Testing the time to try your luck at Las Vegas
by: Marty Smith, NASCAR.COM

The truest friendships are not jealous or pretentious or assuming, rather those in which all parties involved give of themselves and genuinely desire happiness and triumph for the others.

This is a story of true friendship.



In the days following Nextel Cup Series testing at Las Vegas Motor Speedway last month, Elliott Sadler was stationed in the Bellagio Sports Book explaining to a quartet of friends the various bets one might place on the Super Bowl.

Who will win the coin toss? Who will have the most receiving yards? Who will register the longest run for a touchdown? Anything one could conceivably place a bet on, he may place a bet on.

His buddies -- childhood friends that still reside in or near Sadler's hometown of Emporia, Va. -- were intrigued, excited, ready to roll.

But tired, too. They'd had a long trip west.

Sadler sent his plane home from testing to scoop up Owen Miller, Brian Roberts, John Rawls and Brett Griffin, and bring them back to Vegas for the party.

And party they had. But for now, the plan was to head up to Sadler's room for some R&R and a few laughs with their favorite movie, Friday, before heading out for more debauchery.

Roberts, Rawls, Miller and Griffin took off toward the elevator, leaving Sadler to settle an unpaid debt at a blackjack table in the opposite direction.

Sadler paid his marker and hit the elevator, primed for a good time. After several minutes alone in his room, however, his cell phone rang.

It was Rawls.

"I was like, 'What the hell could he possibly want? I just left him,'" Sadler said.

What he heard on the other end completely floored him:

"We just won $100,000."

One. Hundred. Grand.

"I'm waiting on them to get to the room to watch a movie and hang out, and my boy John calls me from his cell phone, says, 'Hey! You've got to get down here right NOW! We just won $100,000!'" Sadler said, voice gushing with excitement in what had to be its highest possible octave.

"So I'm like, 'Oh my God! Okay, okay! Just sit tight a minute.' And he's screaming at me, 'Hurry the hell up! We don't know what to do! We don't know what to do!'"

When the quartet left Sadler in the Sports Book en route to the rendezvous point, they made a pit stop at a slot machine to waste some of the spending cash he, ever the gracious host, had given them upon arrival.

Ten dollars per pull, each man put in $50. Some more reluctantly than others, mind you. Miller was quite apprehensive. He'd recently lost his job and was set to be married in a month.

Fifty bucks was a lot of money to put into a slot machine.

But the others coaxed him into it. It was Vegas, after all, Sin City. One simply cannot have a conscience in Vegas. So one by one, they took turns pulling the lever, and sure enough, on the eighth pull Miller literally hit the jackpot.

They hadn't been sitting there two minutes.

"Man, it was so awesome," Sadler giddily recalled. "I got down there and they were all hollerin' and screamin' and cryin,' and a couple of them are married and were calling their wives and telling their wives they'd won a hundred grand. It was crazy."

It wasn't instant glee, however. It took a moment to sort out the confusion.

"The funniest part of the whole story is, when you hit a jackpot for that much money it doesn't just spit a whole bunch of coins out," Sadler said, chuckling at the thought.

"It pretty much locks up, and bells and whistles and lights and stuff start going off. So by what was going on, they didn't know how much money they'd won."

Initially, the thought was $500.


Elliott Sadler

"They were happy as can be -- '$500! Yeah man that's awesome!'" Sadler said, laughing harder now. "Then a guy comes back, says, 'No, that's not $500, that's $5,000.' And they about died, 'Five grand! Oh yeah, man!'

"Then another guy comes over and says, 'Nope, that's $20,000.' Well, they start gettin' pissed, said 'Alright man, now you're messin' with us. We ain't won no $20,000.'"

Finally, the official attendant was summoned to survey the hit.

"She comes over there, and Brett (Griffin) said her face got real pale," Sadler said. "She was like, 'Look, I'll be right back. I have to go check on something.'

"Sure enough, when she came back, she told them they'd won $100,000! Ain't that awesome? That's the coolest deal that's ever happened to me -- ever in my life. It's just such a feel-good story."

It truly is. The quartet split the cash four ways, each pocketing $25,000 (before taxes). Miller is using the money to help pay for his wedding and honeymoon. He also races a Late Model at South Boston Speedway. Hello, tire bill.

Roberts, meanwhile, was struggling to find the financial means to send his child to prep school. The plan was to borrow money from his in-laws. Now he had plenty.

Rawls' take went towards the new home he recently built, and Griffin treated his wife to the skiing trip in Aspen she'd long dreamed about.

"It was the best moment I've ever been around," Sadler said. "Everybody says, 'Man, you should have been in on it!' But I don't wanna be in on it! I was so happy for them, that they did that!

"That hundred grand meant just as much to me as me winning a race. It was just an awesome feeling. You can't script that. You can't plan that. You can't buy that. That's something that just happened, luck of the draw.

"And the way it happened, all of them going in there even, was amazing. You couldn't have drawn that up any better than the way it happened. We were all crying ... Man, you just don't understand how much it means to me to see them that happy."

Sadler will be equally as happy Saturday, as he serves with the others as groomsmen in Miller's wedding. This being a Nextel Cup Series off weekend, Miller and his fiancé strategically chose this date so Sadler could take part.

"This guy has grown up across the street from me our whole lives," Sadler said. "We're cousins. He's my best friend. He picked the off weekend so I could be in his wedding, and his fiancé went along with it, thank God, because I wouldn't miss it for the world."

The genuineness in his voice is unmistakable. These are his truest friends, the guys he went to grade school with, the guys who couldn't care less if he were in a Nextel Cup car at Daytona or a Nextel phone kiosk at the mall.

"I can't ever see any of us changing. We all get along so good and try to keep each other involved in whatever we're doing," Sadler said. "They tell me like it is.

"If I'm a dummy and do something stupid, they're gonna tell me. If I'm in a bad mood they won't tolerate it. We didn't run good at California and John told me, 'You ain't coming home and being illish around me, now. Either we're gonna have a good time or don't call me. Leave your damn racing on the track.'"

In a warped way that's what it's all about.

"Without my really good friends none of this would be worth it," Sadler said. "Sometimes it gets lonely to travel, when you're out there by yourself and doing your job.

"Sometimes you have good days and sometimes you have bad days, and without them it wouldn't be worth it. It wouldn't be nearly as much fun if I couldn't get back home with my best friends.

"Like this weekend. A lot of guys go to Aspen or the Bahamas or whatever. I go home. Vacation to me is home with my buddies."