation. We still have it around somewhere, I think. I'll post it if I ever find it.

When I started covering NASCAR in 1980, Richard was already on the downside of his career. I did get to cover his seventh and final Daytona 500 victory, but I didn't really understand his connection to his legion of fans until he won the spring race at Rockingham in North Carolina in 1983.

It was obviously a popular victory in the grandstands at North Carolina Speedway, but what amazed me was what I saw on the 70-mile drive back to the airport in Charlotte. There seemed to be a celebration going on at just about every truckstop and gas station along the route, as well as in the downtown areas of several small towns.

There were Petty, No 43 (his traditional car number) and STP (his longtime sponsor) signs everywhere. People were dancing, drinking and generally cutting up in honor of Richard's latest victory.

When I got back to Westfield, N.J., later that night, I immediately sat down and wrote a story about what I had seen. It was truly an eye-opener about the effect this tall, slim man from tiny Randleman, NC, had on people.

My favorite personal story about Richard took place after the NASCAR Awards Dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City in December of 1992. 

That year's champion was Alan Kulwicki, a Milwaukee boy who overcame great odds to get to the top of his profession. He was sponsored by the Hooters restaurant chain.

The tradition at the time was that the champion got to pick the band that played at the victory party following the dinner. Over the years, the champions brought in big name entertainment like Kool and the Gang, Sly and the Family Stone and the Turtles.

Kulwicki chose the Waldorf house band, Jack Black and the Heart Attack. They were really rocking by the time I finished my writing, collected my date _ daughter Lanni _ and headed to the party in another part of the Waldorf.

Judy was never all that excited about going to banquets and other formal occasions, although she went to dozens of them with me over the years. So, while we lived across the river in New Jersey, Lanni and Tory took turns dressing up and attending the formal events with me.

Lanni, who was 17 at the time, loves dancing. She actually was part of a swing dance ad that still appears occasionally on early morning television. Her feet were already moving _ and mine were already aching _ as we walked toward the party.

But, unfortunately, I had forgotten my invitation and the Hooters girls who were guarding the doors, politely turned us away. I was secretly happy, but Lanni was really bummed that we couldn't get in.

Just then, Richard and wife Lynda, another sweetheart of a person, walked up. Richard had been honored at the dinner for his driving career, and was getting congratulations all around as he saw us.

He immediately noticed Lanni's dour expression and said, "What's the matter, honey?"

She said, "Dad forgot our invitation and we can't get into the party."

Richard said, "C/mon, you're with me."

He put his arm around Lanni's shoulders and said, "Take Lynda's arm!" I did as I was told and we swept past the gate girls without a second glance our way.

Once inside, Lanni wanted to dance. I had spent a very long day working and driving back and forth to New Jersey to bring Lanni back into the city. After a dance or two, I said, "You know, it's getting late. I think we should head for home."

Lanni wasn't pleased. She wanted to dance. King Richard to the rescue again.

With Lynda looking at him like he was someone she didn't know, The King said, "C/mon honey, let's cut a rug." He grabbed Lanni's hand and the two of them hit the dance floor.

I won't say Richard was a good dancer, but he gave a good effort. And Lanni had a ball.

The other thing I remember clearly about that party was that the band stopped playing abruptly at 1 a.m.

Kulwicki walked up to the band leader and said, "Why'd you stop playing." He explained that they had been paid to play only till 1 o'clock.

The champ reached in his pocket and pulled out a money clip. "How much to keep playing?" The band leader told him it was $1,000 an hour and Kulwicki handed him a wad of bills and said, "Keep going until this runs out."

I'm told they played until almost dawn, although I was home in bed by that time - thankfully.

My first visit to North Wilkesboro Speedway in rural North Carolina came in the spring of 1982. There were only a few short tracks (less than a mile) left on the NASCAR schedule, and North Wilkesboro was considered one of the best for close racing.

North Wilkesboro was a typical small southern town, sleepy most of the time, except when NASCAR's top stock car series visited twice a year.

The media motel was located in a residential area and was built into the side of a large hill, with the lower rooms facing out on a small forest. When I walked into the office to check in for the first time, the proprietor was sitting in a side room playing a guitar and quietly humming to himself.

He eventually saw me standing by the desk and broke into a huge smile, saying, "Who have we here?"

I introduced myself and he said, "It's great to have you here. The NASCAR folks are like family. They've been staying with us for years."

