re: Jeff Gordon's last year for a championship

Alan Bestwick and the late Benny Parsons were always a blast to listen to

Nowadays the MRN guys kill it every week

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Where did you live in the Great and Glorious Landmass? (Mississippi of course)

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Biloxi. Dad was stationed at Keesler AFB for a couple of years

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And I actually had quite the die cast collection myself, and still do for the most part in an attic somewhere. Not sure what will come of all that

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Ended up collecting most of the normal starting grid circa 2003-2004. My little brothers have long since probably lost 'em, though

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Eddie George, Steve McNair, Jevon Kearse, Dale, Mark McGwire, Jeff fisher, Tony LaRussa, Phil Fulmer, even Albert Pujols and I know that the love I've had for those guys will never be duplicated bc it was formed when I was under 10 years old. Jeff will truly be the last and that makes me sad but it's fitting cause he was also the first

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That's quite the list And yeah, the ones you start following during your formative years are the ones that always seem larger than life to you, even when they retire (or otherwise leave the arena).

For me, that first sports idol was David Robinson. That was during an era when most of my hoophead friends were gaga for Michael Jordan, but it was ride or die with The Admiral for me. Got a chance to meet/shake the hand of one of his teammates from that first title team (Sean Elliott) last month, and I was giddy as hell even though I'm usually quite composed in public.

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No one thought Dales wreck was that bad, I knew a lot of ppl who had years around the sport and none of them thought it was bad and neither did i. Sadly, we weren't aware of how dangerous the sport had become til that point even though Kenny Irwin/Adam Petty/ and others should've told us.

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Yeah, it was such a different time. Shame it took tragedies to bring about change, but it's for the best.

It's just crazy, I mean, it wasn't that long before the Dale wreck that Bobby Labonte took a ride down the Talladega backstretch on his damn roof and walked away. Then that tap (by comparison) was enough to take out the The Intimidator.

I shudder to think of what might have happened had a wreck like Carl Edwards going into the Dega catch fence had occurred during that era.