Dr. NASCAR And Mr. Hyde.

   The airline trip direct from Charlotte to Phoenix a couple decades ago relatively had been a pleasant one, flown without indcident.
   Then, somewhere over Texas,  the aircraft, packed with NASCAR competitors en route to Arizona for a Winston Cup Series race, encountered some mild turbulence.
   A female flight attendant, who hardly had tried to mask her disdain for the racing contingent, marched down the aisle.  "Fasten your seat belts!" she demanded.
   Far as I know everyone complied except a middle-aged fellow sitting directly across from me.  He just kept reading a book on World War II history, paying the attendant no heed.
   A second and then a third time she came to the fellow's seat.  The last time, with a nasty snarl on her lips, she screamed, "Final warning, fasten that seat belt or else!"
   The chap carefully placed his bookmark, gently closed the heavy book and in a voice oozing with sarcasm and faux sweetness asked:
   "Darling, if this big ol' bird should go crashing into the side of one of those mountains down yonder,  and my seat should go flying through the nose of it, will it make a damn bit of difference if my butt is strapped to the seat or not?"
   All of us within earshot roared as the snooty attendant reddened and beat a hasty retreat.
   She did not come down our way again.
   Harry Hyde, meanwhile, resumed reading his book.

        

      He de-planed in Phoenix without  incident.  The surly attendant, of course, was not at the door to bid him adieu.
   What happened on the long-ago flight was classic Harry Hyde: Calm, calculating and caustically sarcastic/humorous when the situation presented itself.
   All this comes to mind because Hyde posthumously was awarded "The Golden Wrench" on Wednesday, signifying his induction into the N.C. Stock Car Racing Hall Of Fame at Mooresville, N.C.
   He ranks among the hall's most popular  choices  to receive the award previously won by such NASCAR  mechanic/crew chief giants  as Waddell Wilson, Leonard Wood, Dale Inman and Buddy Parrott.
   Hyde, a native of Brownsville, Ky., learned to be a mechanic in World War II while serving in the U.S. Army. He also saw duty as a demolitions expert in the awful, dangerous invasion of Okinawa, thus his great interest in reading voraciously about World War II history.
   After returning home to Brownsville, Hyde opened an auto repair shop, drove race cars for a time, and then decided his true calling was to build race cars and lead teams for other drivers.
   In the mid 1960s Hyde was hired by flamboyant insurance executive Nord Krauskopf to head an outfit and join the growing NASCAR tour.
   Krauskopf moved the operation to the Charlotte area of North Carolina and paired Hyde and mercurial driver Bobby Isaac. 
   "They'll kill each other," one observer predicted.
   But the combo clicked.
   Isaac won 17 races in 1969 driving what broadcasters liked to call "The candy-apple red No. 71 Dodge."
   Isaac triumphed 11 times in 47 starts in 1970, took the NASCAR championship and Hyde was co-honored by being inducted into the Mechanics' Hall of Fame.
  Isaac won 36 times overall in Hyde-fielded cars.
   During '71 Krauskopf and Dodge ordered the Hyde/Isaac duo to the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah for runs at stock car world speed records.  Many of those marks still stand.
   After Isaac departed Krauskopf's K and K Insurance operation, Hyde won races through 1977 with drivers Dave Marcis (4), Neil Bonnett and Buddy Baker (3 each).

Krauskopf left the sport the next year, and Hyde “free-lanced” with various teams,
continuing to prove ever-popular on pit road with his wise, but often-earthy comments.

In 1984 automobile agency mogul Rick Hendrick announced that he was forming a Winston Cup Series team. Hyde would lead it, and Geoff Bodine would be the driver.

Skeptics scoffed.

“Harry Hyde is over the hill,” they sneered.

Also, it was doubted Hyde and “the Yankee” Bodine from New York would get along.

They thrived, though, and gave the newcomer Hendrick his first victory and then two more that quickly, in great foresight,  established Hendrick as a potential  force for the future in NASCAR.

Next challenge given to Hyde by Hendrick in the cockpit was Tim Richmond, a fiery Ohioan known to be difficult to deal with. Hyde had the smarts to handle Richmond, too, and they won nine big races in spectacular fashion before a horrid disease took the driver’s life in 1989.

   In the movie, "Days of Thunder," starring Tom Cruise, the crew chief character named Harry Hogue is  based more than loosely on the big-time racing career of Harry Hyde.
   When Hogue ordered Cruise to "hit the pace car" on a restart at Martinsville, that was Hyde telling Baker to do the same "because you've hit every damn thing else out there."
   When Hogue resfused to make a pit stop for Cruise's character, that was Hyde shirking off Benny Parsons at Darlington.  "We can't pit you now," said Hyde/Hogue.  "We're having our ice cream."
   Harry was angry that Benny had hit the turn two wall on the opening laps in the pole-winning car.
   What few outsiders knew about was Harry Hyde's "Little Black Book."  He had logged in it every lap ever run by any of his drivers on the circuit.  The weather at the time, the chassis setup, the composition of the tires, and on and on and on.
   "It's probably the greatest racing diary ever put together," said Baker.  "I wonder where it is.  It would have been worth millions in its time.  But it's an artifact now because the tracks and cars have changed so much."

    Hyde himself passed away in 1996, victimized by a heart attrack at age 71 during a race week at the track then known as Charlotte Motor Speedway.  He died on a parcel of land he owned adjacent to what has become the great Hendrick Motorsports Complex.  A road leading to the area is known as "Hyde's Way."
   
   Tough ol' competitors such as Marcis and Baker had tears come to their eyes upon receiving the word in the garage area of Harry's untimely passing.

   "There never was, and never will be, another like him," said Marcis.
   I know.
   Harry attempted to include me as a victim of one of his one-liners some years ago.
   During a Charlotte Motor Speedway press conference he was asked if he "ever went anywhere without that little black book?"
   Harry, pretending astonishment, laughed heartily.
   "Me doing that," replied Harry, knowing that I was an avid fisherman, "would be like Tom Higgins going fishing without his worm."
   The audience was filled with ladies, and they all giggled as I blushed.
   I gathered myself, stood up and said, "Harry, you should know I never go anywhere without my worm."
   I thought Harry was going to choke.