Tom Higgins' Scuffs

Benny And Banjo

   When Benny Parsons was trudging 10 miles home after football practice at rural Millers Creek High School in Wilkes County, N.C., during the 1950s he didn't dare dream of someday being in a hall of fame of any kind.
   "It never entered my mind," Benny once told me.  "The only thing I was thinking about was having enough strength left to make it across the next hill."
   It was a somewhat  similar challenging situation with Edwin Matthews.  His eyesight was so poor growing up--first in Ohio and then in Florida--that it appeared his future might be  limited.  Matthews' vision was so restricted he had to wear very thick glasses.  Cruel classmates  joked that  his  glasses were "as big as banjos."  They nicknamed him "Banjo-Eyes."
   This later was shortened to Banjo, which he good-naturedly accepted.
   Turns out the future held great things for both Parsons and Matthews in the field of motorsports.  They are members of several halls of fame, and next week they'll  be inducted into another.
   The ceremony for the N.C. Auto Racing  Racing Hall Of Fame  is set for Oct. 7 at the Citizens Center in Mooresville.

   Sadly, both Parsons and Matthews will be honored posthumously.
   Parsons passed away at age 65 in early 2007 after a battle with cancer.  Heart and respiratory disease took the life of Matthews at 64 in 1996.
   Parsons will be inducted as a driver.  Matthews will be honored with the Golden Wrench award that goes to great engineers and mechanics and crew chiefs.
   Parsons posted 21 victories in 536 starts on NASCAR's big-time circuit, now the Sprint Cup Series, in a career spanning the 1964-88 seasons.   He also sped to  20 pole positions.
   His biggest victories came in the 1975 Daytona 500 and the 1980 Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte.  He also won races at Atlanta Motor Speedway and Darlington Raceway, two of NASCAR's other major tracks.  He also scored twice at Ontario Speedway, a magnificent California track that failed due to poor financing and now longer exists.
   Parsons DIDN'T triumph in perhaps the most  memorable event of his career,  the 1973 American 500 at N.C. Motor Speedway near Rockingham.  But he won the Winston Cup Series championship in miraculously, touching fashion..
   Parsons, who had moved with his family to nearby little Ellerbe to drive race cars for local trucking magnate L.G. DeWitt, held a 194.35-point lead toward the title over Richard Petty under NASCAR's previous scoring system.  However, disaster struck on the 13th lap when Benny was swept into a crash with Johnny Barnes.
   According to stock car racing historian Greg Fielden, "The entire right side of Benny's car was stripped away.  Parts were strewn all over the track.  Wheels were torn out of their sockets.  The axle was broken.  Bluntly, the car was wiped out."
   Said Parsons, "I was lower than the gutter when I got back to the garage area and saw how wrecked the car was."
   Then, a heartwarming thing happened.
   Not only Parsons' crewmen, but members of other teams swarmed over the No. 72 Chevrolet.  They scavenged parts off a car that had failed to make the field and went to work.  Parsons rolled back onto the track 136 laps later, his car minus most of its sheet metal.  Because of high attrition among other drivers, he was able to finish 28th in the season finale, good enough to beat Cale Yarborough for the championship by 67.15 points.
   Benny never was known as a hard-bore qualifier, so it was somewhat of a surprise when he won the pole for the Winston 500 at Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama in May of 2002 at 202.176 mph.  The torrid lap in a Harry Ranier-owned Pontiac engineered by Waddell Wilson  enabled Parsons to become the first NASCAR driver to exceed the 200 mph barrier in time trials.
   How did self-proclaimed "mountain boy" Benny Parsons get into motorsports?
   After graduating from Millers Creek High he went to Detroit to join his parents, who had moved to Michigan some time earlier  to escape the recession and poverty that was wracking the Appalachian Mountains.  He worked at a taxi company owned and operated by his father.
   However, according to Benny, he never drove a cab.  "For fun, I just listed 'Detroit Cab Driver' on my entry blanks," he said.  "Mostly, I pumped gas at the station that served as the taxi company headquarters.
   "One late afternoon some guys towing a race car to a local dirt track came by and stopped for fuel.
They asked if I wanted to go to the race with them, and since I was getting off, I said, 'sure.'  I crawled in the back of their pickup tow truck.  We got to the track and the regular driver didn't show up.  They were debating what to do and I said, 'Ill drive it!.'"
   Thus a star and a future hall-of-famer was born.         
