Where is ... Harry Gant? (cont'd)

"I've just stayed away from it, the first years there, just so I wouldn't get back in. I knew I would, if I would be around it. I just had to stay away. That helped a lot, not going around. Then, I got used to not thinking about going to the racetrack. I got settled in. You had a lot more time. I had a chance to do a little announcing, but that'd be the same deal as racing. So I just stayed away. I thought that was the best thing to get free and clear of it."

The 66-year-old Gant is simply too busy living the good life, working and spending time with his four grandchildren. One grandson and one granddaughter are 16, one grandson is 14 and the youngest grandson is 11. It's been fun for Gant to juggle their sports commitments, and his oldest grandson made the high-school varsity football team as a sophomore.

It's the good life, all right.

"I just wanted to be home," Gant said. "Our ballpark here has about three or four fields, I reckon. They'd be all of them playing at one time, from T-ball all the way up to the real fast pitch. That was every Thursday, Friday and Saturday. I wanted to be there. My oldest grandson ... is a pretty good football player. But they play on Friday nights and you have to travel a good bit when they get in the playoffs.

"That's what I'm doing. I decided I'd stay with them. I missed my two daughters growing up. I didn't get to do anything with them, so I decided now we can all go to the ballgames together and watch my grandchildren play. That's what I do. That's the reason I didn't get to racing."

Not only does Gant not attend a lot of races, he doesn't make it a point to get to a television if one happens to be on. If he can catch a race on the tube, fine. If not, he's comfortable with that as well.

"I watch a little racing, but it seems to be a lot different," Gant said. "I don't watch it too much. I watch a little on Sunday, but I quit racing to go visit my mom, the children and other people on Sundays. I don't sit and dwell on watching races all day."

The sport he once knew has changed in a great many ways. The Chase changed the way champions are crowned, and Gant can take or leave it ... preferably leave it. Then ... there are the cars, which in Gant's opinion have been tinkered with, cut, raised, moved over, lengthened, shortened and tweaked far too much.

"I'll tell you what my honest opinion is ... and I told [NASCAR president] Mike Helton this," continued Gant, "even when I quit racing with the [Chevrolet] Lumina, it was pretty much just a regular Lumina. With the Oldsmobile, [the manufacturer] would send us sheet metal, and we'd use it.

"Now, they've started letting them do so much to these cars. They let you run a four-door car, but make a two-door out of it. The Ford Fusion ... that's an intermediate car, a little four-door, halfback thing. The Monte Carlo is the only car out there that's a two-door. They let you add a foot to the hood to fit the motor.

"They made a Dodge the ugliest thing I've ever seen in my life. They let 'em put the grille down where the bumper's at. They all look like they've run under a tractor-trailer and smashed the nose down. They've got this big problem ... aero push, aero push. Well ... if they would run 'em the way they was supposed to be, there wouldn't be no aero push. You wouldn't even need no Car of Tomorrow. ... I don't like that at all."

Gant is one of the lucky ones. Many who leave the sport seem lost without it, but Gant has been able to move on with his life. He's healthy, healthy enough to outwork men nearly 50 years his junior. He broke a few bones during his career, but he's far from an invalid.

Honestly, the best thing that can be said for Gant is that he's content. Good for him.