That's One Shell of A Turtle

Always get excited about checking out The Coca-Cola 600 race on Memorial Day weekend.

In 1997, I was photographing practice at Charlotte Motor Speedway and Dale Earnhardt Sr. asked me if I could send pictures to The Associated Press. I told him I could and he invited me out to his truck. His daughter, Taylor, had found a turtle on their farm the night before that had multiple number 3s on its shell.

Earnhardt told Taylor he would try to get it published so everyone could see it.

He pulled the turtle out of big bag in the back of his truck and I made a few pictures of it walking around in the bed of the truck. We ran the picture in The Herald the next day and papers around the country ran the photo via AP.

The next day I was walking from the garage towards Turn 4 to the tower outside the track (which was a hike). Earnhardt was leaving after practice, stopped and rolled down the window and told me thanks for getting the picture out to the media. He asked me where I was headed and gave me a ride to the tower.

We mostly talked about how he ran several races in Lancaster in the 70s and also he had eaten fried squash from The Wagon Wheel a few times over the years. NASCAR was a fun sport to cover because the drivers were much more accessible than other sports.