   Upon retiring as a driver, Parsons was hired as a motorsports analyst for ESPN telecasts.  He was so well-spoken and informative that he won an Emmy in 1996.
   The "Banjoman," as Matthews came to be known, drove in his first race at age 15 in Florida.
   In 1952 he relocated to the Asheville area in the North Carolina mountains to race modified and sportsman division cars.  He soon became a legend across the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains counties.
   I first saw him drive in  1958 at McCormick Field, a minor league baseball park in Asheville, where I was a rookie reporter for the Asheville Times.
   The city had lost its Dodgers farm team, and a savvy promoter laid a strip of asphalt down around the perimeter of the field and started holding weekly races there.  Matthews was the star and big draw.  Driving a black 1940 Ford with "Mr. X" as its number, he won 15 straight heats and features.
   Then, Ralph Earhardt came to town.
   The two, well-known arch rivals and maybe even enemies, qualified for the front row.
   Fan expectation was high that something controversial and exciting would happen quickly .
   It did.
   On the second lap Ralph Earnhardt turned Banjo Matthews over in center field at McCormick Field.
   "Mr. X" lay on its roof, steam pouring from the engine.
   Banjo, his fans and a protege named Dicky Plemmons were fuming, too.
   The race was red-flagged in the area of third base.  Plemmons bounded from his car and charged Earnhardt, the leader.  Wagging his finger in anger, he stuck his head in the window.  Bad mistake.  With a punch, Earnhardt whiplashed him.
   All that action was so intense I can't remember, 50 years later, who won the race.
  I do recall, however, that another driver in the event was Ned Jarrett, a future champion on NASCAR's major tour, a hall-of-famer and distinguished broadcaster on both radio and TV.  Ned had a fancy hairstyle--a crew cut on top, duck-tails on the sides.
  Banjo Matthews  started 53 big-time races, winning none but taking 3 poles.
  However, I recall watching as Banjo drove in a relief role for his Florida friend Fireball Roberts at Asheville-Weaverville Speedway on Aug. 17, 1958 in a convertigble race.  It was an incredibly hot, humid day in the mountains and Roberts gave out on the 370th of 500 laps at the half-mile track.  Matthews took over the car and drove it to victory by more than a lap over runnerup Bob Welborn.  It looked to me and others that Matthews drove the car just as hard and masterfully as the far more famous Roberts.
   Matthews give up the steering wheel in 1963 and started fielding cars for other drivers, including Roberts, Junior Johson and A.J. Foyt.  Perhaps his biggest victory came in the National 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway on Oct. 12, 1969 with Donnie Allson driving.  Matthews won 8 times as a team owner.
   He also became arguably one of the greatest car-builders in NASCAR history.
   According to the Mooresville hall of fame's records, from 1974-85 cars constructed by Banjo's Performance Center near Asheville won 262 of 362 Winston Cup races, including all 30 in 1978.  Cars built by Matthews won four straight titles in the 1970s.
   "There was a time there for several years that if you didn't have what we came to call a 'Banjo Car,' you might as well not gone to the race," recalled Matthews' friend and customer, the legendary Junior Johnson.
   Added Waddell Wilson, himself a former Golden Wrench honoree, "Banjo sressed driver safety in his cars.  No driver ever lost his life while driving a Banjor car."
   Ticket information for the Parsons/Matthews induction ceremony is available at (704) 663-5331.  Proceeds benefit Stop Child Abuse Now and the Stocks For Tots program.      

Who Flies In Hall's First Class?

   While political leaders in Charlotte consider a $32 million requested increase in exhibit costs for NASCAR's new Hall Of Fame in downtown, the debate has begun over who should be among the first  inductees when the venue opens in May of 2010.
   If the extra money is approved by the city council on Sept. 22, the price of the huge venue will rise to $195 million.
   Whatever the eventual cost, there seems little doubt the hall is going to be a be a fabulous showplace, drawing motorsports fans from around the world.
    But who will they see honored as the "first class?"
    Historian Dan Pierce, a professor at UNC-Asheville and an avid fan of stock car racing, unofficially began that discussion a few days ago.
   "It's time to start thinking about it very seriously," said Pierce, whose book, "White Liquor And Red Clay: NASCAR In The Era Of Big Bill France," deeply researched over several years, will be released by the University Of North Carolina Press around the time of the hall's opening.  "The honor for whoever is inducted two years from now will be immense."      

