Tom Higgins' Scuffs

Brer Earles' Briar Patch

   Clay Earles parked his car alongside U.S. 220, got out and sighed with resignation.

   Before him was a briar patch that looked more intimidating than any he ever had seen.

   He mumbled an expletive and waded into the tangled mess, which was thick with thorns.

   Within only a few feet Earles, then 33, was forced onto hands and knees, following a path probably worn by rabbits, 'possums and other critters.

   Finally, Earles, who was considering buying the land, reached the bottom of the hollow formed by a small creek.  He found himself in something of a natural bowl.  "I think this might do," Earles muttered, nodding approval while rubbing scratches inflicted by prickly blackberry bushes.

   Might do, indeed.

   The spot visited by Earles six decades ago soon became the site of Martinsville Speedway, a Virginia short track that's now a NASCAR treasure.  The Nextel Cup Series teams visit the .526-mile layout, which is shaped like a paper clip, for this week's Direct TV 500.   

   Approximately 65,000 are expected to attend.  It's likely very few of these fans are aware of how the track came into being.  Hopefully, this little history lesson will make those who read it appreciate Martinsville Speedway even more.   

   Clay Earles had bulldozers clear away the briar patch and carve out a race track from the red clay of the Blue Ridge Mountain foothills.

   The speedway was ready for racing in 1947.  Or at least it seemed so.

   Earles had been inspired to build his speedway after attending some races in North Carolina, where short tracks began springing up across the Piedmont in the car-crazy months following World War II.  Earles had seen that clouds of dust were kicked up at these dirt tracks, and he was determined this wouldn't happen at Martinsville.

   Earles, who passed away in 1999 at age 86, set out to provide a cleaner racing surface.  He covered the clay with a 20,000-gallon mixture of oil, calcium chloride and water.

   Excitement about the "clean track" was the talk of Virginia and North Carolina.

   "We advertised in good faith and sincerely believed we had a dust-free speedway," the personable Earles told me in a wide-ranging interview in 1990.  "But it turned out to be the dustiest place I've ever seen.  Just after the race started it looked like an A-Bomb had been dropped.  There was a dust cloud so big hanging over the track that I'm sure it could be seen for miles.

   "A lot of fans came to the race straight from church in their Sunday best.  We had fill dirt around the track and the grandstand.  Some of the ladies wearing high heels sank down to their ankles in this dirt.  Most of them went home barefooted, carrying their dirtied shoes."

   This was bad, but not the worst.

   "We had proposed 5,000 seats for the first race, but we only had 750 ready," continued Earles.  "Still, we drew a paying crowd of 6,013.  I've always estimated that another 3,000 sneaked through the woods and came to watch for free because we didn't have any fences.

   "I thought we had done a good job of getting ready, and going into that day I was mighty proud.    After the race was over, well, I've never been so embarassed in my life.  I wondered if anyone would ever come back.

   "For years I had nightmares about that race and what happened."

   Earles should have spared himself the worry.

   His little track, the shortest in NASCAR and paved sinced the 1950s, developed into a dream that's a favorite among fans who like the contact and close-quarters competition it produces.

   For years drivers who have either been spun out our pushed aside by a rival while battling for position at Martinsville have emerged from their cars red-faced in anger, much like last Sunday following the Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway in Tennessee. 

   However, no driver's face ever has been as crimson as that of Red Byron, winner of the inaugural Martinsville race which produced that big mushroom cloud in 1947.  He was caked with dust.

   "I'll never forget the sight," said Clay Earles with a chuckle. "Red looked like he had been painted."      

    

      

Vindication For The Wild Man

   During the 1970s and '80s an executive director of the N.C. Sports Hall Of Fame refused to count votes toward the induction of stock car racing's legendary Junior Johnson.

   The "one-man-ban" was based on Johnson's conviction on a moonshine liquor charge in 1956.

   Even after Johnson received a full pardon from President Ronald Reagan in 1985, ballots for him were blocked from being counted.

   Junior was a good enough man to be forgiven by the president of the United States, but not by the authoritarian honcho heading the N.C. hall.  Johnson didn't complain, but friends were aware that the slight hurt him deeply.

   Finally, a new leader took charge of the hall, and Wilkes County, N.C. native Johnson, a winner of 50 races at NASCAR's top level, was inducted in 1992.

   Further vindication recently came for Johnson, who also won 140 races and six Winston Cup Series championships as a team owner.   

