Tom Higgins' Scuffs

Feudin', Fussin', Fightin'

   The budding brouhaha between Carl Edwards and Kyle Busch in NASCAR's Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series has promise of being a bang-up rivalry, or feud.
   Not only have the two bashed each other on the track, but verbally as well.
   I love it when drivers do the latter, especially if the exchanges are witty.
   After their latest run-in a week ago at Bristol Motor Speedway, Busch called Edwards "Mr. Ed," obviously referring to Edwards' toothy smile and the horse of that name from the long-ago hit comedy series on television.  I've been waiting for Edwards to retaliate by calling Busch something, say, like "Geico," the lizard in TV commercials, but so far nothing has been forthcoming.  It probably will be this weekend when the teams gather at California Speedway for a 500-miler on Sunday and Edwards has had time to think about it.
   However, as antagonists, Busch and Edwards have a long way to go to match the pyrotechnics of their predecessors in NASCAR's good ol' days.
   Colorful competitors like Junior Johnson, Cale Yarborough, Darrell Waltrip, Bobby Allison, Richard Petty, David Pearson, Ned Jarrett, Geoff Bodine, Fred Lorenzen and the departed drivers Dale Earnhardt, Lee Petty, Curtis Turner, Tiny Lund and Buck Baker all engaged in feuds that kept the fans interested, laughing, talking--and anxiously awaiting the next race.

   Following, in no certain order, are a few of the fiercest feuds I recall most fondly  during 50 years of covering NASCAR:
   --JUNIOR JOHNSON AND THE PETTYS.   "Lee was a tough driver and always had good equipment, but he thought the track belonged only to him, so we'd had problems for quite some time .  We were racin' at the old Charlotte Fairgrounds speedway on North Tryon Street back in the 1950s and Lee was driving a Plymouth with a big ol' front bumper,"  remembers Johnson.  "He kept putting that bumper in my left rear tire.  I knew what he was trying to do.  He was trying to jerk the valve stem out of the tire.  Finally, he did, and I crashed and tore my car all to hell.
   "I got to the pits and told my crew boys, 'Fix it.'  They said, 'Junior. there ain't no way.'   I said you're going to fix it to where I can run four or five laps and put Lee Petty through that board fence.  They did, and I did.  And I put Richard out for good measure.
   "After the race the Petty crowd came down to my pit wanting to fight.  I told 'em, we'll be glad to fight you,  and you're going to lose that, too.  I told them, 'Mess with me ever again, and I'll put both of you out of the race every time.
   "I never had no more trouble with them."

   JUNIOR JOHNSON AND NED JARRETT.  Tough as it might be for fans who have found stock car racing only in the last quarter century to believe,  during the late 1950s and early '60s  Jarrett was a fiery, give-no-quarter competitor.  Yes, the same man whohas a popular analyst on television motorsports broadcasts became known as "Gentleman Ned."
    "Junior and I just didn't get along," recalls Jarrett.  "I don't know wheter it was a personality conflict or what.
   "It got so bad between us in 1961 that he entered two cars for a race at Hickory Motor Speedway.  Word got around that his second car--I forget who was driving it--was there expressly to put me out of the race.  It never got the chance.  I wrecked first.
   "Our car owners got together and called Big Bill France Sr., the founder and president of NASCAR, to join them in trying to call a truce.  France flew from Daytona Beach to the next race, which was at Richmond, to try and talk us out of feuding anymore.  He tried to get us to shake hands.  We didn't.
   "In 1965 a race at Hickory was billed as the ultimate Jarrett-Johnson showdown.  The track had its biggest crowd ever.  We ran 1-2 most of the race and wore out two brand-new Fords.  On the last lap I blew a tire while leading and Junior went around and won.  He'd worn my tire out by rubbing my fender and bending the sheet metal in.
   "Both of us retired as drivers not long afterward, and as time has gone by I'm happy to say we've become very good friends."

