Nascar is returning to Joliet this weekend. For reasons! As far back as I was a Nascar fan, the 4th of July belonged to Daytona Speedway. The greatest racetrack under lights. That’s how I always thought it was meant to be. I also stopped watching Nascar years ago, and minus an errant bet, don’t even check the results. So imagine my shock when they announced they were bringing their event back to Joliet, a track they correctly abandoned years ago.
While i’m sure the Merichka’s 400, or whatever they are calling it, will get all the local racing fandom bricked up, it’s important to remember why Joliet lost their race in the first place: It was dreadfully boring. Much like Major League Baseball in the 1980’s with their stadium architecture, Chicagoland Speedway was built as a “cookie cutter” track, only marginally different than Texas, Kentucky, and Kansas. The racing was boring. The aerodynamics of the cars created a structure in which it became impossible to distinguish tracks in the 1.5-2.0 mile length.
Anyway, i’m not here to talk about Chicagoland Speedway. I’m here to talk about why Jeremy Borash can suck my butt.
For those of you younger wrestling fans who are aware of the wrestling landscape, a company called TNA Wrestling exists, mostly acting as a perpetually fading star in the landscape of sports entertainment, and vaguely under the extended arm of World Wrestling Entertainment.
Back in the day, though, it was one of several wrestling promotions that sprung up after the collapse of WCW and the inevitable bed shitting that happened once WWE was the only company left. Known as NWA-TNA, NWA for National Wrestling Alliance, it in and of itself an imploding neutron star then and now, though I avoid talking too much negatively about it because they still have Ricky Morton, the tag team god, on their shows, and TNA, which stood for Total Nonstop Action, not Tits N Ass. Though Vince Russo, the Yoko Ono of wrestling and current booker for Juggalo Championship Wrestling (yes, those juggalos), did come out recently and say that it was meant to be implied as Tits N Ass, because CAR CRASH TELEVISION!
Speaking of car crashes, back to the point in this story: I was actually a huge fan of TNA because they did weekly pay per views and my house still employed a cheater box on our cable, ensuring free viewing of these shows and all major events. In an effort to broaden their reach, Jeff Jarrett, noted legendary wrestler and former Taylor Swift employer, decided it would be a good idea to sponsor a Nascar team so that NWA-TNA could be plastered across millions of tv’s with a demo audience (white male catalytic converter thieves) that might want to check out the product.
For drivers, Hermie Sadler was chosen. A journeyman driver whose career top finish was a couple first place finishes on the minor league circuit at Orange County Speedway, Sadler would later become more known for actually stepping in the right and wrestling for TNA years later. He owned his own vehicle, far from the spotlight of the major organizations in the series, who had millions in financing and multiple cars each week. Sadler was more known as a “qualify and park” driver, taking his car to the bigger races on the series and trying to qualify, collecting the low finisher prize money, and parking the car to avoid damaging it. Personally, I’d call this “pulling a Morgan Sheppard” but nobody asked me.
In the summer of 2003, NWA-TNA decided to run a promotion. As best I can remember, the winner got “Two tickets to the Brickyard 400, VIP pit passes, lunch with the nascar team, and spend the day with NWA-TNA’s Jeremy Borash and Jeff Jarrett.”
I remember this because I won the promotion. I was excited. That excitement would quickly fade. On the contest entry, they asked who I would take as my +1 and I listed my dad because I didn’t even contemplate actually winning. My dad didn’t personally watch Nascar, and I’m not even totally sure he’d ever given a damn about it.
When I got the email saying I had won, I immediately emailed them to see if I could switch it over to my buddy Joe, who I’d actually driven to see TNA wrestling with at the Tennessee State Fairgrounds back when they first started. I met New Jack! And Above Average Mike Sanders!
They immediately emailed back saying that NO, I could not switch out who I was going with. Oh well. Strap in, Oog, we are going to the Brickyard.
The second piece of ominous news came two days before the race. Hermie Sadler came in 51st in qualifying. If you are asking yourself “But, Brandon, only 43 drivers qualify for a Nascar race,” you would be correct. Sadler did not qualify for the race.
Photo courtesy of the delightfully helpful racing-reference.info
If you were watching Nascar back in the day, that is a real Who’s Who of vaguely memorable drivers. Not knowing how this would all play out, we headed out to Indianapolis to try to have ourselves a day with noted legends Jarrett and Borash.
It played out pretty much as poorly as expected. When we got to the VIP Pit area to check in, we were on the list! But, because Sadler hadn’t qualified, and then proceeded to pack up his trailer and go, they hadn’t actually left the passes for us. Feeling bad for us, the people at the booth gave us garage passes, which allowed us at least into the speedway, so we could try to figure things out from there.
