Garry Hill artfully covers The Winston

MOORESVILLE, N.C. -- Garry Hill has artfully mastered the winner of The Winston every year since 1987.

He does it not by picking the winner. The winner picks him.

1987: The Pass in the Grass Credit: Courtesy Garry Hill

Hill is the owner and artist of Garry Hill Automotive Fine Art - he is commissioned each year to create artwork of the winning driver's on-track artistry in achieving the win.

For Hill, 48, he was able to combine his career with his passion for racing.

It all began 15 years ago with the final, 10-lap segment in the 1987 Winston.

"Ten laps of a race and one picture from it changed my whole life," Hill said, standing amongst his collection. "I paid $50 for the rights to a picture that appeared in the Charlotte Observer of that race. From there, I painted a picture from it and presented it to R.J. Reynolds.

"They liked it so much that they bought it from me and we sold prints. And, the rest --- as they say --- is history."

The picture Hill is referring to was taken of Dale Earnhardt running low in his yellow No. 3 Wrangler Chevrolet with Bill Elliott in the No. 9 Coors Ford up high.

In between is the No. 5 Levi Garrett Chevrolet of Geoffrey Bodine. Bodine, who had just made contact with Elliott, is in the middle of a spin and facing the wrong way. The incident occurred just as the final 10-lap segment began.

2000: Dale Earnhardt Jr. outruns Dale Jarrett Credit: Courtesy Garry Hill

"I did the painting on second and third shifts because I was the art director at the Autosport Gallery in Raleigh for 10 years," Hill said. "We represented all kinds of motorsports around the world. Anything with four wheels was on display there.

"I started working on that first piece and one of the guys from R.J. Reynolds heard I doing the painting. He asked me to bring it by to take a look at the thing.

"When it came time for the Charlotte race in October, I took it up into the R.J. Reynolds suite and I quoted them a price. They liked it and the painting and we've been doing business since."

From there, the work went into print for sale to the general public. At the time, nobody knew what to charge for something of this nature because nobody had ventured down this path.

Hill was told that the NASCAR group was a $6 and $8 poster crowd. So, with some mild trepidation, Hill put it on the market for an unheard-of $50.

It sold with little problems.

1998: Mark Martin wins after Jeff Gordon runs out of gas Credit: Courtesy Garry Hill

Today, Hill has created a winning moment from each The Winston and began another series called Great Moments in Racing. A few of those are "Great American Racer" capturing Earnhardt's Daytona 500 victory in 1998.

Other notable works are "The Pass in the Grass" between Elliott and Earnhardt, also from The Winston in 1987; "Like Father, Like Son" capturing Bobby and Davey Allison finishing first and second in the 1988 Daytona 500 and "Winged Warriors" regarding Dodge's 1970 win in the 1970 Daytona 500.

"We typically do 500 prints of each work with 50 of them going to the artist as proofs," Hill said. "We also do a presentation deal to each member of the winning team

"The car owner gets the print matching the car number and the driver gets one matching the car number with a No. 1 in front of it."

Hill's passion for racing and drawing both began at an early age. On his bookshelf is a picture of Hill and his dad at Daytona Beach in 1956. His grandmother has a framed picture the budding artist drew when he was nine-years old of cars racing at Daytona.

Hill's forte is depicting the picture from an angle no fan or television camera could capture. It's as if Hill was standing there with easel in hand as the magical motorsports moment occurred.

His works hang on the walls of the Speedway Club at Lowe's Motor Speedway, the Museum of Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the North Carolina Motorsports Museum in Mooresville, N.C.

After countless NASCAR cover programs for races, being commissioned by companies like Chevrolet, Ford and Anheuser-Busch --- to name a few --- Hill still gets the chills and child-like excitement that comes with race day.

"I am extremely humbled to have my works hanging on some of the walls that they do," Hill says quietly. "There have never been any visions of grandeur about being a good artist more or less a great artist.

"I go at this thing just like a driver does with his driving --- it's a passion."

Note: For a gallery of Hill's work, go to www.garryhill.com to see his original creations.