Benny’s Blog

Benny Parsons Rendezvous Ridge is pleased to announce that The Broyhill Inn & Appalachian Conference Center and the Jackson Dining Room  has added Rendezvous Ridge wines to their menu.  The Broyhill Inn proudly supports the North Carolina wine industry and features wines from vineyards across the state. The wine selection is also available through their Lobby Bar, as monthly specials and as an upgrade for a banquet event.  We are proud to be a part of this fine tradition.

Benny Parsons Rendezvous Ridge and Savethespeedway.net will be hosting the first annual Wilkes County Racing Heritage Celebration September 29, 2007 from noon to 4 p.m.  The event will be held on the grounds of the Wilkes County Heritage Museum at 100 East Main St. Wilkesboro, NC.  The event will be free to the public.

Scheduled to appear at the event so far are 1960 NASCAR champion Rex White and Lee Roy Mercer who will be on hand signing autographs and promoting his new CD “Gone Racin”, featuring prank calls to NASCAR drivers.

Also, on display for the event will be racing memorabilia from Benny Parsons Rendezvous Ridge, and Winston Cup era memorabilia from the Winston Cup Museum out of Winston Salem NC.

Live entertainment will be provided throughout the afternoon, and all are welcome to come join us in celebrating Wilkes County’s contribution to the history of Auto Racing.

Things at Benny Parsons Wine Tasting Room and Racing Museum are moving steadily ahead. We have been officially open to the public a little over five weeks.  We have met so many race fans personally and have even had drivers,crew members  as well as Benny’s own crew members from past race cars come by to see the museum.We get them all to sign pictures they are in on the walls of the museum. The stories everyone has to tell us about Benny have been hysterical.

On Saturdays we tend to meet the people out doing vineyard tours.The other Yadkin Valley Vineyards have been so gracious as to send their visitors to visit us and then we send them on to someone else.It has been so rewarding to hear the thoughts of the people who do wine tastings on a regular basis tell us how great our wines are.  

The BP’s Blush has been the run away local favorite of our five wines with the Riesling and Merlot running neck and neck for second.  Mark Terry our wine maker  is entering all five varieties in the State Fair.

If you are in the Charlotte/Concord area Benny Parsons Rendezvous Ridge wines are available at The Wine Room in Afton Village in Concord and at Ciro’s Italian Restaurant in Charlotte University City area.In Wilkesboro our wines are available at Applewoods Bistro where chef Jerry has just completed standing up to the pressure of preparing breakfast live on The John Boy and Billy Big Show.

We will begin to host Friday afternoon qualifying and  Saturday evening activities at the wine tasting room with in the next couple of weeks. Be sure to keep watching BennyParsons.com and /or RendezvousRidge.com ..you never know what we may be doing next! 

Terri Read the rest of this entry »

A special thanks to Kurt Bush Doug Rice, Alicia Lingerfeldt , Harrill Hamrick and the crew of Performance Racing Network for the big live hour kick off of Benny’s Wine Tasting Room and Racing Museum. It was a  racing star studded event of  just (350) family and close friends. We are gearing up to open to the public on Monday July 23………..Now that I think about it…I guess that means we made out family and racing friends the guinea pigs for you the race fans.  Our staff was real excited about meeting everyone and hearing their responses as they tasted our five wines.

Our wine maker, Mark Terry and WestBend Vineyard  owner (where our wine is made) Lillian Kroustalis were  both on hand.

Our staff was practicing and setting up the inside of Benny Parsons Rendezvous Ridge Tasting Room today.

I left briefly to go home and let Winston ( the wonder dog) out only to find Bobby and Judy Allison along with a few of their family members on my back porch waving at me thru the door. After a tour of the new house and a visit with Benny I took them down to see the Wine Tasting Room and Museum. They officially became the first customers. Denise and Angie poured and conducted the wine tasting. I must say the staff held up well under the pressure of celebrity. A good time was had by all.No one was hurt.Ha! Bobby and Judy just have a way of making everyone feel so good about everything.  Judy took pictures of the big event and Bobby signed most everything he was in on the walls of the museum. They are the best.

Please check out RendezvousRidge.com  and come see us! We are waiting for you.

Terri

The family has been very busy trying to complete Benny’s dream of going home to Wilkes County and building his vineyard as well as getting wine bottled and ready to sell.