The track, located about five miles east of the downtown area, was just over half a mile in length and featured a unique uphill backstretch and downhill frontstretch. There was no tunnel to get to the infield, so you had to wait until the cars stopped running to cross the track.

One of the top teams in NASCAR at the time was owned by Junior Johnson, one of the sport's all-time great drivers and part of the legendary moonshine-running antecedents of the stock car sport. Although he was never caught on the road, Junior spent time in a federal prison after being captured near his family's still.

By 1981, he was one of NASCAR's top car owners and he and driver Darrell Waltrip were on their way to a series championship.

I was wandering the pit road that first day in North Wilkesboro when I spotted Junior sitting on the low pit wall by himself. I had been in group interviews with him, but never one-on-one and I wasn't sure if he even knew who I was.

As I walked up, he broke into a big smile and said, "I wondered when we'd get around to talking. How are you liking our sport?"

I pulled out my notebook and got a good interview as we sat and talked for about 10 minutes before Junior was called to the car.

As he was walking away, Junior turned and said, "You're coming to the farm for breakfast tomorrow, right?" I guess I looked puzzled and he added, "Eight o'clock at the farm in Ronda. See you then."

I asked around and found out that he and then-wife Flossie hosted a breakfast for most of the NASCAR folks each year on the Saturday morning of the spring race at North Wilkesboro. The farm, in the tiny town of Ronda, where Junior also built a race shop "across the creek," was just a few miles from the track.

He didn't have to ask me twice. I walked into the farmhouse and found a huge country breakfast buffet waiting in the dining room. I met Flossie, who was a typical, friendly country lady. She smiled and told me to dig in, which I did."

It seemed just about anybody who was anybody in NASCAR was there and there was plenty of good conversation to go with the great food.

I saw Junior and waved to him, but he was working the room and didn't get to me for a while, Finally, he walked up with a big smile on his face and said, "Come with me."

We walked through the crowd to a staircase, which took us to the basement. I followed Junior to a far corner of the basement where there was a locked cupboard. Junior took out a key and unlocked it.

By this time, I was totally confused. What was he doing? Why was I down here?

Junior reached into the cupboard and produced a small ceramic jar with a cork top. He handed it to me and said, "Don't drink it all in one sitting. It'll put you on your ass! But I hope you enjoy it. Welcome to NASCAR."

I'm not much of a drinker - maybe a little wine now and then. I had never even seen, let alone drank, moonshine. And I wasn't about to try it at 9 a.m. on a work day. But I thanked Junior profusely and promised to let him know how I liked it.

I did pull that cork and try it that afternoon, A small sip burned my throat and my eyes didn't stop watering for half an hour. But I was really honored that Junior Johnson had given me that gift. And I still have that jug - although I poured out the rest of the moonshine that same afternoon.

My second visit to the Long Beach Grand Prix was also interesting.

This time, we managed to get one of the mothers to stay with the kids in Westfield and Judy flew to California with me for the long weekend.

She immediately fell in love with what was then seedy, grimy Long Beach. Within a few blocks of our hotel were two good-sized used book stores and several thrift shops. For Judy, that was like being on a beach in Hawaii for most people.

That Friday night, we were invited by team owner Frank Williams to the dinner party that I had attended by myself the previous year at the home of his wife's sister and brother-in-law.

We were seated next to his new driver, Keke Rosberg of Finland and Keke's fiance, Sina. Judy and Sina hit it off immediately and I found Keke to be a really nice, friendly guy. It was a wonderful evening and, as we parted, Sina said, "You'll have to come visit us in Finland or Monaco (where most of the F1 drivers lived)."

Keke and Sina married the next year but, unfortunately, we never took her up on the invitation.

The first Detroit Grand Prix was held that summer, with a temporary track built around the Renaissance Center in the heart of the Motor City.

A special practice had been set for Thursday because it was a new, untested track. But track workers were unable to finish in time.

I checked into the hotel in Ren Cen and walked out to the track, where F1 crewmen were playing football (soccer) and throwing frisbees on the unfinished track. As I walked along the pit road, I saw my new friend Keke sitting alone on the pit wall, apparently enjoying the sunny, warm afternoon.

I walked up, stuck out my hand and said, "Hey, Keke, how are you?"

He looked at me coldly, without reaching for my hand, and said, "I'm okay."