We had one ace up our sleeves, or so we thought. We had Jeff Jarrett’s phone number!
Jeff Jarrett did not answer any of our phone calls.
On top of that, my dad was wearing shorts, which is a big no-no in the garage area at a Nascar race. Apparently my dad’s middle aged legs were just too much of a distraction for the drivers.
He was forced by security to go to a merch stand buy pants. He settled on a snazzy pair of Rusty Wallace jogging pants. Not having a picture of this drip is going to haunt me til my dying days.
We wandered around, looking for any sign of TNA dignitary. We finally stumbled upon Elliott Sadler’s team. Sadler was the more successful brother of Hermie, and HAD qualified for the race. They were part of a middle-of-the-road race team, but even that meant a pretty impressive setup for race days. My dad expained the situation to a member of his team. That’s how we found out Hermie had dipped out on Friday night and that we were probably never going to get our pit passes. They then offered to let us have lunch that they had cooked for the team, which was very sweet of them, and after buying the 75 dollar Rusty Wallace pants, a welcome freebie. Thanks Elliott Sadler and Yates Racing!
Anyway, thanks to the lack of pit passes or any kind of seats, we were kind of marooned on a back corner stretch of grass on the infield that was previously occupied by assy teams that hadn’t qualified and left. For all I know, I plopped down where Hermie Sadler’s trailer was, and where I was supposed to be awkwardly asking Jeff Jarrett questions about being in WWE and WCW while he hoped and dreamed of a parallel existence of Hermie Sadler not qualifying and therefore keeping him from having to meet me. His universe won out on this day.
If you think Nascar is boring to watch on TV, imagine what it’s like sitting in the 90 degree heat, watching a very small section of the back straight of the course. I distinctly remember being overwelmingly disappointed. I had actually been pretty excited to meet Jarrett, as I was always more of a WCW guy than a WWE guy, and always felt Double J had done his best work with the Atlanta based company. I would have even been cool with talking to Jeremy Borash about whether Gene Okerlund was cool in real life. I bet he was. He seemed like a fun dude. RIP.
Instead, hopes dashed, we left before the halfway point of the race to drive home.
Here is the most memorable part to me, and the reason I quit watching TNA and the aforementioned Borash can suck my butt: in his weekly blog post on the NWA-TNA website the next week, Borash said he had a great time with me in the VIP pit area!
No you didn’t, you lying sonuvabitch!
Literally tens of people read that and thought I had a good time hanging out at the Brickyard 400 with Jeff Jarrett and Jeremy Borash. I did no such thing! If it wasn’t for the kindness of Elliott Sadler’s team manager, I might have died of starvation in the blazing Indiana sun!
I actually genuinely have zero idea if either of them even went to the race. I’ve done some googling, and as far as I can tell there is no known picture of either of them being at the race. My guess is that, after Sadler didn’t qualify, they knew they weren’t gonna get the photo ops and PR they wanted, and didn’t bother showing up, and hung myself and my dad out to dry.
This was roughly the equivalent of Howard Stern whack packer Beetlejuice hitting me in the balls. It also did a few other things. I quit watching wrestling after that. After WCW folded and the Attitude Era ended, most of my friends had quit watching wrestling. It was down to me and my aforementioned buddy Joe on Monday nights. Then, in 2002, WWE did the Katie Vick angle. For those that don’t remember, or aren’t big on googling “worst storyline in wrestling history” the Katie Vick angle functionally revolved around Kane, a towering dentist turned burn victim turned actual Mayor or Knox County, Tennessee, and HHH, known then as the default biggest star in WWE after Stone Cold Steve Austin quit and The Rock started making movies, and known now as a high ranking lackey and enthusiast photo taker with Donald Trump.
The storyline was that Vick was Kane’s dead girlfriend. At one point during the storyline, HHH, wearing a Kane mask, went into a funeral home, and got into a casket with a “dead body” and had his way with it. Joe and I looked at eachother, decided that our intelligence had officially been insulted past the line of no return, and stopped watching. We were not alone. Apparently necrophilia’s a real enjoyment killer for wrestling fans.
After driving five hours each way to get snubbed by Jarrett and Borash, my wrestling fandom officially ended. Outside of going to Billy Corgan’s old wrestling promotion, Resistance Pro, in the basement of Excalibur Nightclub, I didn’t watch wrestling for over a decade. I didn’t really get back into wrestling until AEW came around.
The other thing it did was make me quit watching Nascar. When you get burned that badly by a situation, your natural inclination is to distance yourself from it. I never got back into it after that point.
On that note, enjoy your 4th of July, everyone! Except Jeff Jarrett and Jeremy Borash! I hope you both sit on a lit roman candle!
Fancy Boys Club 