Watch where you put those peanut shells

With the NASCAR Winston Cup and Busch Series racing in Atlanta this weekend, I posed a very simple question to Rusty Wallace when we did this week's version of Rusty's Rundown.

'What is your favorite way to enjoy peanuts?'

	Tim Packman

It seemed like a good, timely and relevant question being that Georgia is known for it's peanut crops. Heck, a peanut farmer from Georgia named Jimmy Carter even became president of this fine country.

But, Rusty's answer is what produced a two-day trek back into the history of racing for me.

"Peanuts are considered bad luck in racing," he said. "So, I pretty much stay away from them."

Huh?

Now, I've heard that green, the No. 13 and a few other things were considered bad luck in racing. But peanuts?

I had to call Larry McReynolds, former crew chief turned broadcaster and now author of a book, about something. While we were talking, I asked him why peanuts were considered bad luck to racers.

"I don't know who, when or where this all came about, Tim," Larry Mac said. "I was told that someone was killed in a race car a long time ago and they found peanut shells in the floorboard.

"This was many years ago and I couldn't tell you if it was in the Grand National days or what. But, it was a tale I heard and let me tell you, I have worked with some drivers that could care less about peanuts.

"Then again, I have worked with some that would fight you if you brought peanuts near that race car."

Well that got my curiosity going even more. So, I simply asked him which of the drivers he worked with during his crewing days would stomp some butt if Mr. Peanut showed up.

To my surprise, it wasn't Dale Earnhardt, Mike Skinner, Ernie Irvan or Davey Allison. It was David Pearson. Yep, the second-winningest driver in NASCAR history was anti-peanut.

"Pearson would go berserk if he saw with you peanuts around his race car," Larry Mac said. "He was not happy about peanuts, at all. Davey wasn't real fond of peanuts or peanut shells, but not to the extent that Pearson was.

"I never heard Earnhardt or Irvan say anything about them. I haven't heard much about peanuts for years from the younger generation, it's been mostly the retired ones or veterans we have now.

"Pearson was just very superstitious."

Well, I figured if Pearson wasn't nuts about peanuts, he surely had to know why the superstition existed and how it came to be. So, I called him. My thirst to get the answer felt like I just ate a bag of dry-roasted peanuts.

"It wasn't so much that I was superstitious," the Silver Fox said from his home in Spartanburg, S.C. "Overall, I'm not superstitious -- I just didn't want to take any chances.

"I heard from a few guys that someone got killed while racing and they found peanut hulls in the car. I was anti-peanuts near the car and in the car, no green and no No. 13 on the cars, either.

"I once saw a guy at a dirt track when I was getting started get real mad at someone eating peanuts near his car. This guy had his foot up on the tire of the other guy's car and the driver pulled out a knife and sliced the guy eating the peanuts across the stomach.

"But, deep down I knew there was really nothing to all that superstitious stuff. Heck, I was on a cruise a few years ago and I hit the jackpot on a slot machine.

"When I got back to my room, I was changing and noticed I had green shorts on. I wear lots of green, now."

All right, so Pearson was superstitious when it came to racing. But, he didn't know the answer of why drivers were anti-nut cases. I figured if the second-winningest driver in NASCAR history didn't know, maybe the third-winningest driver would.

So, another phone call was made.

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"Yeah, I bought into the thing about peanuts being bad luck," said Bobby Allison, with 84 Winston Cup Series victories to his name and the 1983 championship. "But, that was only when I was near the car itself. When I walked a few feet away, I might have been known to have some then."

I had one last call to make. If there was one guy who could help me with this unplanned trek through racing history, it was Bob Latford. Word is he was in the room at the Streamline Hotel when NASCAR was formed in 1948.

"Uncle Bob," as I call him, was kind enough to put down the tuba he plays now to help me out. And, just as I thought, he came through in fine fashion.

"Back in the early days of racing, and I'm talking about pre-WWII here, a lot of races were held at fairgrounds," Bob said. "There wasn't pits like there are today and many of the drivers worked on their cars under the grandstands.

"Fans would be sitting in the stands and eating peanuts. As they would shell them, the hulls would drop down in between the seats and into the cockpits of the race cars.

"Well, this guy got into a wreck at a dirt track someplace -- and I don't know who or where it happened -- but he was killed in the crash. They found peanuts and peanuts shells in the car. And, since then, peanuts have been considered bad luck."

So, that's why drives go nuts over peanuts in or near their cars and how the shells ended up in the race cars. I unexpectedly learned something new this week about our sport, and hopefully you have, too.

So, next time you're at a track and buy a bag of nuts still in the shell, be very careful where you drop those hulls.

Tim Packman's column appears every Saturday on NASCAR.com.

The opinions listed here are solely those of the writer.