Fran Clark recognized the box, and she knew its contents. She didn't need to look inside.

She and her boyfriend of 10 months, Ernie Milby, had just finished a circuit through the merchandise haulers outside of Richmond International Raceway before the May 1999 race. He handed her a bag and said he had purchased something for her.

Clark looked inside the bag, but saw a box that holds helmets she already owned.

"I said to him, 'You know what I've got. Why did you buy me that?'" she said. "He said, 'Would you just open the box?'"

She did, saw a small velvet box inside and suddenly understood. Milby took the box, went down on one knee and proposed to her there, while tailgating outside RIR.

"I thought she would just tear in that bag and just open it up. But she was kind of hesitant," Milby said. "I knew from all her racing stuff that she collected. I just thought maybe that would be a good place."

She accepted, and became Fran Milby less than a year later.

The lifelong racing fan -- "I was ate up with it," she said -- had wanted to get married at the racetrack, but the duo opted for a big church wedding instead. They chose a date -- April 29, 2000 -- and then Fran decided to send one special invitation.

She's a Dale Earnhardt fan. Always has been. So the chance to invite The Intimidator to her wedding was one she grabbed. The wedding date just happened to be Earnhardt's 49th birthday. She claims it was coincidental.

Earnhardt didn't show, perhaps because he had a Cup race in California that week. But Fran got the surprise of her life when she got the mail one day.

"I said, 'If you send it, he might autograph it and send it back,'" Fran said, referring to the wedding invitation. "Sure enough, it came back, and we've got it framed. It's hanging next to my bridal portrait. I was in tears when that came back."

Ernie says: "That was really something, knowing how much a fan she was of him, to get that and see the expression on her face. She just lit up like a Christmas tree."

The pair celebrated their eighth wedding anniversary this week, but one thing will be different for this weekend's race. Fran won't be rooting for an Earnhardt, since Dale Earnhardt Jr. moved to Hendrick Motorsports.

"He and I spent the other weekend taking all my Earnhardt Jr. stuff down," she said. "Until he moves [to another team], I just can't tolerate it.

"The Earnhardt Sr. stuff stays up."

. . .

Bill Dennis of Tappahannock had his dream come true in November 1971. He was driving for Junie Donlavey, and he was the fastest first-day qualifier.

"What a great memory for me," Dennis said. "Pole sitter at my hometown track, racing alongside my friends Bobby Allison and Richard Petty, just to name a few."

. . .

Two years later, then-7-year-old Stephen Stanfield was watching his first NASCAR race with his father. The track was a half-mile oval then, and the Stanfields parked in the infield.

Stephen was on the hood when his father pointed out one of the cars whipping around them.

"Look son, that car right there is going to win," Stephen remembers his father saying. "He's gonna win, son, he's Richard Petty."

Petty did win, and NASCAR got a fan for life.

"My father took me to several other races, but that [one] stands out," Stephen said.

. . .

Petty had fans everywhere he went, and apparently they could be territorial. Jim Dean's brother, Mike, persuaded Dean to attend a race in 1977 after just arriving home from the Navy.

They paid $15 for an all-day infield pass and pulled out their two lawn chairs and cooler of beer. Mike demanded Jim pick a favorite driver, so Jim chose the only driver he recognized: Richard Petty.

Mike shot that down, as Petty was his favorite. So Jim focused on another blue and yellow car, this time the No. 3.

"That is Dale Earnhardt," Jim remembers Mike saying. "He's a rookie hard-charger."

So Jim bought an Earnhardt hat and T-shirt and settled in.

"The race was so close to the infield fence and so loud I could not even talk with my brother," Jim said. "I soon learned NASCAR sign language and found a hundred friends [at the race] who knew the same form of communication. It was one of the best days of my life."

. . .

Sometimes, picking a favorite driver isn't a matter of deep thought or what you see on the track. Sometimes, it's something in common.

Cherie LaFountain of Chester had spent a year trying to get into racing, since her friends were all big fans. She couldn't, however, figure out who her favorite driver should be.

In early 1999, she found Tony Stewart.

"I figured he was a good pick since he was a rookie and, theoretically, so was I," LaFountain said.

So her friends got her to RIR for the fall race of 1999 -- Stewart's first Cup victory in which he led 333 of the 400 laps.

"When he crossed that finish line, I thought my heart was going to jump out of my chest," LaFountain said. "I will never forget that day, and I will always be a Tony Stewart fan."

. . .

Vaughan Dize saw the 1993 Pontiac 400 at RIR, but he didn't realize what it would mean until later.

He watched as Dale Earnhardt and Rusty Wallace battled door to door for 75 laps midway through the race before eventually giving way to race-winner Davey Allison.

The March 1993 race would turn out to be Allison's final victory. He died four months later in a helicopter crash at Talladega Superspeedway.

The race was also the final one at Richmond for reigning Cup champion Alan Kulwicki, who would die in a plane crash one month later.

. . .

Watson "Bubba" Marshall had a hard time limiting his to one memory. His first race was 60 years ago, and he's seen and been a part of several races.

He remembers watching Darrell Waltrip spin out Ettrick's Lennie Pond in 1973, drawing boos from the stands. He worked on the clean-up gang for Paul Sawyer, helping put in new posts and guard rails after accidents.

But most of all, Watson remembers Paul Sawyer.

The track owner who helped push RIR from being a local dirt track to being one of the most popular tracks on the Cup circuit was never too busy to meet with the fans.

"Paul Sawyer was a genuine fan promoter," Marshall said. "He resisted charging for parking and he, along with others, shaped his dream for a supertrack.

"He was the only promoter whose office trailer was right outside of Turn 4 where the fans could come and visit him. He would stand out on the porch and young and old would come and get his autograph.

"Paul Sawyer was RIR."

. . .

Matt Williams of Richmond also has decades worth of memories from RIR, starting with the Strawberry Hill days. In 1950 or'51, the dirt track had a rain delay. The announcer called for anyone in the infield who had their car or a pickup truck to get out on the track and drive around to help dry it.

Williams revved up his 1936 Chevrolet and gave it a go.

"We had a field day!" he said. "There was no speed limit for us."

In the mid-1960s, Dick Hutcherson dropped the front end of his car into a hole at the bottom of the track between Turns 3 and 4. Williams said he and his friends jumped the fence from the infield, where they were watching the race.

They lifted the front end of the car, pushed him back onto the track and kept him from losing a lap.

Not everyone was impressed.

"A nice racetrack official came running over and had a few words for us, then escorted us back to an infield gate and let us continue to watch the race," Williams said.

. . .

Ask Mark Fears who his favorite driver of all time is, and he won't hesitate.

Bobby Allison.

Of Allison's 84 career victories, Fears has been to 38 of them. One of them was Fears' favorite race, the Sept. 11, 1983, race at RIR.

Allison beat home-state boy Ricky Rudd by less than a second, giving Allison a 71-point lead on his way to the 1983 Cup championship.

"After the race, Raymond Tuck and myself went to the press box pits and I got to shake hands with Bobby Allison," Fears said.

The encounter stuck with him. Twelve years later, Fears and his wife welcomed a daughter to the world. They named her, of course, Allison.