   THE PETTYS AND TINY LUND.  This one got very physical, and NOT just with cars bumping after a checkered flag, as Edwards and Busch did last week at Bristol.  Fisticuffs flared, and more.
   Lund had driven five races for the Petty team in 1957 and the association ended bitterly.
   Prior to a race in Greensboro, a flatbed from a trailer truck was being used as a stage for driver introductions.  So happened that Petty and Lund were starting in fairly close proximity, so they passed on the stage.
   An obviously disparaging remark was made and knuckles started flying.
   "The deal was, Tiny and Daddy had a falling out," said Richard Petty.  "To spite Daddy, Tiny was telling the other teams about some special, secret things we dud to our cars.  Daddy confronted him about it, and they went to it, right there In front of everybody.  I think Daddy took the first swing."
   "Tiny" was a joke of a nickname for Lund.  He stood 6-5 and weighed between 250 and 275 pounds.
   Lee Petty stood 6-3 and weighed about 175.
      "Daddy and Tiny scuffled onto the deck of that flatbed and he was whipping Daddy pretty bad.  Me and my brother Maurice, both still teenagers, jumped in to try and help Daddy.  Well, Tiny was whupping all three of this.
   "This is when my mother got involved.  She came on that stage and started pummeling Tiny in the head with her purse.  She was raising pump knots on poor ol' Tiny.
   "The reason is, she had a .38 caliber pistol in that purse!"
   Please, Carl and Kyle, however hot your rivalry becomes, NO FIREARMS!
   I could go on and on, especially writing about the Yarborough-Waltrip feud and  the unpleasantries--to put it kindly--between Dale Earnhardt and Geoff Bodine.   
   Dear readers and stock car racing fans, please, if you are so inclined, to use the comment box below and write me about your favorite feud.  Perhaps next week we'll post your e-mails.  I look forward to reading them.

Destination Darlington!!!

   Sadly, there will be no Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway on Labor Day weekend.
   In perhaps its most colossal blunder ever, NASCAR discontinued the classic event at the grand old track after 2004 and moved the South Carolina date on the Sprint Cup schedule to California Speedway near San Bernardino.
   Never mind that the Southern 500, dating to 1950, was the sanctioning body's oldest superspeedway race, legendary and filled with fascinating lore.
   "Modernizing tradition" was NASCAR's oxymoronic explanation for the decision, which has proven a miserable failure.  Attendance at the California races has been awful to the point of embarassment.
   Meanwhile, Darlington's remaining race, the Dodge Charger 500, has sold out every time since 2005, although it has a seemingly terrible date on the schedule, the eve of Mothers' Day.
   Once again on Labor Day weekend the present-day stars and cars of NASCAR will be at California Speedway.
   However, there are going to be probably even bigger stars and certainly better-looking cars at Darlington Raceway on Aug. 30-31.  An event named the Darlington Historic Racing Festival is scheduled at the famous old speedway on those days.
   It promises to be festive indeed, with many of Darlington's greatest winners returning to regale fans with tales of their experiences in the Southern 500.  They'll sign autographs and pose for pictures, too.

      