   

   The storied 1963 Chevrolet that Junior drove to seven victories and 10 poles in only 33 starts has been put on display at the N.C. Museum Of History in Raleigh, where the Sports  Hall Of Fame is located.

   The big, white Impala is positioned in the expansive lobby, where no visitor can miss seeing it.

   The number adorning the car is 3. 

   Junior Johnson made that numeral famous in NASCAR long before the late Dale Earnhardt immortalized it for alltime while driving for Richard Childress Racing.

   Gov. Mike Easley accepted loan of the Chevy from Johnson and expressed the hope that "it will still be on display here in the museum's lobby 25 years from now."

   Added the governor, "Junior deserves the honor because he has brought the state fame well beyond our borders.  Junior is a good citizen and a credit to North Carolina."

   Said Reese Edwards, now the hall's executive director:  "Junior's rivals chased this car all over the South in 1963.  We've been chasing it for display here since 1992, and we're delighted that at last we have it."

   The Impala in which Junior sped to major 400-mile victories at both Atlanta and Charlotte is the second race car placed in the museum.  One of the Pontiacs that Richard Petty drove during a career that produced 200 triumphs and seven championships also is in the Raleigh hall.

   Early on during his driving career Junior was nicknamed "The Wilkes County Wild Man" on the basis of his full-bore, go-or-blow racing style.

   The monicker certainly applied in 1963 as Junior and his Ray Fox-led team won these races:

   --Feb. 22, a 100-mile qualifying event leading to the Daytona 500.  Junior was fastest in time trials for the 500 at 165.183 mph, but Fireball Roberts earlier had won the pole at 160.943.  Qualifying races at Daytona were officials events in those days.

   --March 10, an un-named 148.5-mile race at Orange Speedway near Hillsborough, N.C.  The bosomy actress Jayne Mansfield was the grand marshal at the 9/10ths-mile dirt track.  Junior remembers helping shield her in Victory Lane from excited fans who were pawing at her clothes.

   --March 24, the Hickory 250 at Hickory (N.C.) Speedway, then a 4/10ths-mile dirt track.  Junior was so dominant he lapped the field.

   --June 30, the Dixie 400 at Atlanta International Raceway, a 1.522-mile paved track.  Johnson finished three seconds ahead of Ford-driving arch-rival Fred Lorenzen.

   --Aug. 16, the International 200 at Bowman Gray Stadium, a 1/4th-mile paved track in an arena where Wake Forest and other schools played football.  Junior again lapped the field.

   --Sept. 6, a second Hickory 250 at Hickory Speedway.  Amazingly, Junior persevered to win after flipping the No. 3 Chevy in practice.

   --Oct. 13, the National 400 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, a 1.5-mile paved track.  Junior finished a commanding 12 seconds ahead of Lorenzen.

   Junior appeared headed to the World 600 checkered flag at Charlotte in May of '63, leading 279 of the race's 400 laps in the storied Chevy.  But with three laps to go a tire blew out and Junior had to pit.  He finished as runnerup to Lorenzen.  Junior was ahead by four seconds when the tire failed.

   His post-race interview is remembered as a humorous classic among those of us who heard it.

   A Charlotte television personality named Big Bill Ward was on the team broadcasting the race on radio.  Big Bill layed the excitement on thick about getting a word with Junior.  He shouted in breathless fashion, referring to Johnson's disappointment as if it was Armageddon.

   Poking a microphone in the window of the race car, Big Bill implored, "Junior!  What on earth happened!?"

   To which a drawling Junior calmly and matter-of-factly replied:  "Ah blowed a tar."

   Junior personally accompanied the transport of the '63 Chevrolet from his home in the Brushy Mountains of N.C. to Raleigh.

   "I'm really honored the North Carolina hall wanted one of my cars, especially this particular Chevy," said Junior, who posted a record 21 triumphs as a team owner at Bristol Motor Speedway, which the Nextel Cup teams visit this week.  "It's the favorite car I ever drove.  It's so well known that it  has been taken across the Atlantic Ocean twice to England for automobile festivals over there.

   "We bought the car back in the '60s right off the showroom floor at a dealership.  Me and the boys working for me turned it into a race car, changing the chassis, the suspension and building a good strong engine.