I was confused and wondered if he just didn't recognize me. I said, "You know me, Mike Harris from AP. We met in Long Beach."

He stared at me without any expression and said, "Sorry."

Feeling stupid and embarrassed, I said, "Okay. Sorry to bother you," and started to walk away. When I got about five feet from him, I heard Keke said, "How's Judy!" I looked back and he had a gigantic smile and started to laugh.

"Got ya!" he said. Indeed he did.

Keke went on to win the F1 championship for Williams that year. The season finished with that first Las Vegas GP and, thanks to my friendship with both Keke and Frank Williams, I was able to get exclusive one-on-one interviews with both of them that got me by-lines all over Europe and South America. It was something of a coup for the AP, which generally didn't have an inside line on F1.

That year was also the first time NASCAR's awards dinner was held at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City.

The banquet was held on the first Friday of December, the same week that New York's Christmas celebration gets into full swing with the tree lighting in Rockefeller Plaza and the opening of all the amazing displays in the department store windows.

The setting was a little overwhelming that first year for the NASCAR crowd. There was a lot of gawking at tall buildings and wide eyes at the restaurant and shop prices.

The first few banquets were held in the cozy Starlight Roof at the Waldorf. But the event grew quickly and soon moved to the hotel's ballroom.

It was a glitzy, black-tie affair that drew CEO's from many of America's major companies. And it didn't take long for the drivers and their wives to acclimate and come to appreciate being in the big city.

Since we lived just across the Hudson River in New Jersey, Judy and I didn't need a hotel room. Later, after we moved to North Carolina, we spent the banquet week at the Waldorf for several years, which was truly a treat.

There is an upscale jewelry story in the lobby of the Waldorf and, of course, Judy had to do a little window shopping. She soon became very friendly with the ladies that ran the story, although she told them up front that there was nothing there that we could afford.

Each year, as we walked through the lobby, Judy would stop and stare at this one intricate necklace, with exotic figures tumbling down its length, that stayed in the store's window. Finally, she asked one of the ladies if she could try it on, just for fun.

As she put it on, Judy asked how much it was selling for and what, if any, it's signifiance? The sales lady smiled and replied, "The price is $400,000. It's the Kama Sutra."

Judy blushed, thanked the lady and quickly handed it back. But she still stopped to look at that piece of jewelry every time we walked past.

Another time, years later, one of the NASCAR sponsors held a cocktail party after hours at Tiffany & Co., on Fifth Avenue. There were bars and tables of hors d'oeuvres, which most of the guests took advantage of. Not Judy.

The store was fully staffed for the event and Judy started asking the clerks what she should see. We wound up touring the entire five-floor store and talking to people at almost every counter. At one point, Judy tried on a $2 million ring with a rare yellow diamond.

The clerk almost had a heart attack when Judy began to wander off to look at something else while still wearing the ring. Then I had a small anxiety attack when she had a bit of trouble getting the ring off. But it really was a fun event that we were able to take part in for consecutive years.

There were a lot of fun events connected with the New York banquets that we got to take part in. One especially good one was a yearly concert at the Roseland Ballroom, sponsored by what was then The Nashville Network (TNN). We saw Reba McIntire, Brooks & Dunn, Tanya Tucker and Faith Hill and Tim McGraw, among others.

Some of the perks of my job were definitely great.

The trip to Phoenix during my first year on the auto racing beat also featured one of the strangest moments of my career.

In those days, you could cover the races at Phoenix Raceway from the roof of the one-story media center in the middle of the infield and then dash down the steps with a few laps to go and file your story.

That roof gave a panoramic view of the one-mile oval and, as usual, the late fall Arizona weather was sunny and pleasant. Johnny Rutherford, driving his iconic "Yellow Submarine" was dominating the race.

Suddenly, coming off turn four, Rutherford's car slid sideways, tapped the wall and flipped over, sending JR and his open-cockpit car sliding upside-down along the main straightaway. It was spectacular and frightening. My heart sank and I think I stopped breathing for a moment.

The roof usually attracted a few non-official spectators and this race was no exception. Among the people watching alongside me was Linda Vaughn, the statuesque former Miss Hurst Golden Shifter and now the mother hen of the series.

As the bright yellow car slid down the track, the crowd grew silent and Linda, screaming, collapsed onto my shoulders and back. In other circumstances, I probably would have enjoyed the close contact with the beautiful Linda, but definitely not in this case.