   Among those returning will be David Pearson, Darlington's alltime victory leader with 10 triumphs at NASCAR's top level of competition.
   Also in the lineup is Junior Johnson, who won as both a driver and team owner.
   Other drivers set to attend include Bobby Allison, Buddy Baker, Ned Jarrett, Darrell Waltrip, Rex White,Marvin Panch, the colorful Chargin' Charlie Glotzbach and Cotton Owens, who, like Johnson, starred as both a driver and car owner in the sport's early days. 
   Storied crew chiefs and engine-builers will be present, too, including Ray Fox, Leonard Wood and Waddell Wilson.  Pioneer team owners Bud Moore and  Raymond Parks are coming as well.
   Hall of fame radio announcer Barney Hall will moderate the question-and-answer sessions at a special pavillion in the infield of the egg-shaped, 1.366-mile track.
   Dozens of race cars from through the years will be on display.
   For a very personal reason, I'm tremendously excited about attending the Festival.
   It'll mark my 50th anniversary with the track that's nicknamed "The Lady In Black."
   I first covered the Southern 500 on Sept. 2, 1958 for the Asheville Times.
   It was such an exhilirating, overwhelming and, yes, frightening, experience that even after half a century I feel that I remember almost every second of it.
   Along with a press credential, the raceway's great public relations director, Russ Catlin, mailed me three free tickets--two in the main grandstand and one to the first floor of a pagoda-like structure just behind pit road at the start/finish line.
   Three friends from my hometown of Burnsville, N.C., were delighted to get the passes--Dee Smith and two that have passed on, Frank Lewis and Billy Ray Edge. 
   Lewis was a bit older than the rest of us, and since he had a brand new car he offered to drive.  The car was a pink and white Edsel.
   I swear.
   The first time I went to Darlington I made the trip in a pink and white Edsel.
   Someone brought a jar of moonshine whiskey along, so not surprisingly we got lost several times during the trip the night before the race, running a zig-zag course from Burnsville to Darlington.  We neared Darlington just after dawn, driving along a highway lined with cotton fields and peanut patches.  And then, suddenly, there it was!  The raceway's front grandstand at that time had a distinctive roof and the press box was infamous for looming just above the railing of the first turn.
   We tried to get a bit of sleep in the car, but our adrenaline was gushing too much for that.
   Plus, bands were playing , Shriner clowns were performing and people kept coming by to ask Frank Lewis about that Edsel.
   We decided to go take in all the pre-race activity.
   Frank and Billy Ray went to the grandstand, Dee to the pagoda. 
   With trepidation I headed to the press box.  It was a rickety, open-air structure.  Only rusty chicken wire separated the press corps from the cars that soon would be speeding by only mere feet below.
   Finally, the race started, with Eddie Pagan on the pole after qualifying a Ford at 116.952 mph.  Fireball Roberts, actually the fastest qualifier at 118.648 mph, shared the front row in a '57 Chevrolet.  On the second row in twin gray Fords were the sport's closest buddies and best-known hell-raisers, Curtis Turner and Joe Weatherly.
   The speed and the thunder of the cars' engines were enthralling, especially at such close quarters.
   Then the crashes started.  Most were violent, and I grew even more apprehensive about a car flying into the press box.
   On Lap 7 Don Kimberling spun in the first turn and his Chevy got atop the guard rail and burst into flame.  On Lap 98 Jesse James Taylor was involved in an almost identical accident.  On Lap 136 Pagan blew a tire in turn one and smashed THROUGH the guard rail, its support posts weakened by the earlier wrecks.
   Of the three drivers, only Pagan was hurt, suffering a broken nose.
  The race was red-flagged and NASCAR and track workers tried to get the retaining barrier back in place, but to no avail.
   NASCAR founder/president Big Bill France ordered that the 500 would continue, advising the drivers to "go low and slow" in the first turn.
   On Lap 146 Eddie Gray lost control and went out of the track where the section of rail was missing.  He wasn't hurt.
   Jack Smith blew a tire right in front of the press box and his car sailed OVER the railing on Lap 210.
Smith wasn't hurt, either, but as he walked past the press box toward the pits I don't recall ever seeing a paler man.
   "I can't believe I"m seeing all this," I thought to myself.  "Surely, my eyes are deceiving me."
   They weren't.
   Fireball Roberts had taken the lead on Lap 169.  And holding the same smooth, high, consistent line--despite the missing railing--he pulled away to win, never trailing again.  When the 364-lap race was flagged to an end after almost 5 hours, Roberts was the winner by five laps over runnerup Buck Baker.
   My then 21-year-old chest puffed a bit, for in a column three days earlier I had predicted a victory for Fireball and his white No. 22.  This partly was because of his well-known driving prowess and partly because I thought then, and still do, that the '57 Chevy ranks as the finest-looking American car ever built.
   En route home we gushed about what we had seen.
   Dee Smith told a funny story that I still chuckle about to this day.  He hadn't stopped upon reaching the first floor of that pagoda, which was three or four stories high.  Dee, who as a young guy had chitlins almost as big as Dale Earhardt's, kept going to the top and watched the 500 from there with three men--Big Bill France, Sen. Strom Thurmond and some general in the U.S. Army.  It wasn't until about 10 laps were left that the three finally figured out that Dee wasn't the son of one of them and sent him scurrying.
   It's memories like this from that '58 Southern 500, and from many others in between, that have me looking forward to making Darlington a destination again on Aug. 30-31.
   If you want to go, check for further information and tickets ($15 per day or $25 for the weekend) at 866-459-7233 or online at darlingtonraceway.com.
   I hope to see you there.

Baking Up Another Honor

   During Buddy Baker's prime in the NASCAR big-time, the "Gentle Giant" of stock car racing drove like the wind and cracked one-liners like a vaudeville comic.
  After 36 years at the wheel in a career that started in 1959, Buddy retired in 1994.
  "There come's a point when you've simply got to say, 'Hey, it's been fun,'" Baker, then 52, said at the time.  "You don't make comebacks in racing at my age.  So I'm retiring as a driver.
  "I don't want to be like a major league pitcher who once hurled no-hitters, but now just pitches."
  In joining longtime friends and rivals Richard Petty, Cale Yarborough, David Pearson and Bobby Allison on the sideline, Buddy finished with impressive statistics.  NASCAR lists him with 699 starts, 19 victories, 43 runnerup finishes, 58 thirds, 52 fourths and 40 fifth place showings.  He finished sixth through 10th 109 times and posted $3,635,022 in winnings when purses were only a fraction of what they are nowadays on the Sprint Cup Series.
   Buddy fretted that his record might not be impressive enough to gain him election to motorsports halls of fame.
   Not to worry.
  Baker made it a sweep into all those major halls for which he is eligible when the prestigious Motorsports Hall Of Fame Of America inducted him Wednesday night in Detroit.

