Showdown showed true Earnhardt

Ron Bouchard misses Dale Earnhardt often, but never so much as Christmas mornings, back home in the former Cup Rookie of the Year's native Massachusetts.

"Even after I quit racing, him and I stayed friends," Bouchard said last month while visiting Daytona International Speedway's garage. "Every Christmas morning my phone would ring, and it'd be Dale calling me, saying 'Bouchard, what are you doing?'

"Every Christmas morning we'd all be together, making breakfast, so he'd call me up and talk to [wife] Paula and [son] Chad -- wishing us a Merry Christmas."

Bouchard was luckier than many who were blessed with the opportunity to strap into a Cup or Busch Series car and trade paint with Earnhardt, who was merely building his reputation as "The Intimidator" during Bouchard's prime time in the big league.

Bouchard had a close friendship with the seven-time Cup champion, whose upbringing in Kannapolis, N.C., might have resembled Bouchard's early days in Fitchburg, a small city in north Central Massachusetts.

And it's the times off the track that Bouchard, who's built a thriving auto dealership network in New England, remembers most fondly.

But racing was at the center of even those, and the most outrageous stories center on the Budweiser Showdown of Champions, a legendary four-year series of races that annually featured a group of Cup stars racing local New England short tracks.

Russ Conway, former sports editor of The Eagle Tribune outside Lawrence, Mass., was part of the Showdown's promotional team and he worked with Bouchard on recruiting.

"I was involved with Russ in putting some of these races on," Bouchard said. "My job was to get some of the guys I raced with and get them to come up there.

"Buddy Baker had helped me win my first race [1981 Talladega 500] and we had become good, solid friends. So of course Buddy came and was part of it with us, and Earnhardt was the next one I talked to.

"I asked him if he wanted to come up and stay at our house, and we were going to run some races, and he said, 'Sure, that sounds like fun.' So Dale came up and did a number of them with us."

The Budweiser Showdown of Champions ran from 1983-86, and Bouchard's best story occurred the second of three years that Earnhardt came up for the series.

Bouchard had to travel from his home down to his dealership outside Worcester, Mass., "to see what was going on," and he asked Earnhardt if he wanted to accompany him before they went to race that evening at Stafford Motor Speedway. in Stafford Springs, Conn.

Bouchard said Earnhardt shook his head and said, "Naw, I been down there before -- I'm going to stay here with the girls by the pool."

"I said, 'Beautiful,' " Bouchard recalled. "But when I came back from work, there was Earnhardt sitting by the pool -- they had drunk two bottles of wine and he could barely stand up.

"I asked him what happened and he said 'Man, the girls wrecked me.' "

What ensued was perhaps one of the greatest recovery jobs in racing history, which Conway said included plenty of naptime on the two-hour-plus trip from Massachusetts.

Conway said the recovery's postscript put all of Earnhardt's considerable ability on display when he executed a spectacular move that night at Stafford's flat, half-mile oval.

"He pulled it low to make a pass off Turn 2 and the next thing you know, two wheels are in the grass, but he never lifted," Conway said. "All of a sudden, he's 50 feet deeper into the corner than anyone else, but he still has to turn.

"As he's kicking it sideways, the [back] end is almost up on the Armco barrier, he's got the wheels kicked to the right and he's on the throttle. He came off Turn 4 smoking like he was a dragster.

"The people were going wild -- and he ended up winning the race. I still don't know how he didn't go through the Turn 3 wall."

That story epitomized how Conway, a prize-winning journalist, was most struck by Earnhardt, the competitor.

"He was a promoter's dream," Conway said. "He came to race and he wanted to put on a good show -- he wanted a good car. I'll never forget before he came up the first time, calling me three or four times and telling me he had to have a good car."

Conway said owner Richie Resner from Brooklyn, N.Y., provided just such a vehicle, with which Earnhardt won 10 of 12 features he raced in the series for Pro Stock cars, a type of Late Model in which the Cuppers raced full fields of local drivers.

"Without a doubt those Showdowns were a highlight -- we mixed a lot of racing with a lot of entertainment," Conway said. "But the one thing Dale really liked was he had to race his way into the features.

"He put on a show and then he'd go up and meet people -- and you were the most important person in the world when he was talking to you," Conway said. "He had an effect on people, that's for sure, and in my experience he was a terrific guy."

For Bouchard, the racing was only part of Earnhardt's mystique.

"That was before everyone had airplanes and motorhomes and whatever, and we did a lot of things together -- we just had a lot of fun together," Bouchard said. "We spent a lot of time on his boat -- him and his captain -- when it was only him and Teresa and Captain Terry. We'd do the cooking and he'd run the boat.

"We had a lot of fun together -- a lot of great times. He was a great guy and a great friend and I tell you, I miss him dearly every time I come to these racetracks.

"I always think about him [because] we had so many good times together. If you knew him -- I think some people thought he was a ruffian redneck, but he was certainly not that.

"He was a rough racecar driver, yeah -- and when he raced, he raced hard. But as far as a person, he'd give you the shirt off his back and he was just always a great friend.

"Racing misses him and I know we always will, because we were great friends."