   "I'd say that 99 percent of the cars racing in NASCAR even now have the same chassis as the one we used in 1963.  Lots of museums and halls have wanted this car, but I'm tickled to have it in Raleigh more than any other place."       

Atlanta Or Bust

    Atlanta's air space, always crowded, will have a lot more traffic during the next few days.

   This is because the NASCAR teams will be flying personnel into Georgia for the Golden Corral 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

   Most of the drivers will wing in aboard their private planes.  Pit crew members and other  functionaries will arrive on aircraft owned or chartered by their teams.

   It hasn't always been so convenient.

   There was a time not so long ago that crews--and even owners--had to drive through the night to arrive at the Atlanta track to go racing.  Motorsports back then was a much tougher gig.

   The venerable Virginian, Junie Donlavey, can vouch for this.

   Oh boy, can he vouch!  His tale of one trip to Atlanta ranks among the most humorous in NASCAR's rich lore.

          

   Donlavey traces his participation at NASCAR's top level to 1950, or just a year after Big Bill France started sanctioning races on what then was called the Grand National circuit.

   Through the decades Donlavey has fielded cars for such drivers as Sonny Hutchins, Bill Dennis, Jimmy Hensley, Bobby Isaac, Fred Lorenzen, Dick Brooks, Jody Ridley, Buddy Baker, Benny Parsons, Ken Schrader, Ernie Irvan and Wally Dallenbach, Jr.

   Gentleman Junie, among the sport's alltime most popular figures, often wasn't blessed with big sponsorships.  Thus he couldn't afford a fleet of race cars or a great number of "boys at the shop" to maintain them.  Often his car that was being prepared for a particular race wasn't ready to go until the 11th hour.

   Such was the case prior to an Atlanta event in the early 1980s.

   Junie and the fellows working for him labored on their car until midnight on the eve of qualifying.  They loaded the machine into its transporter and sent it on the way from Richmond down I-85 to Hampton, Ga., and the race track.

   Then Junie and about a half dozen of his guys got in a large van to follow.

   Junie hadn't gotten much sleep all week in working so feverishly on the car, so he claimed the van's rear-most seat and stretched out to nap as much as possible while en route to Georgia.

   The other fellows in the van decided to pull into a rest stop near Henderson on the North Carolina-Virginia line to stretch their legs.  They left Junie asleep on the backseat.

   Junie awoke and decided that he'd stretch, too.

   He headed for the restroom.

   Through some strange twist, Junie and his crew guys didn't pass each other as they came out and he went in.

   Junie emerged from the restroom to see the tail lights of his van disappearing into  the night.

   "Those rascals are playing a joke on me," Junie recalled thinking in telling the tale.  "They'll be back laughing in a minute."

   Not exactly.

   When 15 minutes passed with no sight of the van, the awful truth dawned for Junie:  His team members didn't realize that he had awakened and got out of the vehicle.

   Junie was stranded.

   What to do?

   This was before the day of cell phones, remember, so Junie had no way of contacting the fellows in the van, which was clicking off the miles toward Georgia at a rather brisk clip.

   Donlavey in desperation began knocking on the doors of tractor-trailers parked at the rest area while their drivers took mandatory breaks.

   "They generally thought I was either a male prostitute or someone looking for a handout, and they shooed me away," continued Junie.  "It was pretty awful."

   Ladies of the evening working the rest stop even propositioned Junie.

   "Never have I been in such a hassle or embarrassing  fix," he said.

   Finally, Junie encountered a truck driver who happened to be a stock car racing fan.  The man was headed to Charlotte, and he was glad to give Junie a ride that far.

   Once in Charlotte Junie was able to contact fellow team owner Elmo Langley, who hadn't yet departed for Atlanta.  Elmo, naturally, was more than delighted to give his friend a lift to the track.

   Meanwhile, Junie's guys had arrived at the speedway.  Panic set in when they discovered that their team owner HAD NOT arrived with them.

   All kinds of theories raced through their minds as to how the man they thought was asleep had disappeared.

   "I understand that alien abduction was even mentioned," said Junie with a chuckle.

   Shortly, they figured it out.  Visions of lost jobs flashed before them.

   But that wasn't about to happen, not with a guy as good as Junie Donlavey.

   "As much my fault as anyone's," he said.

   Junie chuckled and shook his head.

   "The experience at the rest stop was bad," he said.  "But it wasn't the worst thing about this incident.

   "The worst was having to listen to Elmo Langley cackle about it all the way from Charlotte to Atlanta." 