I knew I should be dashing down to my computer to file a story about the crash. But, first, I had to console a gasping, white-faced Linda, telling her that JR would be just fine - hoping silently I was right. As she calmed down, I extricated myself from her grasp and went to write my story.

Thankfully, JR was not seriously injured, thanks especially to his helmet, which cracked as it skidded on the ground during the incident.

I've always enjoyed milestone moments in sports and I got to cover more than a few of them. One of my favorites was Richard Petty's victory in the 1981 Daytona 500.

From the time I first met "The King," I found him to be less of a celebrity or star and more of a real person - somebody you could have a real conversation with and who was genuinely nice and caring.

But, by the time I began covering NASCAR in 1980, Richard was in his 40s and on the downside of his glorious racing career. Wins, which had come in bunches earlier in his career, were now occasional and he was no longer the man to beat most weekends.

That made his record seventh victory in NASCAR's premier event all the more exciting.

I was thoroughly enjoying writing about Richard's victory and the words were flowing smoothly. But I also was feeling a strong urge to head for the bathroom after sitting and drinking coffee for the last half of the race.

Finally, I was at the point where I could take a quick break before the winner's interview began. I walked to the bathroom at the back of the press box, on a mission and taking no notice that a crowd of people _ photographers, writers, PR people and even a few VIP fans were standing in a crowd outside the men's room door.

I walked quickly through the crowd and darted into the bathroom, which was empty with the exception of a tall, slim man in a feathered cowboy hat standing at a urinal, his back to me. Of course, it was Richard, who had felt the same urge as me after nearly three hours in his race car.

It was a very strange moment as I stood there, wondering if I should go about my business or wait until "The King" was finished with his. I stood there in that nearly empty bathroom lost in a fog until Richard turned around and headed for the sink to wash his hands.

He saw me standing there, gave me a big wink and said, "We got 'em today, son!"

I said, "Congratulations, Richard," then stood and watched as he finished his ablutions and left the room. The crowd outside began applauding, which also seemed very odd, considering where Richard was coming from.

At that point, I remembered what I was there for and took care of business, walking out just in time for the first question of the winner's interview. The incident was both surreal and memorable.

That year's Indy 500 was also memorable, mostly because the winner wasn't determined until four months later.

I wrote the main lede and was well into my story about Bobby Unser winning the 500 for the third time when word began to filter down to us that Unser faced a possible penalty for passing cars illegally while returning to the track after a pit stop on lap 149 of the 200-lap event.

Everything was suddenly on hold. Several hours after the race, the U.S. Auto Club, the sanctioning body at Indy at the time, issued a one-lap penalty to Unser, apparently giving runner-up Mario Andretti his second Indy victory.

After finishing yet another lede, I walked to the pace car room under the grandstands and knocked on the door, hoping to interview the driver and find out what he saw from his unique perspective. Duke Nalon, a former Indy driver, was the celebrity driver, but a speedway employee, Don Bailey, took over the wheel after the start of the race.

Bailey opened the door and got a deer-in-the-headlights look on his face when I introduced myself and said I'd like to talk to him about the race. Next thing I knew, the door was slammed in my face. No amount of knocking brought Don back to the door. I guess I got A for effort on that one.

Results at Indy were not official until they were posted at 8 a.m. the next day. I was outside the USAC office door the next morning, along with a small handful of other writers and photographers, when the results were posted on the window, Mario was in first and Bobby second, a lap down. A quick call to the office put the news on the wire.

There were protests and appeals galore throughout the next few months. Finally, on October 9, USAC reversed its decision and Unser had his third Indy win again - this time, for good.

It became just another episode of the so-called "Andretti Curse" at Indy, where, after his win in 1969, bad luck kept Mario from winning again. His son, Michael, led more laps than any other driver in the 500 and never won. And grandson Marco came close in his rookie year and has not been close again.

Some feel the "curse" was finally broken when Michael won Indy for the first time as a car owner in 2005 with Dan Wheldon behind the wheel.

My second season of auto racing also included my first visit as a writer to Las Vegas. The fall race, run on a temporary circuit built on a parking lot and open field behind Caesars Palace, was the season finale for Formula One.

This time, I made sure I wrote up front for credentials and I asked the PR person for the race, new friend Hank Ives, if he could make me a room reservation at Caesars. He was very apologetic but said the race promoter didn't want media staying at the host hotel.