   Inducted along with Baker were Michael Andretti, John Force, Richie Ginther, Paul Goldsmith, Wayne Rainey and Betty Skelton.
   "I'm thankful and flattered and humble, of course," said Buddy, who grew up in Charlotte, now lives at Lake Norman in the N.C. Piedmont and serves as an advisor/consultant at Penske/South Racing.
   "I know that 19 victories might not seem like a whole lot, but I'm proud of them because of where most of them came, and I think that hall of fame voters took this into consideration."
   Buddy won four times each at Charlotte (Lowe's Motor Speedway) and Talladega.  Two each at Daytona, Darlington and Atlanta.  One each at Michigan, Texas World Speedway and Ontario, the big California track that no longer exists.
   "Not many drivers can say they've won at NASCAR's Big Four tracks during my era--Charlotte, Darlington, Daytona and Talladega," continued Baker.  "I feel proud being among those who can."
   Baker, looking back fondly, conceded that he wondered for years if he'd ever succeed in stock car racing.  The son of the late two-time NASCAR champion and hall-of-famer Buck Baker, he didn't win until his ninth season.  After more than 200 starts, he finally scored at Charlotte in the fall 500-miler of 1967 in a Ray Fox-fielded Dodge.
   "I was patient because I knew how much I had to learn," said Baker.
   "The first race I ever drove was at Columbia Speedway in South Carolina in one of my Daddy's cars.  As the race went on I was fuming.  I said to myself, 'This thing won't run.  I need more horsepower.'
   "Well, the car my father was driving broke and he came and got in mine.  Danged if he didn't almost win the race.  That showed me that just wanting to win wasn't enough.  You had to acquire knowledge.  I learned that night that once races began, you might say it's no longer the arrow that's the main thing, it's the Indian."
   Buddy rates his most memorable season as that of 1980, when he won the Daytona 500 in an Oldsmobile engineered by Waddell Wilson for a team owned by the late Harry Ranier.  The black and gray car was so fast it blended in with the asphalt and was nicknamed "The Gray Ghost."  Baker averaged 177.602 mph in taking the 500, still a record for the great race after all these years.
   "I'm thankful to all my old crew guys and team owners," said Baker.  "But especially to Waddell and Harry for that 1980 season.  "We had 10 top 10s in just 19 races.  Why, we even won at Martinsville, the tough little flat track in Virginia.  Me winning at Martinsville was about as unlikely as Barry Sanders playing Arena Football.
   "My most memorable race?  The first victory at Charlotte, ranks high.  And the Daytona 500!  I'd tried to win there for 19 years before it happened.  I also especially like to remember the Winston 500 of 1980 at Talladega.  After the last pit stops I was 19 seconds behind Dale Earnhardt.  But I ran him down and passed him with two laps to go to win.
   "That was only Dale's second full season, so I'm lucky to have caught him when he was relatively a Cub Scout who didn't know much about aerodynamics and drafting."
   Baker's great charge to overtake Earnhardt prompted fellow driver Ron Bouchard to say in praise of Buddy's drafting prowess, "Baker could get air off a paper bag."
   He rode that air right into Detroit on Wednesday night, joining the likes of Bobby Allison, Mario Andretti, Richard Petty, Cale Yarborough, David Pearson and Benny Parsons in the hall that's located at Novi, Mich.

Look Homeward Lakewood

   A lot of motorsports history will be recalled this weekend in New York state and Georgia.
   This weekend's Sprint Cup Series schedule takes NASCAR's top stars to Watkins Glen, N.Y., where racing began on public roads and city streets in 1948.  The action was moved to the present 2.45-mile road course atop a mountain in 1956, and that's where the 90-lap Centurion Boats event is set for Sunday.
   NASCAR first visited The Glen in '57 with Buck Baker winning, returned in '64 and '65 for victories by Billy Wade and Marvin Panch.  Then came a hiatus until 1986, when the flamboyant Tim Richmond triumphed, and the series has been visiting the picturesque Finger Lakes region each August ever since.
   History of much longer standing will be observed in Dawsonville, Ga.
   On Saturday, the inaugural Lakewood Speedway Reunion will be held at the Georgia Racing Hall Of Fame, located in the Dawsonville City Munincipal Complex.
   "We're hoping for--and expecting--a great turnout, including attendance by many of the men who raced there," said Brandon Reed of Dawsonville, a volunteer at the hall of fame.  "That includes A LOT of people."
   I'd say!
   The first race was held at Lakewood, a one-mile dirt track southwest of Atlanta, in 1917!
   That's just six years after Indianapolis Motor Speedway opened.  It's 32 years BEFORE NASCAR held its first race in Charlotte for what was to become The Sprint Cup Series.    