I am a Daytona Beach, Florida native so for me it was culture shock the day that Benny told me that he wanted to build a house on top of a mountain where he grew up miles away from anything and plant a vineyard to make wine. I couldn’t imagine two people who knew less about either subject. And still don’t. Well the house is completed. I have lived here full time since February 20. It is now decorated and furnished thanks to my sister-in-law Marcia Parsons(Phil’s wife) and Donna Cole (Marcia’s best friend who is a professional interior designer and owns a new furniture manufacturing company Studio D. Benny even picked a lot of the furniture which was surprising since I could change window treatments in our old house and he wouldn’t notice for two years. During his chemo treatments he decided he was getting involved. He had definite opinions and would tell stories in front his sons about him picking out everything from a red leather sofa to the proverbial kitchen sink. They joked with him that the chemo/radiation had brought out his feminine side.

Unfortunately at the time of his death the vineyard was nothing more than several hills of red clay that every time it rained was down into the street. Benny Parsons Rendezvous Ridge is now green grass of rolling vineyard with close to 4,000 grape vines planted and growing higher each day. West Bend Vineyards in Lewisville, NC has been a saving grace to us by not only custom crushing our grapes from vineyards Benny had least two years ago but Mark Terry our wine maker makes the wine,bottles it,labels it, acts as a consultant to us and tries to keep me from making ghastly mistakes.West Bend will soon be shipping it also off of the Internet sales.Soon to be released is a Riesling, a Barrel Fermented Chardonnay, a Merlot, Cabernet Franc, and a Rose called BP’s Blush.

The family members have each settled into their rolls.

Keith (Benny’s Youngest Son) who now works for First National Bank in Rockingham, wrote the back of the wine labels and has written several articles on behalf of the family for magazines and newspapers. He is the journalism major in the family and used to be a sports writer for The Associated Press so better him than any of us. The label for the bottles he wrote perfectly on his first try which is unheard of.

Kevin (Benny’s Oldest son) teaches Math at Richmond Community College and races Super Trucks on weekends. He was the first mode of advertising for Benny Parson’s Rendezvous Ridge. He has been carrying the decal now for two seasons. This year he is carrying a commemorative paint job of his father’s race car on his race truck.

Kevin and Keith’s wives Kim and Colleen have definitely caught the bug and have ideas daily of things to do.

The granddaughters Emily and Libbie even received gardening tools from the Easter Bunny this year so who knows next year they could even be planting and picking.

Patty Severt, Benny’s sister is manager of the wine tasting room over seeing concierge and planning of the store items and helping to organize our participation in wine tasting festivals. She and I are very busy doing research and development (going to visit all the wine tasting rooms in N. Carolina).She also has a full time job at Ashe Federal Bank in West Jefferson, NC.

Her husband Rex Severt is building the wine tasting room/racing museum.

Phil Parsons (Benny’s Brother who most of you know) has been my advisor along with my brother-in-law Rex on many levels. We have made Phil the official spokes person and the slayer of all dragons. Phil and Rex have been a constant source of strength and advice

Steve (Benny’s brother that lives in Detroit) has become the information gatherer, source of support and is becoming quite the wine quality control (taster) person. His son Craig knows more about wine than all of us combined.

Benny’s Mother, Hazel, has her role as Grand Dam to keep us all in line and to kick me in the rear when I get down. Know one will ever know how strong my mother in law is and what a driving force she is to all of us especially to me.

Our extended family of everyone in racing from fans to drivers, car owners Alicia Lingerfeldt and Doug Rice at PRN have been phenomenal.

Joe Ordoyne our vineyard manager and his sons Sean and Chris have had an undying commitment since Joe first started working for Benny 12 years ago. Benny sent him to live up here two years ago when there was nothing but woods. His children changed schools and uprooted their lives as well as his to help Benny build his dream. For this we all will be eternally grateful. Joe has overseen every aspect of the building of the vineyard and much more.

Pam Miller, a producer for FOX , has moved mountains for us as a family and has been a tremendous friend to Benny and I personally ever since she and Benny worked together at ESPN. Matt Yocum and Pam have now become curators for The Benny Parsons Racing Museum or that is what we all call them any how. They have taken their own money and bought things off of ebay for the museum. Matt continues to scout for other items of Benny’s daily.

My best friend Mary Johnson who flies back and forth from Florida every hysterical moment that I have - which have been many. She, the Wallace’s and our neighbors Pat and BJ Rickman that packed up our house in Concord while I was in the hospital with Benny. We had sold our house completely furnished to Rick Crawford and had closed on it in December. Rick had been kind enough to let me stay there until February.

