Collectors gladly pay for NASCAR Cafe souvenirs

It was just past 10 on Thursday morning, and what was left of the lifeless Sahara -- saggy California king mattresses, framed prints of midnight oases, a few battered blackjack tables, a few hundred knickknacks with glued-on camel baubles -- were aimlessly scattered under a dull incandescence. Morocco by the dashboard light.

The casino and the lounges where Frank and Dean and Sammy and Peter Lawford held court had been reduced to an indoor swap meet. And so one felt melancholy.

This is how it must be just before an old ballpark feels the wrath of the wrecking ball, provided the shortstop for the home team carried a torch for Ava Gardner.

I had parked in the back and was heading to the front, where the NASCAR Cafe used to be; where, I was told, to stand in line like everybody else.

There are no free passes for the press when there's a buck to be made on nostalgia or a memory or, to paraphrase Arlo Guthrie in "Alice's Restaurant," 27 8 x 10 color glossy photographs of Handsome Harry Gant with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one.

Because everything must go during the big NASCAR Cafe Liquidation Sale. Even the restroom urinals, priced at $75 each (some disassembly required).

By the time I was allowed in, buzzards wearing collectors disguises had swooped in and wrote checks for nearly every item that must go, with the exception of the urinals, which weren't going anywhere because they were still attached to the plumbing and pipe wrenches were in short supply.

I chatted with a young couple from Los Angeles who were pushing around a bellman's cart piled high with crash helmets and fire retardant driving suits worn by guys who had finished in 32nd place. They also had bought a gizmo that can project a TV picture onto the side of a barn.

Jade Breckenridge breeds exotic reptiles and Eric Noda is an aspiring actor who recently was cast in a Nike commercial with NBA and NFL stars. Considering these kids had just paid $2,000 for this stuff and were looking to spend more, a mental note was made to consider a second career in the bearded dragon business.

Noda had purchased a primitive crew shirt handstitched with the name, car make and car number of lead foot turned Hall of Fame engine builder Edwin Keith "Banjo" Matthews, and a faded yellow fire suit with skid marks near the crotch (honest), and James Hylton's name near the heart.

Hylton's claims to fame were winning the 1964 Old Dominion 400 and attempting to qualify for the 2007 Daytona 500, at age 72 (which might explain the skid marks). The first thing Noda did when Hylton's vintage coveralls were added to his rack of stuff was to check inside the little breast pocket.

"Maybe his hair in there," Noda said. "DNA."

I couldn't fathom how James Hylton's DNA would improve the value of his old fire suit on eBay. (Or, for that matter, how his hair would have gotten into the little pocket, regardless of how treacherous it was to drive Darlington back in the day.) But the kid seemed absolutely thrilled with his purchase when I told him about Hylton.

To him, it must have been like that long-haul truck driver purchasing a painting at a thrift shop for $5, then learning the painting might have been the work of Jackson Pollock.

Only he didn't say "Who the #$%& is James Hylton?"

THREE UP

■ "Shark Week on Discovery," wrote ESPN basketball analyst Jay Bilas on his Twitter account. "NCAA may investigate and sanction Jerry Tarkanian for sharks' extra benefits from eating too many seals. Tradition."

■ Left-handed pitcher Bryan Harper, older brother of The Baseball Bieber, also has signed with the Washington Nationals and has been assigned to Viera (Fla.) in the Gulf Coast League. There was no news conference, nobody from Sports Illustrated took his picture and nobody said he couldn't wear his eye black like Alice Cooper.

■ Dionate Jones, an up-and-coming local basketball prospect, has transferred to Clark High School, instead of out of Clark High School. Clark was 9-14 last year. This is sort of like LeBron saying he would be taking his talents to Sacramento.

THREE DOWN

■ Kurt Busch wrote on his Twitter account that the only major league ballparks he has yet to visit are those in Toronto and Seattle, and that he can now relate to Dr. John about being in the right place at the wrong time. "Came to see my buddy Ludwick play," NASCAR's Double-Deuce tweeted from Petco Park in San Diego on Monday about fellow Durango High grad Ryan Ludwick, "but he was traded yesterday to the Pirates."

■ In a brazen challenge of the "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" lyric where one professes not to care if one ever gets back, the 51s beat Oklahoma City 17-10 on Thursday and the Bishop Gorman American Legion team beat League City (Texas) 23-20 on Friday.

■ "Bryce Harper struggling a bit at AA," wrote Sports Illustrated's Joe Posnanski on his Twitter account. "Still think he gets to AAA before U.S. credit."

Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski.