M ONROE – Chuck and Gloria Etter won’t have to give up their seats to the Secret Service at the Daytona 500 Sunday because President Bush won’t be there.
Jennifer Buchanan/ The Herald
Unlike last year when they had to move one spot over and then were seated about three feet in front of him. They couldn’t talk to him because he and his wife, Laura, were ensconsed in a glassed-in suite. Though Bush supporters, the Etters didn’t even turn around and wave to him.
Jennifer Buchanan/ The Herald
They did talk to the Secret Service guy who had taken one of their seats, though. Chuck asked him if he worked for the Secret Service and the guy said he didn’t. “You wouldn’t admit it if you did,” Gloria tut-tutted.
The Secret Service guy stood surveying the area for a long time, then finally sat down and asked the Etters how they knew he was one of the president’s protectors. Gloria explained that the folks at Daytona had called them up and asked if they’d be willing to take different seats to accommodate the Bush party.
Of course we would, the Monroe couple said.
When the guy heard this, he furtively handed the Etters little Secret Service flags to pin on their lapels. “But not right now,” he cautioned.
And so, the Etters had two more pieces of memorabilia for their museum, which doesn’t have an official name, but if it did, it might be the Richard Petty Northwest Racing Museum, Chuck and Gloria Etter, curators.
Not many people know about it or have visited it, because it’s not open to the public. Not that the Etters are averse to having people over to see the place. It’s just that they’re not interested in making a buck off of it.
It’s quite a little showplace. They’ve got it in the backyard, in a garage that’ll accommodate three cars.
They have two cars in there now. And one of them sports a number that’s known to all racing fans. The one Richard Petty made famous: No. 43.
Petty retired as a driver in 1992, but he is still revered by racing fans. And two of his biggest fans are Chuck and Gloria Etter, who got married to one another 51 years ago and were wed to the Petty fan club after the first time they met him, in 1988.
Petty was racing at Rockingham, N.C., and the Etters had passes to visit his garage area before the race. The driver made a lasting impression, that of a “fine gentleman,” in Gloria’s words. “He’s always gracious about signing anything you want him to sign,” she said.
In their museum is ample evidence of that. The walls are decorated with autographed pictures of the Etters with Richard and various members of the Petty racing clan. On the No. 43 car they bought from the Pettys in 1996, there’s a picture of Richard signing it. Trouble is, when it was shipped out to their home in Monroe, the tarp that covered it wiped out his name, and they had to get a sticker autograph to replace it.
The car was part of the Petty Enterprises racing team, and it was driven by Bobby Hamilton. “It’s the only 1995 STP Pontiac in the world,” Chuck said proudly.
Melted rubber clings to the underside of the hood. When the Pettys offered to clean it up, Chuck said, heck no, leave it as it is. Battle scars give it an authenic look.
After Petty retired, Chuck inquired about buying one of his old cars. The asking price for one he had driven was $160,000. Well, how ‘bout one with the No. 43 on it that he didn’t drive? Chuck has about $35,000 invested in the Pontiac. One of the Petty people told him it was worth $90,000.
Chuck may not have a car King Richard raced, but he does have the gas can that was used in his 200th – and final – victory, the Firecracker 400 in 1984. There is also a tire from his last race, at Atlanta in 1992.
Besides pictures of the legendary Richard, the Etters have been photograped with Lee Petty, Richard’s father, a legendary driver himself and the winner of the first Daytona 500 in 1959; Maurice Petty, Richard’s brother, and a master mechanic of Petty cars for many years, and driver Morgan Shepherd. The Etters exchange Christmas cards with Maurice Petty and Shepherd, and consider them friends. They don’t claim to be intimate with Richard, more like “acquaintances.”
But what they have seen of him, they admire. They like who he is and what he stands for: a solid family man who is to racing what Elvis is to music.
Many years ago, the Etters got the racing bug at Evergreen Speedway in Monroe. They started going to Daytona in 1983.
They used to attend races at several other NASCAR tracks – Charlotte, Rockingham, Darlington and Atlanta – but everytime the insurance and taxes on their property went up, they dropped a race. Now the only one they go to is the Super Bowl of stock car racing, the Daytona 500. This will be Chuck’s 22nd, Gloria’s 21st.
For the last 15 years, they’ve had the same seats at the start-finish line, with the exception of last year, when the Secret Service guy took one of them. The tickets sell for $175 apiece, and Gloria was pleased to find out that the price didn’t increase this year.
Of course, if they wanted to, they could probably finance the trip by opening up their museum – the floor of which is black-and-white checkered – to the public. Besides the two cars – the other was driven by Travis Powell in a Busch Series race last year – and the pictures of the Petty family and other drivers that festoon the walls, there are life-size cardboard cutouts of racers, T-shirts, flags, miniature cars, belt buckles, watches and even a golf ball.
There’s a story behind that, too. It seems that Lee Petty liked to hit golf balls in his front yard at Level Cross, N.C. Chuck came across one and “appropriated it.”
There are even parts of cars, still with the dents in them. The bumpers off Morgan Shepherd cars, one from a race last year. “We ran into him in a ‘Po Folks’ restaurant in Atlanta and became friends over the years,” Chuck said.
Back to those pictures for a moment. There is one of Gloria with Adam Petty, Richard’s grandson, then a handsome, bright-eyed 12-year-old. Gloria remembered him telling her, “I’ve got a racing suit. I really do.”
There is another photo of him as a young man. Underneath are the years of his life: 1980-2000. The boy who had a racing suit died in one while testing his car before a Busch race. “He was a super kid,” Gloria said.
And what’s this? Photos of a guy resembling the actor Robert Duvall, and he’s in racing attire.
It isn’t Duvall in “Days of Thunder,” though. It’s Chuck Etter in “Living a Fantasy.”
Etter was never a racer, but he has driven some of the NASCAR tracks, taking part in the Richard Petty Driving Experience, in which you pay to get behind the wheel of a race car and take it for a few laps. He estimates he has around 600 miles altogether on superspeedways at Daytona, Talladega and Charlotte, among others.
He took his own No. 43 over to the Evergreen Speedway and, with other local drivers, ran some memorial laps to honor Dale Earnhardt, killed on the final lap at Daytona in 2001.
The Etters were in the stands when Earnhardt crashed into the wall on Turn 4. At the time, they perceived it to be nothing they hadn’t seen many times before. “It looked like any other wreck,” Gloria said.
Then they went out for dinner that night and as they entered the restaurant, they saw on TV that the accident had taken Earnhardt’s life. To say they were shocked is putting it mildly.
They have an autographed photo of Earnhardt in their museum, obtained through a friend.
Like the man he admires most in racing, Chuck Etter grew up in the south, Blacksburg, Va. After serving in the Navy during the Korean War, he met Gloria and they married and settled down in Monroe, her hometown. On trips back to visit his parents in Roanoke, Va., they’d drive down to the Richard Petty Museum, which was about 100 miles away at Level Cross.
That piqued their interest to see big-time racing, which led them to Daytona.
And there they’ll be again Sunday afternoon.
Who’ll they be pulling for?
Chuck thought it was pretty neat that 48-year-old Dale Jarrett won the pole position.
Gloria will cast her lot with Kasey Kahne, the young hotshot from Enumclaw.
And, as they’ve always done, they’ll be there to the very end.
They just can’t understand why some folks pay all that money and bail out early.
Incidentally, the president left halfway through the race.
Do you suppose he had to pay for his tickets?
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