A Pitch For The Pioneers

   So it's settled.

   The NASCAR Hall Of Fame has been won by Charlotte, which is as it should be.

   For decades the true heart of the sport has been the Queen City and the surrounding area, particularly Mooresville, where many teams are based and drivers make their homes on the shores of Lake Norman.

   Now the intrigue shifts from the locale of the multi-million dollar hall to who will be chosen for the inaugural class of inductees.

   There's no doubt about some who'll be selected for the honor:

   Big Bill France Sr., the late NASCAR founder.  Richard Petty and the late Dale Earnhardt, both seven-time champions at the sanctioning body's major level.  David Pearson, whose 105 victories are second only to Petty's 200.  Junior Johnson, who won 50 races as a driver and 136 more as a team owner who once captured six championships in a 10-year span.

   Who else should be among the first enshrined?

   Dozens are deserving of eventual induction into the hall that's scheduled to open in about three years in downtown Charlotte.

   Although neither eligibility rules nor a selection format have been announced, permit me to make a pitch for the sport's pioneers to make up the bulk of the inaugural group of inductees.

   Without them, who knows if stock car racing would have become a billion-dollar business that's now followed by fans worldwide. 

   

   

   Charter membership in the hall should go to Herb Thomas, Buck Baker, Tim Flock and Lee Petty, the biggest stars of the 1950s, all now deceased.  All won multiple championships in that decade.  The colorful, late Curtis Turner is another possibility.

   Thomas, especially, deserves early induction.  Through the years Baker, Flock and Lee Petty have become more familiar to modern-era fans, but Thomas was the sport's first big winner.

   A North Carolina farm boy who worked at a sawmill during World War II, Thomas was in the field for NASCAR's first "Strictly Stock" race in Charlotte in 1949.  He  won his first race in 1950 and in '51 was the series champion.

   Thomas' racing career continued to only 1956, when serious injuries in a crash forced him from the cockpit.  But in his relatively brief time at the wheel he posted 48 victories, including three triumphs in the sport's toughest event, the Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway.  He also won the championship in 1953 and was runnerup in the point standings three times.

   Thomas and the other competitors in his era drove equipment that relatively was "Stone Age" compared to the safety standards and other sophistication of the cars of today.  The drivers of the late 1940s, the '50s and even the '60s were brave almost beyond belief considering the protection that was affored to them. Also, they ran for "peanut-sized" purses, even when figuring for inflation.

   For example, in his 1951 championship season Thomas earned a grand toal of $20,850.  Tony Stewart, the Nextel Cup Series title-winner in 2005, pocketed almost $7 million.

   Obviously, Thomas and the other pioneers drove race cars mostly for the passion and thrill of the chase.

  Drivers from the 1960s deserving of membership in the hall include Ned Jarrett, Rex White, Fred Lorenzen and deceased greats Fireball Roberts, Joe Weatherly and Jim Paschal.  And the late Wendell Scott, on the basis of the biases he had to battle and what he achieved with very limited resources.

   Cale Yarborough and Bobby Allison lead the 1970s contingent that also includes Benny Parsons, Buddy Baker and the late Bobby Isaac.

   Top candidates for the hall from the 1980s are Darrell Waltrip, Bill Elliott, Rusty Wallace and the late Neil Bonnett.

   All these drivers I've mentioned undoubtedly will be inducted into the Charlotte hall at some point, along with such current stars as Jeff Gordon, Mark Martin, Dale Jarrett, Bobby and Terry Labonte, recent retiree Ricky Rudd and the late Davey Allison.

   Great crew chiefs such as Dale Inman, Leonard Wood and the late Smokey Yunick deserve eventual induction, too, along with team owners like Bud Moore, Glen Wood, Rick Hendrick, Richard Childress, Raymond Parks, John Holman and Ralph Moody.  Ditto track founders Bruton Smith and his deceased counterparts, Harold Brasington, Clay Earles and Enoch Staley.

   There also should be a place in the hall for the talented champions of other NASCAR series, including Jack Ingram, Sam Ard, Jerry Cook and the late competitors Ralph Earnhardt, Richie Evans, Butch Lindley and Ray Hendricks.

   But along with NASCAR founder France, Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt, David Pearson and Junior Johnson, it's my hope that pioneer drivers from the top division such as Herb Thomas and his peers justly are remembered and honored first.