Dawsonville low-key, but still Elliott country

DAWSONVILLE, Ga. -- The caller was persistent, but Gordon Pirkle was having none of it.

Quote "They don't quit until closing time, with people wanting to hear the siren." -- Gordon Pirkle, owner, Dawsonville Pool Room

Despite repeated pleas to hear the strident fire siren mounted on the corner of the roof of his famed Dawsonville Pool Room, owner Pirkle was adamant that he would not -- could not -- break a tradition established in 1983.

"I told him I was sorry, but I just couldn't sound the thing," Pirkle said this week. "We wouldn't want anyone to think Bill Elliott had won a pole on a Monday, now would we?"

Indeed.

The siren -- or si-REEN, as Pirkle dubs it -- has gotten a workout the last two weeks as this small North Georgia town, whose population within its city limits of under a square mile numbers in the neighborhood of 350; celebrates the success of its most famous, and favorite, son.

Elliott is a true championship contender for the first time in 10 years, and has a legitimate shot at the top-10 in the standings for only the second time in the last seven seasons. He has four Bud Poles this season, including the one that preceded his Pocono victory two weeks ago.

	Gordon Pirkle

Each has produced a healthy workout for the siren hailing the accomplishment by the driver who won the "Most Popular" award as voted by fans 15 times in the 17 years prior to 2001.

"God, the phone calls we get," Pirkle said. "They don't quit until closing time, with people wanting to hear the siren."

Before Elliott's win at Homestead last November, Pirkle had to make some quick maintenance on the horn, to ensure it would work, and it was a good thing he did.

"I was crying my eyes out for old Bill on that day," Levi Wetzel of Logan, Ohio, said of his call last November, following the Homestead win. "The sound of that siren going off is the sweetest I've ever heard."

The wrestler Goldberg also lives here, in the midst of Dawson County -- population 16,900 in the 2000 census -- in which Dawsonville is the only "city." But there are no signs or paintings or streets evident to proclaim this is as his home.

	The Victory Siren

Everywhere there are little hints that this is the home of "Awesome Bill from Dawsonville." Heck, even the Georgia Route that goes through the center of town is prophetic: Route 9.

There is a love for the 43-time NASCAR Winston Cup race winner and 1988 champion that is hard to imagine in many other places in America.

Where else but in the local newspaper, the Dawson News & Advertiser, would you expect to find pages of congratulatory ads following a success by Elliott, 46?

For the last two weeks the town, and the Pool Room, has been astir. Following a drought that lasted from 1994 to November 2001, when Elliott scored a landmark first victory for Evernham Motorsports; his career's rebirth has continued.

After his second straight victory, in last Sunday's Brickyard 400 at the hallowed Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Elliott sat sixth in the Winston Cup championship.

Sunday, the atmosphere at the Pool Room was akin to being right at the race track, said Pirkle, who stood in the midst of a 15-to-20-minute wait for a seat at mid-week, with 16-20 lunch tickets waiting for the grill while hanging from clothespins behind the counter.

	Each of Bill Elliott's 43 Winston Cup victories is lettered on the Pool Room's storefront glass.

"When he passed Rusty you would have thought you were at the race track, there was so much noise," he said. "They were screaming like they were at a wrassling match."

Elliott has never wandered far from the locale not 60 miles from downtown Atlanta where his daughter Starr, 24, is a Sheriff's Deputy. She was a fixture in Victory Lanes across the United States in the mid-1980s in what seemed like a whole 'nother lifetime in racing.

Now, Thunder Road USA, the Georgia Motorsports Hall of Fame that opened in May and leaps into view at a swoop of Georgia Route 53 that winds over wooded hill and dale approaching the southern city limit; devotes nearly 30 percent of its displays to the Elliott family.

Pirkle said the most noticeable aspect of Elliott's current resurgence has been merchandise sales at Thunder Road.

	This painting celebrates Bill Elliott's 1988 Winston Cup championship.

Last Monday night the sport's most popular icon in recent times, along with the late seven-time Winston Cup champion, the late Dale Earnhardt, had dinner with his old friend Pirkle, 65, who's on the board of directors of Thunder Road -- whose president and chairman of the board is Elliott's youngest brother, Dan.

The spunky Pirkle, who said his main business is coin-operated machines but whose obvious first love is the brick-fronted combination country eatery, pool hall and unabashed shrine to Elliott that sits a half-block off Rte. 9 on East 1st Street, said Elliott's fire was noticeable.

"He's still excited, really showing a lot of emotion about winning at Indy," Pirkle said. "I've never really heard Bill Elliott talk like that.

"This will help bring in a whole new generation of Elliott fans. It's been so long -- 10 years really -- since he's done anything like this. But I knew if you put him in a car that could win, with a good enough crew, he could go to the front."

"That is the thing about Elliott's fans -- we are the most loyal group you will ever find in the sport -- no matter what he does or what happens," Wetzel said. "He's the small town guy that has gone through it all, that you can relate to and feel the emotion of him.

"This means so much to all of us Elliott fans like you wouldn't believe, after that stretch of seven years without a win and all the people saying he was washed up and just an old timer taking up space.

"This shows he is still Awesome Bill From Dawsonville and is a force to be contended with."