A Heavy Toll, Happy Ending

   As April arrives, action generally starts to roll at local auto racing short tracks around the nation.

  This has been among the rites of spring for decades, inspiring renewed dreams among young drivers to someday reach the NASCAR big time.

  And so it was for a teenaged South Carolina farm boy in the late 1950s.  Except for one thing...

  He had no ride and no prospects of getting one.

  Things were tough beyond this.

  The U.S. economy was in recession, and the youthful fellow had no money to pay his bills.  The electric company had sent notice it was planning to cut off power to the modest home he shared with his wife, a high school sweetheart.      

  And then came a phone call.

   A car owner wanted him to come to Savannah and drive in a Saturday night show on a little dirt track.  He offered to pay half of whatever purse the car won.

   The youngster borrowed $10 from his mother for gas and food, and he and his bride headed to Savannah.

   In Walterboro, S.C., he was stopped for speeding.  The fine was $10--all the money they had.

   Returning home seemed the best option, but they continued on toward the Georgia coast.  And then they remembered: There was a toll bridge ahead and they didn't have a cent to pay to cross it.

   In desperation they stopped and pulled the back seat out of their car, hoping to find change that might have fallen from the pockets of people riding back there.  They found 15 cents.  The toll fee was a quarter.

   Even so, they drove on.

   A kind toll-keeper laoned them the dime they needed to cross the river, and they continued to Savannah.

   Prior to the race the cars were being warmed up on pit road.  Suddenly there was a popping sound and a plume of smoke.  The engine in the car that the farmboy was to drive had blown up.  There wasn't going to be any prize money.

   Other drivers took up a collection, raising enough money for the down-on-their-luck couple to buy burgers for supper, get enough gas to return home and, importantly, pay the toll to re-cross the river.  And, yes, repay that tollkeeper his dime.

   For many, many people, this sour experience would have ended the dream of becoming a race driver right then.  But this chap persevered.

   He eventually manged to get a job sweeping the floors at the shop of the famous Holman-Moody Racing Team in Charlotte.  And he talked his way into rides with lesser car owners.

   Finally, he got a relatively good car and on June 27, 1965 he won a NASCAR 100-miler on a half-mile dirt track in Valdosta, Ga.  In his first victory, he outran a field that included future hall-of-famers Ned Jarrett, Tiny Lund, and Buck and Buddy Baker.

   He was on his way, and for the next 23 years he never looked back.

   His record grew to show 83 victories at NASCAR's top level, including four Daytona 500s and five Southern 500s at Darlington Raceway--a track he sneaked into at age 11 to watch the first Southern 500 in 1950 because he didn't have the money to buy a ticket.

   He remains the only driver in NASCAR history to win three consecutive driving championships.

   Retired as a driver since 1988, he's now a highly successful  businessman in South Carolina, operating auto dealerships, restaurants, a dry-cleaning chain and a large farm.  He's a board director for banks.

   Nowadays he could BUY toll bridges.

   Shows what determination and uncommon grit can do.

   There's an ancient adage that sometimes "It's darkest before the dawn."  This probably seems especially true when the power company is planning to turn off your lights. 

   Count racing hall-of-famer Cale Yarborough among the adage's most ardent believers.