7 replies to this topic

[Megatron]

Seeing Brian Vickers win the BGN championship reminded me a lot of the other teenage BGN champion, Rob Moroso. Youngest son of Dick Moroso, the kid had it all.

Today it would not be allowed, but somehow Swisher Sweets cigars sponsored a driver who could barely by age smoke at all to the BGN title in 1989.

His 1990 season showed a lot of potenial and a lot of accidents. Crown were set to continue sponsorship in 1991 when he was killed in a road accident after being intoxicated.

I have an odd story regarding Rob. I put an advertisment in the local paper wanting to purchase racing releated autographs several years ago. A man answered and said he had plenty and was wanting to sell. I traveled to the man's house and quickly discovered the man was in VERY poor health. He was very sick. He did indeed have a large number of autographs and other NASCAR memrobila, but there was one item that was not out in the open that he was very excited about. It was a Rob Moroso autographed photo. The man claimed that it was signed before Moroso entered his street car after the Holly Farms 400 had ended.

Without a lot of proof, I doubted that it had been the last autograph ever signed by Moroso, but when he showed me the picture, the autograph did look like the real deal but next to the autograph was a yellowed Newspaper article from the paper. It was taped on. The article delt with Rob's death and how it had just occured.

The man explained that he was a former police officer and had gottten into the track because of security. He had Moroso sign the photo. The next day, he awoke to read the full results of the race when he noticed that Rob had been killed. He then taped the article to the photo, where it remained.

The photo sets in old corner in the basement, I'm not quite sure what to do with it. The "R" is begining to fade but is still plain. Whenver I see the photo, it sends chills up my spine to know that could have been the last autograph Moroso ever signed, and the lost potenial of a star that shined brightly. It's proabably the sadest thing I have ever collected. Even sader to know that the man who sold it to me is almost certainly gone as well (I never saw him again and he was very ill).

A sad story, but one I felt like sharing after seeing Vickers win the BGN title.

[D-Type]

Please excuse my ignorance, but what is the BGN title?

[conjohn]

Originally posted by D-Type
Please excuse my ignorance, but what is the BGN title?

Busch Grand National - NASCAR's second division.

[Ray Bell]

Busch Grand National?


edit: Whoops, beaten to the draw...

[theunions]

I've always found it shameful that NASCAR, much like its treatment of Tim Richmond, has basically disavowed itself from and will barely acknowledge the mere existence of Rob Moroso. Both drivers' stories are ones I'd like to see fleshed out better by a biographer for posterity, warts and all.

[Megatron]

Don't get me started on Tim Richmond. The man was given a bad rap when he was found to have a "banned substance" in 1988. When examined it was cough medication. The second test passed with flying colors. NASCAR still wouldn't clear his name or let him race (not that he was able), so he sued for 20 million. NASCAR's defense was talking (briving?) anyone who had known Tim and tried to get them to testify that he was a druggie. They settled out of court for terms that have never been released.

NASCAR tried to screw Richmond, and only those that know the real story know what pathectic lenghts they went to.

Was Tim an angel? No. Was he what NASCAR said he was? No way.

[ReWind]

Originally posted by Megatron
Seeing Brian Vickers win the BGN championship reminded me a lot of the other teenage BGN champion, Rob Moroso.

I don't want to spoil this thread.

But do you claim Brian Vickers to be a teenage champion? AFAIK his birthday is 24 Oct 1983, so he is twenty years old.

On Rob Moroso Greg Fielden ("Forty years of Stock Car racing", 1st supplement/vol."5", p. 72) wrote this:

Following the race , Moroso ate dinner and consumed a few beers at a restaurant in Cornelius, N.C. He and his girlfriend, Debbie Bryan, left the restaurant following a delayed telecast of the race. Moroso, who had observed his 22nd birthday only days earlier, was killed when he lost control of his car on a turn while traveling at a high rate of speed and slammed into another vehicle driven by Tammy Williams. Bryan survived the collision.

That means he was born in 1968 and should have been 21 years old when he won the Busch Grand National championship in 1989 (as you say).

No offence intended, just the TNF pedantry.

[Megatron]

Teenage didn't automatically refer to when they clinched the title, but could mean their year in general.

And besides, I suck in math.