One fan’s voice resonates with lasting legacy

It’s not unusual for fans to sometimes call or write to share their feedback on the sport, but Ernie became a regular. So began a special friendship that would comprise hundreds of conversations over the span of the next decade.

I learned quickly that although we’d never met, Ernie and I had some key things in common. For starters, we began each day thinking about our families and also how to make the sport we love better.

Ernie’s passion was clear, his insight was spot-on and his enthusiasm was contagious.

For the first couple years he would pick up the phone and call me, and then I started calling him — it was mutual. He could call me whenever, wherever, and I would do the same. He talked regularly, and maybe even more, with my assistant.

Ernie was an old-school, hardcore fan who often times reminisced about the years gone by. He’d help me stay connected with the earlier days of the sport while I brought him along to the present.

Morgan Shepherd was one of his favorite drivers. During one of our calls, he referenced him so many times that I finally conferenced Morgan in so that Ernie could share his appreciation directly. Morgan was more than gracious, as always, and Ernie could not believe what had just happened.

Ernie lived just down the road from Talladega Superspeedway and went to races there from the very beginning. Naturally, this being his home track, Ernie would regularly share ideas and sometimes impassioned calls to action on how to drive people to support the track that he loved so dearly.

It was Talladega where Ernie and I would have our one and only face-to-face meeting. It was at the fall race in 2012, and I arranged for Ernie to park close to the garage — in the driver and car owner lot — as he was on the mend from a recent health setback. Well, he parked so close that he ended up in Mike Helton’s parking spot, walked through the gate and told the gate guard, “I’m here to see Jim Cassidy,” to which the track security official responded, “Who?”

We spent the afternoon together, I showed him around the pit and garage area, introduced him to a bunch of folks, and brought him up to race control. Throughout the meeting he exclaimed over and over, “I can’t believe this is happening.” Bottom line, I enjoyed the visit as much as he did.

On a number of occasions, Ernie told me that his friends and card-playing pals sometimes questioned his relationship with NASCAR. I had hoped to at some point show up at a game with my friend.

As years went by, we talked about life and family as much as we did racing. He earnestly called me “son” and he certainly felt like family. We exchanged Christmas presents last year; his gift was a NASCAR leather jacket of which he could not have been more proud.

Over the past few months, I sensed that Ernie was beginning to say goodbye, and I always encouraged him to get better in time for the next Talladega race.

Remarkably, he was able to muster the strength to pay what would be his final visit to Talladega last fall. He called me after the race weekend, talking about how he had his leather jacket signed by all of his heroes and that he was just amazed at how good the racing was.

He was in a good place after that weekend, and now he’s in an even better place.

I respected the heck out of Ernie, held our friendship in high esteem and will miss him dearly.

Epilogue: Ernest L. Childers was buried in northeast Birmingham on Saturday, 18 days after his 72nd birthday and just 40 miles from his beloved Talladega Superspeedway. Cassidy’s essay was read at Childers’ celebration of life.

MORE: