He's been to more Victory Lanes than Richard Petty, David Pearson, Dale Earnhardt and Jeff Gordon combined.

Officially, Bill "The Hat Man" Brodrick was in charge of public relations for Unocal's racing division. He's remembered, however, as the burly guy with a lion's mane of coiffed hair and beard to match who was in charge of Victory Lane.

His celebrations were orchestrated with the finely tuned precision of a symphony conductor. Brodrick was almost always the first person to a winner's car once it got to racing's version of the Promised Land, and as a result, he was almost always on television for at least a few seconds.

If you watched races during the '70s, '80s and early '90s, you might not have known Brodrick's name, but you most definitely knew his face. Countless letters to various motorsports publications and television shows began with the same question: 'Who's that guy in Victory Lane?' Almost before the query was finished, the answer was obvious. That guy in Victory Lane was Bill Brodrick.

Brodrick's first race with Unocal was the 1969 Daytona 500. The winner's circle was a mess, to put it mildly.

"Victory Lane was, in those days, total chaos," Brodrick said. "The photographers couldn't get anything. The TV guys were always fighting [with] the photographers and couldn't do interviews. There was no order. There was really no order at all. We all hurt from it ... all the sponsors, the press."

Soon, Brodrick gave the proceedings a sense of order.

"It just developed over a period of a short time," Brodrick said. "I was bigger than anybody else. I had more voice than anybody else, and had more people working for me than anybody else. I came from the media, so I knew a lot of people. I said, 'Wait a minute. Let's put a little order in it. Let's see what we can do to make everybody happy.'

"It was just one of those things that developed. It wasn't planned. It just happened. Everybody liked the results. It didn't change overnight, it took a little bit of time. It just slowly developed. Nobody else wanted to do it, and my contemporaries in the business were all getting what they wanted. NASCAR didn't want anything to do with Victory Lane at that time. They left it up to the racetrack promoter. When the race was over, NASCAR wanted out."

It's hard, obviously, for Brodrick to pick out one defining moment from his career in Victory Lane. Brodrick was there when Richard Petty won his 200th race. He was there when Ernie Irvan won at New Hampshire, nearly two years after he'd nearly lost his life in a racing accident. He was there when countless drivers won their first race.

"The things that stand out in your mind are the guys when they won for the first time," Brodrick said. "Any time you had a first-time winner that was really special. I always went out of my way to try and make it as easy and as memorable for them as I could, because you only win the first time once. Any time we had a first-time winner that was always special."

Unocal was bought out in 1997. Although he'd been with the company just a few weeks shy of 29 years, at the end of the season, Brodrick was shown the door.

Afterward, he refused to be a "hanger on," who begs for passes.

"I didn't leave the sport voluntarily ... I was told I was gone," Brodrick said. "So I cut bait, and that was it. It's one of those things you accept. Today, I don't miss the hassle because it doesn't look like anybody's having fun. It's changed so drastically now. I miss the people. The people are what made the sport. The people are what made it for me.

"I've always been a racer. I covered racing when I was in the media before I went to work for the company. I've been, I guess, a racer and a car guy all my life. I miss the travel, although I still travel a great deal. I prefer now just to sit and watch it on TV, because if I went to a race ... I wouldn't know any of the participants. What used to be the young guys are now the old guys."

Brodrick hasn't changed much since leaving the sport. He still has a wicked sense of humor. He calls himself a "ward of the government" because he collects Social Security. Then, concerning his business interests, he adds, "I put 34 years of racing experience to good use. I bought a saloon."

He operated Tavern at the Bridge in Algonquin, Ill., for four years and then turned it over to his son.

"My son talked me into it, and my wife, of course, was on my son's side," Brodrick said of his decision to buy the bar. "This place was available, and my son knew it real well. To make a long story short, I bought that saloon and had to go to work. My son runs the business now and it's doing quite well. It was work. I'd never worked that hard in all my life."

He still handles a few things here and there with the tavern, and he's also a contract driver for a courier company. Brodrick stays as busy as he wants to be.

"I work when I want to work," Brodrick said. "I can go out and play like Michael Schumacher every day in the traffic around Chicago if I feel like it. It keeps me busy, gives me a little extra money. I love driving, because when I was with the company, I drove to all the races anyway.

"I fool around. I like to go to estate auctions, car auctions and fool with my toys. I've got a hot rod, an old antique car and a sports car. Life is good. I can't complain."