The Kulwicki Chronicles

The call was long distance; he was on his way to Bristol for the night race. I never questioned even once that it was really he; I recognized his voice. Subsequent to the initial shock, I actually felt a little embarrassed. He said my poem and letter had touched him. All I could think was that I wished I'd written something a little better; something that hadn't sounded so sophomoric. Something Pulitzer-Prize winning.But still, somehow, what I had written had moved him. Later, when we...
More Description

The call was long distance; he was on his way to Bristol for the night race. I never questioned even once that it was really he; I recognized his voice. Subsequent to the initial shock, I actually felt a little embarrassed. He said my poem and letter had touched him. All I could think was that I wished I'd written something a little better; something that hadn't sounded so sophomoric. Something Pulitzer-Prize winning.But still, somehow, what I had written had moved him. Later, when we finally met and I asked him why, he had a ready answer. Everything else that had been sent to him had been about a race, the car, the driver. I was the first to write about him.Everyone knows plenty about the driver, Alan Kulwicki; information about that side of him was easy to come by. I wanted to share the Chronicles with those of you who suspected the public side was only the tip of the iceberg; those who have always wondered about the person he was inside.This is by no means meant to be a definitive characterization, just glimpses of the man I knew. He was wonderful, kind and warm, but-it seemed to me-often only sure of his talent, his intellect. There was so much more to him. Once you'd scaled the wall.