   Indeed.
   And there are so many deserving drivers, team owners, crew chiefs, track owners and promoters.
   Here are Pierce's choices of who, say, the first 10 should be:
   "There are four 'no-brainers,'"  he said.  "Bill France Sr., Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt Sr., and Bill France Jr.
   "The 'should be's' are Bobby Allison and Junior Johnson.
   "Dark horses are Raymond Parks, Fonty Flock, Curtis Turner and Smokey Yunick.  Anybody who knows anything about NASCAR history should include them."
   Big Bill France, of course, founded NASCAR and with an iron will built it into a big-time sports entity.  His son expanded the popularity greatly.  Petty won a record 200 races and shares the mark for championships with Earnhardt at 7 each.  Earnhardt won 76 times and is rated by many as the most talented driver ever.
   Allison triumphed 84 times and won the 1983 championship.
   Johnson scored 50 victories as a driver and 140 overall as a team owner.  His team won six championships, three each by drivers Darrell Waltrip and Cale Yarborough.
   Georgian Parks was a car owner in NASCAR's early days in the late 1940s and early '50s.  Fonty Flock was a colorful driver posting 19 wins from 1949-57.  Virginian Turner was perhaps was the most famous driver of his era, 1949-68, winning 17 times and developing a huge following for his full-bore, wild driving style.
   The colorful Yunick was known as an engineering genius who fielded cars for many of the greatest drivers.
   Pierce said he made his selections on two criterion: "Long term influence in shaping the sport and ability to bring fans to the tracks."
  Pierce's friend, Don Good, a history professor at Milligan College near Johnson City, Tenn., and an ardent stock car racing fan, offered the following list, "submitted alphabetically,"  he said, "so as not to have to make comparative evaluations:"

   Buck Baker.
   Dale Earnhardt Sr.
   Tim Flock.
   Bill France Jr.
   Bill France Sr.
   Junior Johnson.
   David Pearson.
   Lee Petty.
   Richard Petty.
   Bruton Smith.

   Baker won 46 races and captured titles in 1956 and '57.  Tim Flock triumphed 39 times and was the champion in 1952 and '55.   Pearson scored 105 victories, second on the all-time list to Richard Petty, and was the top circuit's champion in 1966, '68 and '69.  Lee Petty, Richard's father, won 54 times and took titles in 1954, '58 and '59.
   Smith, along with Turner, founded Charlotte Motor Speedway in 1960.  Smith's Speedway Motorsports empire has grown to include the tracks in  Atlanta, Bristol, Las Vegas, New Hampshire and Texas.
   I asked some of my motorsports journalist peers to submit the original 10 inductees they would put on ballots if they had a vote.
   Here's who Thomas Pope of The Fayetteville Observer selected:

   Bill France Sr.
   Richard Petty.
   David Pearson.
   Junior Johnson.
   Herb Thomas.
   Bobby Allison.
   Dale Earnhardt Sr.
   Cale Yarborough.
   Dale Inman.
   Richie Evans.

   Tar Heel Thomas, a former truck driver, won 48 times and was NASCAR's champion in 1951 and '53.  South Carolinian Yarborough triumph 83 times and is the only driver to take three straight titles, scoring in 1976, '77 and '78.  Inman was the crew chief for most of Richard Petty's victories, and guided the team of "The King" to all seven of its championships.  Inman also won another title with driver Terry Labonte.
   Evans, 0f New York state, ruled the 1970s in NASCAR's Modified Division, winning approximately 400 feature events and nine national championships, including eight in a row.
   Jimmy McLaurin, the retired motorsports writer for the Columbia State newspaper in South Carolina, said this would be his vote for the new hall of fame's inaugural inductees:

   Bill France Sr.
   Richard Petty.
   David Pearson.
   Bobby Allison.
   Cale Yarborough.
   Bill France Jr.
   Ralph Seagraves.
   T. Wayne Robertson.
   Dale Earnhardt.
   Harold Brasington.

   Seagraves and Robertson were officials at R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, the company that contributed mightily to the growth of NASCAR through sponsorship of the Winston Cup Series.  Brasington built stock car racing's first big track, Darlington Raceway.
   My longtime motorsports journalist pal, Steve Waid of NASCAR Scene and NASCAR Illustrated, submitted a list, too, and "not in any particular order," he noted:

   Bill France Sr.
   Bill France Jr.
   Richard Petty.
   Dale Earnhardt.
   Lee Petty.
   Fireball Roberts.
   David Pearson.
   Junior Johnson.
   Bobby Allison.
   Cale Yarborough.