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   Big Bill France, NASCAR's founder and president, first took his show to Lakewood on Nov. 11, 1951.  To the delight of a crowd of 26,000, home-state hero Tim Flock won the 100-miler, leading the final 86 laps in a Hudson Hornet.
   Lakewood had the reputation of being a very dangerous track, and tragedy struck during NASCAR's first race there.  A promising young driver named Jesse James Taylor flipped his car and suffered serious head injuries.  His wife, who was expecting, lost the baby due to her emotional distress and was hospitalized, too.
   What historians rate Lakewood Speedway's greatest disaster took place in 1946 during an Indy-Car event.
   Dust became so thick from the clay racing surface that the drivers hardly could see.  With just two laps remaining, Billy DeVore experienced engine trouble and was trying to nurse his car back to the pits.  British driver George Robson, the defending Indianapolis 500 champion, blinded by the dust, slammed into the slowed car in Turn Three, and a pileup ensued.
   Robson and Texan  George Barringer lost their lives in the crash.
   They are among approximately a dozen drivers who died in wrecks at Lakewood, and all will be remembered with the unveiling of a plaque on Saturday.  No driver ever was killed in a NASCAR
race at Lakewood, but several were seriously injured.
   Following Flock's popular victory in 1951, the NASCAR winners at Lakewood were: '52--Bill Blair; '52  (second race)--Donald Thomas; '53--Herb Thomas; '53 (second race)--Buck Baker;  '54--Herb Thomas; '56--Buck Baker;  '58--Curtis Turner; '58 (second race)--Junior Johnson; '59--Johnny Beauchamp; and '59 (second race)--Lee Petty.
   The wins by Junior Johnson and Petty hold a special place in Lakewood lore.
   The 1958 chase on Oct. 26 came down to a shootout between two of the era's biggest stars, Johnson and Fireball Roberts.
   "Fireball was really strong that day," recalls Johnson.  "He was driving a '57 Chevy and I was in a '57 Ford.  So the fans who backed each make were goin' crazy in the grandstand.
   "It was a 150-mile race, and I finally got around Fireball with 15 laps to go and then pulled out to a fairly decent lead.
   "After the race the P.A. announcer got Fireball on the loudspeaker and he gave me the greatest compliment I think I ever received.  Fireball said, 'There ain't no human being that can drive a car around these turns like Junior did.'"
   The 1959 race at Lakewood on June 14 was marked by perhaps the most unlikely scoring controversy in NASCAR history.
   It matched Petty vs. Petty.
   Richard Petty, then 21, was flagged the winner in the 150-miler, apparently achieving his first victory.
   However, a protest was filed.  By, of all people, Richard's father, Lee.
   The elder Petty  contended the scorecards were wrong.
   After an hour of checking and re-checking, NASCAR officials declared that Lee was right and he received the winner's share, $2,200.  Richard earned $1,400 for second place.
   (Richard finally broke through and scored the first of his record 200 victories on Feb. 28, 1960 in a 100-mile race on the old Charlotte Fairgrounds dirt track, a half-mile speedway).
   "The dust often got so bad at Lakewood that I don't know how the scorers kept up at all," continued Junior Johnson.  "As I recall, the biggest NASCAR mess they had was in 1954.  I wasn't in that race, so I wasn't involved.  If I had been, I'd still be hollering."
   According to the great motorsports historian Greg Fielden, here's what happened:
   "A crowd estimated at 20,000 cheered Herb Thomas' single-car length win over Buck Baker and Jim Rathmann in a 100-mile race.  But after the race, NASCAR supervisor Johnny Bruner penalized Thomas one full lap for not falling to the rear of the field after making a yellow flag pit stop.  Bruner's decision placed Baker on top.
   "Later, it was brought to NASCAR's attention that Baker, too, had pitted and not fallen in at the rear.  NASCAR then penalized Baker a lap.  But Rathmann was not elevated to the winner's pedestal.  Rathmann was docked a lap because his crew allegedly put fuel in his car while it was still partially on the racing surface.  This seemingly made fourth-place finisher Gober Sosebee the winner.
   "The screaming and shouting was furious.
   "NASCAR officials held and impromptu conference.  Then they made the only decision reasonable men could have--they canceled all the penalties.  The outcome stood as the cars finished the race."
  The 1959 Petty vs. Petty race was NASCAR's last at Lakewood.  However, motorsports events of various sorts were held there until 1979.  And a horse race was staged at the track in 1983.
   The speedway site since has been turned into an amphitheatre.
   For many years, race drivers provided thrilling theater there.
   Oh, what tale-telling Dawsonville's Lakewood Speedway Reunion likely  is to produce.