Fashion and Style News | newsfashionstyle.com

Share with a friend your Email address:Enter multiple comma-separated email recipients. Friends Email address many:

FORT WORTH, Texas — Whether it’s selling cheap tickets, offering free parking or letting fans bring their own coolers inside the gates of Texas Motor Speedway, Eddie Gossage has always been the people’s president.

Multimedia NewsOK Related Articles

• NASCAR notebook: Jeff Gordon wins Sprint Cup pole11/07/2009 Gordon wins Cup pole Jeff Gordon is suddenly having all kinds of success at Texas Motor Speedway, a track where he had never won until earlier this season….
• Sunday’s Sprint Cup lineup11/07/2009 Dickies 500 Lineup at Fort Worth, Texas Texas Motor Speedway Lap length: 1.5 miles (Car number in parentheses) 1. (24) Jeff Gordon, Chevrolet, 191.117….
• Four stories to follow at Texas Motor Speedway this…11/07/2009 FORT WORTH, Texas — For the fifth year, Texas Motor Speedway will host the eighth of 10 NASCAR Chase for the Sprint Cup playoff races, and for the…
• Texas Motor Speedway schedule11/07/2009 Schedule of events This weekend at Texas Motor Speedway Today 8:45 a.m.: Sprint Cup practice 10 a.m.: Sprint Cup final practice 11:30 a.m.: Nationwide…
• Saturday’s Nationwide Series lineup11/07/2009 Nationwide Series Ford 300 Lineup at Fort Worth, Texas Texas Motor Speedway Lap length: 1.5 miles (Car number in parentheses) 1. (16) Matt Kenseth, Ford,…

He keeps events at his track geared for the blue-collar worker and the NASCAR lover. And whatever he’s doing, he likes to keep it light-hearted. maybe that’s why Gossage kept his summer-long battle with cancer quiet until he was on the road to recovery.And though his hair and beard are gone — “I hadn’t seen my face since the ‘70s,” he cracked — he’ll be back running the show for all the events this weekend at TMS.Gossage says his passion for pleasing fans goes all the way back to his own beginnings as a NASCAR fan.How were you first drawn to NASCAR?I was 16 years old and had a brother that was about 10 in the mid 1970s. We grew up in Nashville and my little brother was a huge Evel Knievel fan, and I dig Evel, too. but he saw in the paper that a guy was gonna jump 11 cars Saturday night at Nashville Speedway. He begged me to take him, so I did. We had to sit through all the races to get to the motorcycle jumper at the end of the night. my brother loved the motorcycle jumper, but I just couldn’t believe all these races. I fell in love with racing that night. after that, every Saturday night, I was down there. That’s why we have things like ZZ top, who is performing Sunday for the pre-race show. We’ve had Robbie Knievel a couple times. I do things to get people out here who aren’t necessarily race fans, because I’m living proof that they’ll likely come back.Where did your desire to please the fans begin?I grew up having everything I needed, but I didn’t realize what I didn’t have. my father worked loading boxcars, so I learned how to sneak into events. the first Cup race I ever saw, I paid $6 to get into. It’s important to reflect the blue-collar, hard-working American lifestyle that built this country and that’s what our sport does.so we’ve got a condo that we’ll sell you for $1,000,000, but we also have a $20 ticket.What kind of life-altering experience was your battle with cancer?My doctor told me that this would probably change my perspective on some things, but I’ve got to be honest, I didn’t really have any revelations that altered my life. my priorities, I think, were pretty good to start with. God first, family second and everything else behind that. It’s not like I had to make right with all the people I had done evil to through the years. I have a group of five friends who were among the few people who knew I was sick and they called me every day. I learned that when I have friends that are sick or down, that I need to call them and give them support, because it gave me support. I had always shied away from that, but I learned that lesson. it was five or 10 minutes that I didn’t have to think about how horrible I was feeling. Share with a friend your Email address:Enter multiple comma-separated email recipients. Friends Email address many: Leave a Comment

Something to say about this topic? Submit a Letter to the Editor online

Thank you for joining our conversations on newsok. We encourage your discussions but ask that you stay within the bounds of our terms and conditions. Please help us by reporting comments that violate these guidelines. to review our rules of engagement, go to Commenting and posting policy.

Log in below or sign up (it’s free).

Sports Photo Galleriesview all OU-Texas Tech football game: Saturday, November 21, 2009

Photos from the OU-Texas Tech football game on Saturday, Nov. 21, 2009

OU-TCU women’s basketball: Saturday, November 21, 2009

Photos from the OU-TCU women’s basketball game on Saturday, Nov. 21, 2009

OSU-North Texas basketball: Saturday, November 21, 2009

Photos of the OSU-North Texas men’s basketball game on Saturday, Nov. 21, 2009.

High school football: Friday, November 20, 2009

View pictures from the first week of playoffs.

NASCAR Q&a: Eddie Gossage

Comments are closed.