Tom Higgins' Scuffs

Testing, Testing...

   Off-season testing among NASCAR's Nextel Cup Series teams will begin with furious intensity during the next few days, mainly at Daytona International Speedway in Florida.

   It's tedious--and often boring--work for both the drivers and their crews.

   Also dangerous.

   One of NASCAR's most promising drivers lost his life while testing at Daytona on Jan. 5, 1965.

   

   That was Texan Billy Wade, the 1963 rookie of the year with 14 top 10 finishes in 31 races.

   Driving for legendary South Carolina team owner Bud Moore, Wade had won four races--all consecutively--during the 1964 season.  In 34 starts he posted seven other top five finishes and wound up in the top 10 a whopping 19 times overall.  He took five poles.

   Some rated the 35-year-old driver a solid threat for the '65 championship in what NASCAR then called its Grand National Division.

   But it wasn't to be.

   Wade didn't survive a hard crash at the 2.5-mile Daytona track, leaving a wife and two young daughters.

   Another successful driver, Jimmy Pardue, was killed while testing at Charlotte Motor Speedway in 1964.

   However, Pardue died in a crash on Sept. 22 while preparing for Charlotte's National 400, not in a pre-season shakedown.

   A tire failed on his car and Pardue, who hailed from North Wilkesboro, N.C., sailed over the Turn Four railing and plummeted 90 feet downward to the bottom of the banking.

   Like Wade, Pardue had started to fare well.

   He had won a race in each of the '62 and '63 seasons.

   Several drivers have suffered injuries during crashes while testing, including Hall Of Famer Buddy Baker, who blew a tire, hit the wall and sustained a broken leg during the late 1960s while running  a pre-season tire test at Daytona.

   "It's no fun, but you've got to do it," said Waddell Wilson, who recently recieved the N.C. Auto Racing Hall Of Fame's prestigious "Golden Wrench Award."  Wilson started going to testing at Daytona in the 1960s with the storied Holman & Moody operation and continued doing so for more than 40 years while serving as an engine builder and then crew chief with various teams.  "If you don't, then you're behind for the season-opening Daytona, our sport's biggest race.   

   "Through the years, me and my teammates often found ourselves just sitting there in the garage area, bored as could be," said Wilson.  "The problem was that moisture from overnight dew had left the track too slick for cars to go on it.  Lots of times it would be noon before the track dryed off.

   "I remember thinking, 'This is just wasted time that I could be applying to getting something accomplished back at the shop.'

   "Another frustration was the long lines of cars waiting to get on the track.  This is the thing I recall frustrating the drivers more than anything else.  They're buckled in and ready to go, but NASCAR will let only three or four cars on the track at a time.  And there are maybe 20 cars in the line on pit road.

   "The drivers run three or four laps, then it's back into the garage.  And they're complaining, 'I'm spending all this time down here for THIS!?"

   Mike Hill, who spent many years with the Junior Johnson-owned operation that won six championships, offered another thought from all the seasons he went to pre-season tests.

   "Trying to get a clean lap in was your goal, but it often was--and remains--hard to do," said Hill, who now works for Evernham Motorsports.  "If there was another car on the same straightaway as your car, it created a draft, so you really couldn't tell what you had."

   Hill chuckled.

   "If your team's car came off the truck fast, watching the grass grow while you were at Daytona or Talladega testing wasn't too bad," he said.  "But if you're not fast right away, then the hurry-up-and-waiting trying to get fast was very, very tough.  Rain always made you wish you were somewhere else, and it rains a lot at Daytona in January. "

  The late seven-time champion Dale Earnhardt had a way of beating the boredom and tedium of winter days at Daytona (and sometimes Talladega).

   So he could go hunting, Earnhardt had his team owner, Richard Childress, hire veteran driver Dave Marcis to do the testing for them.

Those Were The Days...

   NASCAR Nextel Cup drivers nowadays make LOTS and LOTS more money than their predecessors.

   For example, Jimmie Johnson, the series' new champion, earned $15,770,125 in 2006, winning five races en route to his first title.

   In 1978, Cale Yarborough won 10 races in his drive to the second of three successive championships with a team owned by Junior Johnson.  Counting the champion's bonus, or "point money" as it was then known, Yarborough's purse amounted to $530,751.

   That's approximately one-30th of what Johnson collected with his Hendrick Motorsports team.

   However, in some other ways, Yarborough and his peers during what I consider stock car racing's "Golden Age," from the early 1970s through the mid-1980s,  had it better.

   Still once again for example, their off-seasons were much more laid back.

   They had a far greater amount of time to pursue things they enjoyed doing, like fishing and hunting.

   Today's drivers get a couple or so weeks for vacation, but many days during December and January are owed to appearances for sponsors and more days are devoted to intense testing.

   Greg Biffle and Kyle Busch ALREADY have tested at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

   I imagine the current crowd often yearns for a day like Buddy Baker experienced  in December of 1975, a year which proved one of his best, producing four victories.

