American dream, or how to fool everyone and get away with it (5 photos)

A story that took place in Talladiga, Alabama more than forty years ago, now it may seem like some kind of fiction. But it was all real.





Imagine you are a journalist from Nashville, you are addressed by a man, offering to write material of this nature about himself. Racer from Nashville L.V. Wright, who has 43 starts in the top Grand League of racing National, plans to participate in the start of the Winston stage, held in Talladiga. He will represent the Music City Racing team, which sponsored by country music stars TJ Sheppard and Merle Haggard. Last and will come to support the rider who will go to the Chevrolet Monte Carlo 1981.



Most likely, the first thing you will take and check this information. But no, the journalist did not. Moreover, he does not even asked clarifying questions to the organizers. Yes, in fact, it would not be for him helped as Wright approached his biggest scam in life thoroughly. Before calling The Tennesseean, the newly minted racer came to the office of the local company Space Age Marketing and spoke about his plans to participate in one of the stages of the popular and eminent racing league of the country. True, he did not mention that his whole story is a fabrication. Intoxicated by the prospect of becoming a sponsor and the head of the company agreed to advertise his company accordingly, without hesitation and without hesitation, give $ 37,500 to Wright.





The next step was to buy the same Chevrolet. His he managed to buy for $17,000 in cash plus a check for another $3,700 and the seat of Wright's team leader. By the same fool who fell for this deception, turned out to be a young Sterling Marlin. He subsequently became famous racer. When the car and the sponsor were in Wright's pocket, he "fed" his fake story to a journalist by bribing him with the name of the team. The thing is that Music City was an established nickname for Nashville. It's all too much it was symbolic, but journalists love beautiful stories with speakers headers. So this note aroused interest, but on the mountain of L.V. Wright, she caught the attention of the lawyer of one of the country legends, who was listed as sponsor of the racing team. Gary Baker turned to journalist, refuting information about his client. Journalist, naturally called Wright, but he reassured him, referring to the fact that everything is under negotiation. So the pseudo-racer almost got caught, but again got away from exposure due to naivety and lack of obstinacy participants in history.



The only thing left to do is to get a racing license. For this he came to the NASCAR office and talked about his past achievements, showed car and a newspaper article and got it by paying $1,500 in tolls. Right now, Wright wouldn't even be able to get into the company's office. And then it's all gone like clockwork due to the fact that the data was stored in paper form and not in one place.

And then the day came when Wright was on the race track. IN the first day was the so-called qualifying race, on which Wright came 36 out of 40. To understand the guy's luck, it's important to know that he reached 186 miles per hour on his first lap. On the same competition, by the way, the barrier of 200 miles per hour was overcome for the first time racing driver Benny Parsons.



On the second lap, fortune left Wright, and he crashed into a wall. The car required serious repairs, and he simply had a spare car. did not have. There was not much time before the third round, only a miracle helped him to prepare the car for the start.

He went onto the track, but on lap 13 he was thrown a black flag, which meant going off the track. The official reason was malfunction, but everyone was well aware that being on the racing track, Wright threatens to crash. He was simply walked round and round, and there were still more than 170 laps ahead.

After leaving the race, Wright got out of the car and got into the van, on who brought a racing car and disappeared in an unknown direction. Before still haven't been able to find it. After this story, a terrible a scandal that promised serious reputational losses for everyone sides. Therefore, after some time, it was decided to hush up this matter. A racer L.V. Wright entered NASCAR history as a ghost.