Met Rufus Parnel "Parnelli" Jones at Irwindale Speedway Saturday night August 4th. Parnelli is 84 years young and was at Irwindale Speedway to see his grandson Jagger race in the NASCAR Late Model Division.
And you can actually read about those stories in his book titled As a Matter of Fact I Am Parnelli Jones
I go to SEMA every year and several years ago Parnelli was there with Big Oly the Bill Stroppe Bronco he raced. People were us walking by and ignoring him. I stopped and ended up having Parnelli all to myself for at least an hour! I treasure that time with him as was in awe of the stories he told. About 150,000 people walked by that week but I was the lucky one that got Parnelli that day!
Parnelli has always been very approachable and very much embraces his past racing exploits, all the way back to the jalopy days.