   Buddy, a popular, jovial giant of a guy and among the hardest chargers NASCAR has known, and I were invited to drive down from Charlotte for a day of hunting at rural Ellerbe, which is just a few miles from the sadly-departed N.C. Motor Speedway.

   Our quarry: quail.

   Frost still whitened the ground when we arrived and met our hosts, Ralph Webb and Wayne Lowdermilk, both now deceased.

   Ralph was the brother of N.C. Motor Speedway co-founder Elsie Webb.  And Wayne worked at the track during the weeks leading to races, doing everything from mending guardrails to picking up incoming celebrities at airports.

   Both Ralph and Wayne owned some of the best bird dogs ever to lope through a field in the Sandhills of North Carolina.

   Buddy and I had hunted birds with both men before.  However, we especially anticipated this outing because they had sent word the spring of '75 had produced a fine crop of quail.

   "The most coveys I have seen in quite some time," Ralph had said.

   He wasn't exaggerating.

   Hardly 10 minutes after Wayne let two dogs out of a box on the back of a Jeep from which we were hunting, they went on point.

   Buddy and I, with shotguns ready, eased our way through the brush, approaching from behind the pointers, which were frozen as stiff as statues.  "This is the kind of scene you see on outdoors-related calendars," I thought to myself.

   With a stunning suddeness that makes a man's adrenaline gush, a covey of perhaps 20 quail blasted into the air.

   We sent lead flying after them, and four birds went down.

   I think Buddy, one of the best wing shots I ever hunted alongside, bagged three of them.

   He was ebullient as the dogs brought the birds to us.  "Wow, I've been needing something like this!" said the driver whose victories in '75 with a team owned by Bud Moore included a sweep of the two 500-milers at Talladega and triumphs in the 500s closing the season at Atlanta and Ontario, Calif.

   We returned to the Jeep and drove on, hunting the field edges.

   Our route on a beautiful spread of property owned by Ralph Webb took us by one of his many farm ponds.  It essentially was covered shore-to-shore with wild ducks.

   "You boys might as well take some of them, too," said Wayne.

   We left the Jeep out of sight of the pond and made our way to the base of the earthern dam.  Buddy and I crawled up the dam and poked our heads over the top.  The nearest ducks saw us and took wing.  We fired, and three mallards went down.

   "Duck soup!" I shouted.

   The shooting, of course, sent the other ducks, numbering maybe 250, into flight.  The whirring of their wings as they fled remains one of the most memorable sounds of my life.

   On we went, and the dogs pointed again.

   Same routine, approach from behind them.  This time, though, an interloper interfered.  A rabbit burst from the brush beneath Buddy's feet.  A surprised Buddy jumped about two feet in the air, but recovered in time to get off a shot.

   Add a hare to the harvest.

   After a break for lunch, the hunt continued.

   We were driving down a dirt road when Wayne noticed something shaking the limbs at the top of a tall oak tree.

   "That's the biggest fox squirrel I've ever seen!" he exclaimed.

   "I've gotta have it," said Buddy.

   He alit from the Jeep about 200 yards from the tree and made his way behind brushy cover to within shooting range.

   Add a fox squirrel to the bag.

   Fox squirrels are almost twice as large as their more familiar cousins, gray squirrels.  And no, there aren't any fox genes in them.  The critters are not widely found, but among the places they do inhabit are the N.C. Sandhills.

   They vary widely in coloration, from black and white to reddish to gray and brown.

   Most hunters lucky enough to take a fox squirrel have it mounted as a trophy.

   More coveys of quail were pointed through the afternoon, and we approached our daily limit as regulated by the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission.  We had a bunch of birds, as Ralph and Wayne had joined in the shooting.

   "Let's bust one more covey and call it a day," said Ralph.

   Almost on cue, the dogs pointed.

   But it wasn't birds this time.

   To our astonishment, a whopper of a whitetail deer rose from a bedding place in the field.  As my ol' game warden of a father used to say, "Its rack looked like a rocking chair turned upside down."  It was a 12-pointer, at the very least.

   Wayne, the driver, had a rifle resting alongside the console next to his seat.  He was the only one among us to have a chance at getting off a shot.

   Wayne jumped from the Jeep and, firing away in rapid succession, expended  almost all his ammo as the big buck bounded with amazing speed toward a thick pine forest 150 yards away.   Not surprisingly, Wayne missed.

   Buddy and I accused Wayne of experiencing "buck fever."  We threatened to cut off the tail of his shirt, a tradition among deer hunters when a cohort shoots and misses.

   However, we reconsidered for three reasons:

   First, he was our co-host.

   Second, he had help treat us to what Hall-Of-Famer Buddy Baker still ranks among the greatest off-season days of a colorful racing career covering three decades.

   And third, Wayne still held that rifle and he had a couple bullets left...

