James Blackport guides his #7 Geritol car toward the finish line at Sunday's Bob Evans 500.

Retired librarian wins first Senior NASCAR event

"I'm just glad to be done driving for today," a fatigued Blackport told reporters during a press conference following the 200-lap event. "Five hundred miles is a long trip for me to make in one shot anymore. I really should've stopped at a Budget Inn halfway through and split the driving across two days. I'm probably going to plan on doing that next week at Daytona."

Asked what he was going to do next, Blackport, temporarily forgetting his pre-race arrangement with the Disney Corporation, told television camera crews: "I'm going to take a nap."

Wielding his #07 Geritol car, Blackport took the lead at lap 156 and never looked back, literally, after frontrunner Ned Guinea was compelled to pull over and exit the vehicle for what at the time was assumed to be serious engine trouble. Minutes later, however, Guinea could be seen spreading a New Jersey state map across the hood of his 1986 Buick. Guinea would spend the next 20 minutes carefully examining the useless document, pausing only to shake his fist at drivers whom he seemed to feel were passing by him driving too fast considering his pedestrian status.

"Why is everybody always in such a dang hurry?" muttered Guinea, shaking his head as drivers zoomed past him at speeds approaching 50 mph. "I mean, where do these people have to be that they need to drive like it's an emergency? It's a Sunday, for crying out loud!"

Blackport's lead went unchallenged through the race's final 44 laps, as most of the 35 drivers remaining in the field appeared to set their cars' cruise control at speeds intended to maintain a sensible 10 car-length distance between each other until they reached the checkered flag. Second place finisher Ed Hale's hopes that Blackport would falter were extinguished on lap 190 when Blackport, appearing to hone his focus as the finish line drew near, finally turned off his right turn signal that had been blinking since lap 12.

"As soon as he turned off that blinker I knew Jim was in the zone and it was no sense trying to pass him," said Hale, 90. "We only had a few miles to go anyway, and I'm not going to pass somebody right before I get to where I'm going - that's just stupid. I'd rather get somewhere late and alive than risk my life trying to save a few seconds."

Pole position winner Clyde Moss, an 88-year-old retired grocer whom many considered the odds-on favorite to win Sunday, bowed out of contention suddenly on lap four after the grandfather of 14 discovered a malfunction with his 1976 Roadster's dashboard cigarette lighter.

"It's not getting hot no matter how many times I push it in," explained a visibly disappointed Moss to his eight-man pit crew, which consists entirely of members of Moss' bridge club. "Maybe it has something to do with the battery or something."

Unable to discern the cause of the problem despite checking and rechecking each of the car's fluid levels, the pit team advised Moss that continuing the race with the vehicle in its current condition would be "a risky gamble" - one that Moss found himself unwilling to take.

"I figured I'd better take it to a shop and have a mechanic look at it before I get too far down the road," Moss, a non-smoker, later told reporters. "Yes, I might have been erring on the side of caution, but when you're going on a long haul such as this you don't want to leave anything up to chance, you know. That's one thing I've learned the hard way over the years."

Another favorite, 68-year-old Gary Garner, a former automobile salesman from Indiana, lasted only until lap 20. Concerned that his fuel level was about to dip below three-quarters of a tank, Garner ducked into pit row to refuel. And although his Depends-sponsored pit crew performed one of the race's quickest pit stops - finishing in just under 18 minutes - Garner's quest for the win ended tragically when the driver realized he had somehow managed to lose the vehicle's keys during the stop.

"The only places I could have left [the keys] were in the bathroom or at the concession stand when I went to try to find some hard candy to take back in the car with me," said Garner, still frisking his person and rechecking his pockets hours after the race. "Thank God my wife isn't here - I'd never hear the end of this. Sometimes I think she just sits around hoping I'll make a mistake so she can yell at me about it."

Though this first event of the Senior circuit failed to produce any of the fantastic crashes commonly associated with regular NASCAR races, audience members did get some excitement on lap 40 after every remaining member of the field followed leader Guinea into the pit area.

"We had a little congestion in the pit area and [driver] Teddy Owens scraped his front bumper against Guinea's rear panel," said event coordinator Larry McDaniel, 35. "They both got out and surveyed the damage, exchanged insurance information and that was it. Yeah, they were both really lucky - it could have been a lot worse. It's always good news when a guy walks away from a crash, even if he does have to use a walker."

June 2004