So he got me a room at Bally's on the strip.

I arrived in Vegas on Thursday evening and, after checking into the hotel, decided to play some video poker. After losing a quick $20, I thought I['d change my luck and head to another hotel.

Walking out to Las Vegas Boulevard, I saw the Flamingo Hilton was across the street about a block away. There was unusually light traffic on the boulevard that night and I decided to jaywalk in the middle of the block - not the brightest thing I've ever done.

As I began to cross the four-lane boulevard, I saw a shapely young woman wearing tight toreador pants and an even tighter silk baseball jacket walking directly toward me. We met at the center line and as I nodded at her in greeting, she stepped in front of me and said, "You looking for some fun, honey?"

Sheepishly, I said, "No thank you."

As cars sped past us on both sides, she reached for the zipper of her silver jacket and began to pull it down, revealing a whole lot of flesh.

She smiled and said, "Are you sure?"

I said something witty like "Yes, maam!" She shook her head, said, "F... you" and continued across the street. I stood there in the middle of the traffic thinking, "Welcome to Las Vegas, Mike."

Over the years, I had many interesting adventures in Vegas - but never another one like that.

People tend to think that because I covered auto racing for so many years that I was a car guy.

Not so! I can change a tire and pump gas, but not much more when it comes to the mechanical end of the car.

As I got into the beat, I was trying to learn as much about cars as quickly as I could. I had no idea how much there was to learn.

I was driving from Atlanta to Talladega for the July NASCAR race at the Alabama superspeedway that first year when it occurred to me that a lot of people who were reading my stories didn't know the difference between a stock car and a street car.

At that point, I didn't, either.

I decided to find out for myself and then write a feature telling everyone just what makes something a stock car.

As I walked through the garage area that Friday morning, it was buzzing with activity and everybody looked too busy to talk. Then I noticed Junie Donlavey, a legendary car owner and mechanic, standing by himself outside his hauler.

I figured if anybody knew what made a stock car distinctive, it would be Junie, who had been around almost since the beginning of NASCAR in 1948.

I introduced myself and told him the story I was working on. Then I asked the question: "What's stock about a stock car?"

Junie, the grizzled lines on his face becoming even more furrowed as he peered up into the bright sky for a few moments, rubbed his bristly chin for a long moment and, finally, looked me right in the eye and said, "Well, steerin' column. But it's beefed up."

That, my friends, is when I knew there was really nothing "stock" about a stock car. Several of the mechanics I got to know showed me how the chassis were built from the ground up with steel tubing and how the cars were weighted for balance with lead and how pieces of foam were used for cushioning. It was quite the education and gave me a new appreciation of these cars that raced at speeds approaching 200 mph on the big tracks and, generally, kept the drivers safe in horrifying looking crashes.

That first year on the beat was eye-opening in many ways.

I was starting to get the sense that being the AP's guy in auto racing was a big deal and I also was starting to get a little full of myself. When I arrived at a new track and identified myself, it seemed the red carpet was rolled out just about everywhere. It was fun and a little heady.

It was also amazing and somewhat sobering to realize that literally millions of people were reading my stories.

Then I went to the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal.

It was my first time in Montreal and only my second Formula One race. My first F1 event, in Long Beach, had been a great experience, so I was really looking forward to this race.

But, somehow, I didn't realize I had never gotten a reply to my credential request. That meant I had no parking pass for that first morning, so I talked my way onto a press shuttle from the hotel to the panoramic track on Ile Notre Dame in the midst of the mighty St. Lawrence River.

The man-made island, across from downtown Montreal, was built for the 1967 Canadian Expo and the rowing and canoeing events in the 1976 Olympics were held there. It was a beautiful venue.

I was really happy to be there until I walked into the credential office and found a long line of people. It took quite a while to get to the front of that line and, when I did, the woman behind the counter asked me my affiliation.

When I proudly said "Associated Press" she stared at me blankly and said, "Is that a magazine?" Still feeling confident, I replied, "No, it's based in the U.S. and it's the world's largest news gathering organization."

"Oh, you mean Reuters," she said.

"No, the AP."

She shrugged and said, "We have nothing under your name or the name of that organization, except for a couple of photographers."

"Is there someone I can talk to," I asked. She walked into a side office and said to an unseen person, "There's a guy here who says he's supposed to have a credential and I can't find anything."

