When members of the NASCAR media – and let’s face it, its competitors and fans – first saw him, they paid little attention.
After all, he was just another young driver trying to make his way in NASCAR Cup Series racing on his own. He had his own team — a makeshift, voluntary band of pit crewmen, barely sufficient sponsorship and decidedly insufficient equipment.
They had seen this before: Some kid shows up for a couple of races, drives a few laps and then goes home – probably broke. It was a sad but oft-repeated scenario.
Yeah, they might have known that story well.
But they didn’t know Alan Kulwicki.
In 1986, his rookie year, he may have owned his own team, acquired minimal sponsorship from a steak house chain and put together a makeshift pit crew, but Kulwicki would not go away.
He qualified for 23 of 29 races, earned one top-five finish and three more among the top 10, posted nearly $100,000 in winnings and missed the top 20 in the standings by one point.
And he was named the Rookie of the Year.
It was time for the media to discover just who this Kulwicki guy was.
He was from Wisconsin and had a degree in engineering during a time when college graduates were almost unheard of in NASCAR – which made him an even stranger presence.
He gathered up everything he owned and came South to race, telling himself that since it was obvious he wasn’t a resident Southerner who could attract notice from week to week, he was going to have to do it on his own.
Obviously, the odds were against him.
But he defied them. After a successful 1986, he did even better in 1987 when he tripled his number of top-five and top-10 finishes, added three pole positions and posted $396,999 in earnings.
No longer was he unnoticed. Now there was no question he was in NASCAR to stay. He was competitive. Where he once had a makeshift roster of personnel and pit crewmen, instead he had dedicated professionals.
But there was also no question that, when it came to NASCAR competitors, he was, well, strange.
He showed up at every race carrying a briefcase, for crying out loud. He always seemed to be writing something down, lost in thought. He worked alongside his crew, inside and outside the car. He always seemed aloof, as if he had no interest in anything around him.
I was able to spend time with him away from the track. I learned he was a perfectionist. He examined every detail. When presented with issues, he…
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