Mike Wallace has even polished, packed and repaired Benny’s trophies and has guarded them with his life. He and Carla and their children have been there through it all and have grieved right along with our family.They all call weekly to see what they can do to help.Mike Wells the director for NBC/TNT never missed a day calling Benny and still doesn’t miss many calling me. Alan Bestwick, Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, Kurt Busch, Rick Hendrick, Greg Biffel, Dale Earnhardt Jr., John Andretti, Rickey Craven, Ned Jarrett, Richard Childress, Rick Hendrick, the list goes on and on.

We now are in the process of acquiring a temporary building to use while our wine tasting room / Benny’s racing museum is being built. It is the Wilkes Telecommunications Building located on Highway 421 in Wilkesboro pretty close to where they are renaming 421 Benny Parsons Highway. It is also a straight shot to Boone.They were so gracious to us to let us make a contribution monthly to the United Way on their behalf since the way that they are a public / private company they could not rent out the building that is currently up for sale. Since they knew we were only going to be there for a few months they agreed for us to be able to use their 7,000 square foot building in the interim. The visibility will be marvelous and will afford us the possibility of doing some special events right away with all the space that is available to us.

Benny Parsons Rendezvous Ridge wines will be on the market for sale by the end of June on the Rendezvous Ridge web site,select restaurants, our wine tasting room/racing museum on 421 and at wine festivals and through our special events.

The gift shop for shirts and hats is already open on line with items to be added soon.

The knowledge that we as a family are completing what Benny himself started and believed in is what has kept as all going. That and Benny’s warped since of humor. He laughed his way through life and told many old stories that we all got tired of hearing, some of us more than others. Now here we are the ones telling them this time about him. He would have gotten a kick out of all of this and wouldn’t have believed the trials and tribulations to get to this point….but we are all here and still standing and missing him more everyday.

Thanks for loving him as much as we do.

Terri Parsons

There have been many formal memorials and tributes to Benny since his passing on January 16. All the great stories have warmed the hearts of his family and brought joy to ease this hard time. It’s hard to talk about a man so dear and not smile. Benny enjoyed people. Benny loved all who read his blog, watched him on television, listened on radio or cheered for him behind the wheel. He loved to hear your stories and never stopped learning from his fans. He would not want you to stop sharing now.

So tell us . . . How do you remember Benny Parsons?

Are you related? Seems half of everyone in the North Carolina Mountains is directly and the other half by marriage. Is he a friend? Wouldn’t be surprising. Benny’s smile and charm were contagious. He was a warm man beloved by many. Did you work with him? It’s quite possible. Between racing, commentating, his radio show, endorsements, movies, charity work, and lately a vineyard, Benny seemed to know everybody.

Are you a huge fan? Do you recognize when his birthplace is attributed to anywhere but Wilkes County, North Carolina? Do you smile when you hear him called the “cabdriver from Detroit” because you know that is a misnomer? Do you have his Buffet Benny cookbook? Is it personally autographed? Do you know the numbers of his race cars? Did you have your picture made with him?

We’d like to invite you to share your thoughts and memories of Benny here on his Blog. Since this website started, many of you have reached out with thoughts and prayers; Benny really enjoyed reading each and every one of them. He personally answered as many he could and all of his fans meant a great deal to him. Tell us your stories, your anecdotes, send your well wishes and your prayers. We want to hear them all. Thank you for your love, your faith, your loyalty and for all you meant to him. These are the things that make life truly rich.

A memorial to celebrate the life of Benny Parsons will be held

Family, close friends and beloved members of the racing community who knew and loved Benny will be received in the 2:00pm service.

Following the memorial, from 4:00pm – 5:30pm, race fans can pay respects.

In lieu of flowers, it was Benny’s wish that donations be made in his name to the:

Connie E. Parsons Memorial Fund
PO Box 443
Ellerbee, NC 28338

Blumenthal Cancer Center
1025 Morehead Medical Drive, #600
Charlotte, NC 28204

The Victory Junction Gang
Memorials can be made via the internet at VictoryJunction.org

Benny was beloved by many people and your thoughts, prayers, and well wishes over the last few months have meant a great deal to him and to his family. Thank you for your love and support.

Happy Holidays to all of you from the bottom of our hearts.
All of us have so much to be thankful for throughout this holiday season. Enjoy your families and hold them close. Enjoy much laughter!It’s good for everyone!

Benny and Terri

I was told last week that the aggressive radiation treatments had completely destroyed my left lung but I am still cancer free.

As my radiation oncologist told me today, John Wayne lived and had a great career with one lung. There is no reason why I can’t do the same. It will take a little while for the right lung to pull the weight for the left lung so until then I will still need to use oxygen when I walk. I won’t need it sitting or commentating races and to me that is the main thing. If given a choice between cancer or losing a lung I would say that I got the right end of the deal.

BP