A man walked out of the room, looked at me hard and said, "Sorry. If we haven't got a confirmation for you, then there's nothing we can do."

At that point, I was heartsick. I really didn't know what to do next.

Then I heard a voice behind me say, "You'd better check with the race director. The AP is a big deal and he's the AP racing guy."

It was my new buddy Lewis Franck. His credential for F1 was assured because he was a member of  ARPA (Auto Racing Press Association), an international group which I soon joined. He was wearing his ARPA armband and that gave him immediate status with the credential people, who decided maybe they ought to check with the race director.

Grudgingly, they ushered Lewis and me into another office, where Lewis explained to the race director who I was. At least the race director knew about the AP. Within minutes, I had a credential and a parking pass. Crisis averted, thanks to Lewis, who has never let me forget it.

That incident also taught me a lesson about taking myself and my position too seriously.

There were a lot of firsts for me in 1980. I found I loved going to new tracks and new cities.

It was fun to learn my way around and meet so many great new people. And I quickly realized that racing people were mostly exceptionally nice and welcoming.

One of my last races in 1980 was the IndyCar event in the Phoenix suburb of Avondale, nestled at the base of the scenic Estrella Mountains and built alongside a reservation.

My first day at the dusty little one-mile oval, I was told that before each race, the track hires some of the native Americans to collect the rattlesnakes that populate the hills surrounding the track so that people can sit on those hills for the races.

It was a just a folksy tale to me at the time.

My first day at the track was filled by practice, qualifying and interviews. By the time I finished my writing, I was the last person in the infield media center. The sun was setting in the west as I walked to my car, the only one left in the blacktop-covered media parking lot, 100 yards or so from the media center.

It was a gorgeous evening and I was just taking in the sunset when I looked down and realized I was stepping over a good-sized rattler. I think I looked just like one of those cartoons where the guy is suspended in the air with his legs churning until he hits the ground and speeds away.

I guess the snake was sleeping on the warm tarmac and didn't pay any attention to me. But he sure caught my attention. And I was very careful where I walked the rest of my time at the Phoenix track.

Toward the end of that first year on the beat, a PR man invited Judy and me to a dinner at Palm II, a great and very expensive steak house in Manhattan. I found out the guy was trying to find support for an IndyCar street race in Manhattan.

We got a sitter and drove into the city and found that the dinner party included some well-known writers from the New York newspapers as well as artist Leroy Neiman, who was doing some F1 and IndyCar posters, and his latest assistant, a pretty woman who had dated Lewis at one time.

They sat Judy and the other woman together, but she was not very friendly or talkative.

When it came time to order, they started with Judy, who was a little embarrassed after seeing the menu prices. She picked something like a hamburger steak, the cheapest thing on the menu, and nothing to go with it. The other woman went next and ordered a filet mignon, just about the most expensive thing on the menu, plus a shrimp cocktail and a salad.

Of course the drinks flowed freely and several other people at the table ordered lobster, which is what Judy would like to have ordered if it wasn't so pricey and if she hadn't been first to order.

The filet looked like half a cow when it arrived and the young woman ate maybe two bites. Meanwhile, Judy dutifully ate her hamburger steak with a smile and joined happily in the conversation, although a lot of it centered on racing.

When the meal was finished, the waiter asked if anybody wanted to take their leftovers home. The other woman said, "No thanks" and Judy practically jumped out of her chair.

"Would you mind if I took it home," she asked the woman. That was fine with her.

The waiter brought back the leftovers wrapped in foil and made to look like birds. He put the steak down in front of Judy. Minutes later, I looked around and she was gone.

I assumed she had gone to the bathroom without saying anything. But after a fairly long absence, she returned with two other foil bags of leftovers.

It turns out my eagle-eyed wife had spotted three businessman finishing up their meals in the corner of the dining room. All of them had ordered lobster and two of them had take-home packages in front of them,

Judy walked up to them and said, "I have an almost untouched filet here that I'd love to trade for some lobster."

One of the guys said, "Sure, you can have mine." But his friend said, "You had hardly anything left and I've got a couple of untouched claws that she can have to go with yours."

When we opened the packages at home, those claws were so big they looked like first baseman's mitts. The next day we had a lunch of cold lobster and Fritos. Don't knock it if you haven't tried it. Delish!

As usual, Judy's resourcefulness paid off, big time.