    

      

          

Race City Reunion

   Five stock car racing hall of famers are listed among the competitors scheduled to attend the inaugural "Legends Helping Legends" event Saturday in Mooresville.

   The five: Bobby Allison, Ned Jarrett and Rex White, each a former champion in NASCAR's top series; five-time Busch Series champion Jack Ingram; and immensely popular Harry Gant, the oldest driver ever to win a Winston Cup Series race.

   The Legends gathering, open to the public, is the creation of Alex Beam, founder and owner of the Memory Lane Motorsports and Historical Automotive Museum in Mooresville, which is nicknamed "Race City USA."

   "As the years have gone by, some of the people who helped make stock car racing the giant sport that it has become have found themselves needing help," said Beam.  "Myself and the folks assisting me plan to make this an annual event to raise money that aid."

   The first beneficiary is to be Bill Connell, a colorful announcer for almost a quarter century at Lowe's Motor Speedway and other major tracks.  Connell suffered kidney cancer in 1998 and continues to battle chronic diabetes.

   "Bill has mounting medical expenses, and we're determined to help him defray those," said Beam.

   Admission to meet legends like Bobby Allison and Jarrett, plus many other major motorsports figures, is $8 and includes a tour of Beam's expansive museum.  The hours are 11 a.m. through 4 p.m.  The museum is located at 769 River Highway, perhaps better known as N.C. 150.  The site is approximately two miles west of I-77  and Exit 36 in Mooresville.

   Others scheduled to attend the "reunion" include former drivers Donnie Allison, Neil Castles, Cecil Gordon, Ernie Irvan, Paul Lewis, Boscoe Lowe, Dave Marcis, Dick May, Jimmy Means, Little Bud Moore, Jerry Nadeau, Ed Negre, former Busch Series champion L.D. Ottinger, Tom Pistone, Don Tarr, Hank Thomas, Don Tilley, Jimmy Spencer, Jim Vandiver and dirt track great Dink Widenhouse.

   Also, crew chiefs Mike Beam, Barry Dodson, Larry McReynolds, Buddy Parrott and Waddell Wilson.

   Car owners set to attend are J.B. Day, Don Duncan, Billy Hagan, Lee Holman, Garry Hargett and Butch Mock.

   There's to be a raffle and also a silent auction of motorsports memorabilia.

   --A much older NASCAR-related charity, "Stocks For Tots," is scheduled Dec. 12, also in Mooresville.

   Its star attraction is Dale Earnhardt Jr., the Nextel Cup Series' most popular driver.

   This event,  now in its 12th year, will be held at the Citizens Center on Main Street in downtown Mooresville from 6-10 p.m.  Formerly, the wildly popular "Tots" extravaganza was spread out over several racing team shops and the N.C.  Racing Hall Of Fame in Mooresville's Lakeside Park.

   Admission is a cash donation of $10, or a new unwrapped toy worth that minimum value.

   Fans planning to attend must buy wristbands from 9 a.m.-3:30 p.m. at the hall of fame or starting at 4 p.m. at entry points to the Citizens Center. Only one wristband will be sold per person.  Essentially, this means one fan can't buy wristbands for others to prevent them from standing in line.

   Rusty Wallace, the 1989 Winston Cup champion who co-founded the "Tots" endeavor, will take part, as always.  Wallace is to be the lead analyst in 2007 on racing telecasts by ABC and ESPN.

  Other Nextel drivers listed to attend are Ryan Newman, Denny Hamlin, David Stremme, Kurt Busch, Travis Kvapil, Mike Wallace and Kevin LePage.

   Bobby Allison, Ned Jarrett, Irvan, McReynolds and Wilson also will participate in the Stocks For Tots program, which through the years has raised thousands of dollars and truckloads of toys for needy children at Christmastime.

   Fans should note that not all the drivers and other motorsports personalities taking part will be able to stay for the entire four hours because of other committments.

   --One of the best-liked guys in Winston Cup racing during the late 1980s and early '90s passed away Tuesday.

   Bob Tomlinson, who was a general manager of the team formed by legendary Cale Yarborough, died after a long battle with cancer. He was 67.

   The gentlemanly Tomlinson, who held a law degree, also worked with some other teams.

   What impressed me most about Bob was his ready cooperation, even if the subject involved a controversey concerning his team.

   Phone calls to him invariably were returned within an hour.  Many others holding positions similar to his might call back in a day or so--or not at all. 

   Prayers and sympathies to the family of a fine man.

   Tomlinson's funeral service is at 11:30 a.m. Saturday at Candor (N.C.) Presbyterian Church.

   --Here's a response for the reader who some weeks ago inquired about former driver David Ray Boggs:

   David is 63 now, and living in Morrisville, N.C.

   During the 1971-73 seasons he made 32 Winston Cup Series starts, and finished in the top 10 twice.

   He ran a few Busch Series races in 1983, '84 and '86.