   Roberts won 33 times from 1950-64, his career cut short by a tragic accident at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
   What about who I would vote for, given the chance?
   Here goes, and again not in order:

   Bill France Sr.
   Richard Petty.
   David Pearson.
   Dale Earnhardt Sr.
   Junior Johnson.
   Cale Yarborough.
   Darrell Waltrip.
   Bobby Allison.
   Lee Petty.
   Buck Baker.

   Waltrip was victorious 84 times and claimed championships in 1981, '82 and '85.
    Winston Kelley, executive director of the Hall Of Fame, said that NASCAR is "still developing a process" for selecting those who will be inducted.  "A lot of vetting is being done internally,"
Kelly added.
   I am interested in learning who you readers would choose.  If you're inclined to share your thoughts, please use the comment box and add your list.

   

 

Another Day That Lives In Infamy

   My bag was packed.
   I was ready to go.
   My flight from Charlotte to New York seven years ago was scheduled for 3 p.m. that afternoon.
   I arose from bed about 7:30 a.m. at my home in Mooresville, N.C., poured  a cup of coffee and, as a creature of habit, clicked on CNN to catch the news.
   Suddenly, an astonishing image flashed on the screen.
   There was a huge hole in the shape of an aircraft high up on the North Tower of the World Trade Center.
   Commentators were unsure of exactly what had happened and were ad-libbing uncertainly.
   The date, of course, was Sept. 11, 2001.

   President Franklin Delano Roosevelt said after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that Dec. 7, 1941 was "a day that will live in infamy."
   So is Sept. 11, 200I.
   The latter is the day I had been invited to New York by veteran ESPN producer Justin "Bud" Morgan to be a guest on the taping of two shows for television's ESPN Classic series on Sept. 12.  One segment was to be devoted to the late Dale Earnhardt, who had lost his life in February of 2001 in a Daytona 500 crash.  The other segment was to be on Jeff Gordon, who was in the process of winning his fourth championship on NASCAR's big-time circuit that year.
   Maybe 15 minutes had passed and I was watching the TV in horror when the phone rang.
   Mr. Morgan, among the most meticulous and  professional men I've ever met, was calling.
   "Tom, I just wanted to make sure you are still on go," he said.
   "Mr. Morgan," I replied, "are you unaware that a plane has hit the World Trade Center?"
   There was a long silence.
   "No!" he said. 
   "I spent last night with friends in Connecticut and we haven't had the news on this morning.  Let me get back to you."
   A bit later he phoned again.
   "From what we can learn, it's a terrible accident," said Mr. Morgan.  "We're going ahead with the taping because the studio we're using is so hard to book."
   That studio was on 42nd Street in Manhattan, not at ESPN headquarters in Bristol, Conn.
   I call the man Mr. Morgan out of the utmost respect.  Forty years earlier he had traveled the globe, producing the wonderful, educational, "The American Sportsman" outdoor series for ABC-TV, mainly with Curt Gowdy as the host.  He had other great credentials.
   Hiding my reluctance, I agreed to fly to New York as planned.
   Mr. Morgan shortly phoned yet again.
   We were talking when, astonishlngly and terrifyingly, a plane flashed into view on the TV screen.  It slammed into the South Tower of the World Trade Center, creating a massive fireball.
   "Tom, this is no accident!  We are under attack!" Mr. Morgan said.  "The taping is off until much further notice."
   The developments were so stunning that maybe I don't remember the sequence of events in order.  Regardless, two more airliners hi-jacked by Al Queda terrorists crashed.  One struck The Pentagon in Virginia, the other hit a field in Pennsylvania after passengers fought back against the hijackers.
   The pictures that continued to flash on TV were beyond belief.
   Perhaps most unbelievable of all were the images of the twin World Trade Center towers collapsing.
   "Thousands of people are dead," I thought to myself as tears streamed down my cheeks.  "Oh, God, how many New York firemen and policemen have died trying to rescue those trapped in the buildings?"
   The phone rang again.
   This time it was my fellow motorsports journalist and best friend Steve Waid calling on his cell phone.
   "Tom, what in the hell is going on!?" he asked.
   In the chaos, I had forgotten that Steve and his wife, Margaret, were flying from Charlotte to San Antonio on vacation that day.
   "You don't know?" I asked incredulously.
   "No," said Steve, obviously upset and perplexed.  "We're sitting on the tarmac, grounded at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport and have no information.  All they will tell us is that there is a national emergency."
   I related to Steve what was happening.
   "Oh, God," he said.
   I'm sure that was the reaction of millions upon millions of people around the world.
   Small matters, but it took Mr. Morgan five days to return to Charlotte, where he was making his home and working out of an ESPN studio at Ballantyne.  It took the Waids almost a week to get home to Concord, N.C.
   Eventually, ESPN rescheduled the Classic taping on Earnhardt and Gordon in New York in late October.
   I flew up there.
   The landing pattern took the plane over The Statue Of Liberty and onward to LaGuardia over the tip of Manhattan.  Below, the ruins of the World Trade Center still smoldered.
   I cried all over again.
   ESPN had made reservations for me and its other guests at a hotel on Times Square.  After checking in during early evening I decided to take a walk down Broadway.  I ducked into a rather famous saloon and restaurant.
   Two guys in very dusty work clothing were at the bar, drinking beer.  They seemed much out of place.
   Both had Southern accents, which I picked up immediately.  I approached them.
   "Where are you from, and what are two good ol' boys like you doing up here?" I asked.
   They caught my distinctive North Carolina drawl, too, and forced smiles for a fellow Southerner.
   "We're from Mississippi," one said.  "And we're helping clear the rubble down at the World Trade Center.  It's pretty awful, but somebody's got to do it."
   I motioned to the bartender.
   "Let me have their tab," I said.
   He stared me straight on and with obvious pride replied, "Sir, for these gentlemen there is NO tab."
   I walked back out to the street and was waiting to cross when a siren wailed.
   A very large fire truck came barreling down Broadway, its cab packed with six firemen in their gear, ready to go.
   "What must those men be thinking?" I asked myself.
   In retrospect, and I really can't explain why, I recall that for some reason I put my right hand to my heart.
   I looked around, and almost every other person I saw on that crowded corner had done the same.
   -30-   

