Andy's Belfry
by Andy Belmont-Staff Writer and ARCA Series Driver
06/30/2004

We have grown to be such a politically correct nation and world it makes me want to puke. Read the papers daily and the clear cut ability to abandon any level of common sense has struck the main stream. Do people really believe some of the trash they are preaching?

Influence, in my opinion, starts at home. My kids wont wear clothes that are so big you need a rope to hold them up and they will get grounded if they walk in the house with a baseball hat on backwards. That stuff might be mainstream and cool to some folks, not in my house.

That being stated, conversations with my kids are most informative and it made me really think about the common sense thing. So, here goes:

Unaided recall response to sponsor logo's. My little guy, like most little boys, likes Dale Earnhardt Jr. What is not to like? His handlers have him in just about every facet of everyday mainstream America from car rentals to cologne. So, yesterday at lunch, I asked Brett, "What does Dale Earnhardt represent?" Without a second hesitation he said, "Laundry Soap." "What," I said? "Yes, dad, isn't Budweiser soap? They wash those cool horses with Budweiser soap, right dad?" So much for worrying about advertising brainwashing my kids.

That prompted the questions of my six, ten and eleven year old boys. IF you were going to buy someone a beer, what would you buy? Brett says, "The Sterling Marlin kind." How did Coors penetrate the little mind that he knew it was beer and Bud didn't? Kyle says Miller Lite, cause Uncle Joe likes Rusty Wallace. Andrew says he wouldn't buy beer. He would put his money into his race car. Spoken like a true racer.

Okay, Home Depot or Lowe's? Brett: Lowe's. Kyle: Lowe's. Andrew: Lowe's. So why? Brett: Jimmie Johnson is cool. Kyle: Tony Stewart is a butthead. Andrew: Lowe's is cleaner. I never noticed that. We shop at either one. Both are convenient to our home and it depends purely on where else we are going. If Tony Stewart gave me the finger that week, we go to Lowe's.

When I was a kid growing up, we traveled to most of the races. I once saw a "six minute cleaners" and it immediately made me think of the Wood Brothers 21, but I was never in one. King's Row fireplace was on Benny Parson's car, but I can't remember going out and getting one. Winston was the brand that was on the mast head, but I never thought about smoking one. Really, I didn't. My brothers and I wanted the neat coolers and seat cushions that the logo was on. We drank Coke and Pepsi. It had nothing to do with Bobby Allison or Roy Tyner's car colors.

When I was a kid, my grandfather smoked Chesterfields. No filter, like a Camel, just tobacco in a paper. There must have been twenty-thousand of those three quarter cents value coupons from the back of his cigarette packages. Two packs a day from the time he was thirteen until he was eighty-four. All those packages laying around, all those coupons, all those S&H greenstamps and the catalogues for merchandise. I never picked up a Chesterfield.

I saw a sign the other day that said Flagstaff. I am not even sure what it was, but it reminded me of that Falstaff brand that my parents had around the camp fire now and then. When Dutch Hoag had Genesee Beer on his modifieds they drank Genny. They tried Carling Black Label when Larry Smith was running. So, you might say we saw the influences even as kids. But I never once wanted a Falstaff or a Genny beer.

Through all of this, it just makes me think that in an election year, we as a whole spend entirely too much time protecting us from ourselves. Makes me crazy. Millions of dollars in advertising to sway your thought process and then millions more to make sure that the warning label that says what we already know. If you use this for the purpose other than intended, that we must be idiots.

It happens at the race tracks too I suppose. There isn't a warning label with a bologna burger and I am telling you they are good. It wouldn't stop me or any other fan from eating one. They ought to be served with a forty pound rolaid. Guess you figured out we were at South Boston last week.

So was Ray Charles.