A Legacy In Richmond

   In covering and being around NASCAR for more than 50 years, I can recall few prouder men than Paul Sawyer during the weekend of Sept. 10-11 in 1988.
   That's when the pioneer stock car racing promoter opened his sparkling new Richmond International Raceway with the Miller High Life 400.
   Sawyer was a tough, crusty character, a throwback to the sanctioning body's rough and tumble formative years, and he seldom showed much emotion, unless it was cussing out someone who had crossed him or who had erred big-time.
   However, 20 years ago I doubt the smile that he was beaming could have been taken from his face even with mortician's wax.
   Sawyer had built a motorsports showplace, and he knew it.
   "It has taken 33 years," he said," but finally me and my family, with the help and encouragement of a lot of others, have given our fans the track they've deserved for so long.  I simply could not be prouder."

   Sawyer's elation was understandable.
   The new 3/4ths-mile Richmond International Raceway--where the Chevy Rock & Roll 400 has been postponed to Sunday afternoon from Saturday night because of Tropical Storm Hanna--replaced a ramshackle, run-down facility known as Richmond Fairgrounds Raceway, a .542-mile layout. 
   If NASCAR had a wart on its nose, it was that Fairgrounds track, where the circuit had been racing since 1953.  Sawyer and a pal, driver Joe Weatherly, a two-time cirucuit champion when he was killed in a 1964 crash at Riverside, Calif., bought the track in 1955.  Sawyer bought Weatherly's share a couple years later.
    Located at the same site on the northern outskirts of Richmond, the old capitol of The Confederacy, the new  speedway was 60 feet wide and featured sweeping turns to provide for plenty of passing.
   Drivers and crew chiefs and team owners were beyond impressed.
   Except for one thing.
   The wall separating the racing surface from pit road jutted too far into the fourth turn.
   "You come around that corner and suddenly that wall is right in your face," said Richard Petty, who was to retire in 1992 as Richmond's alltime victory leader, scoring 13 of his record 200 triumphs there.  "It's a risky place."
   Countered the late, colorful crew chief, Harry Hyde, "Ol' Paul has spent millions of  dollars giving us a better place to race and the fans a better place to see a show.  Surely we can allow him one mistake for now.  And if anybody see's that it gets fixed, it'll be Paul."
   And Sawyer did.
   The infamous "war" between NASCAR tire suppliers Goodyear and Hoosier was raging in September of '88, and it flared especially hot at the new Richmond track.  Hoosier had the fastest tire, and most teams in the 38-car field went with that brand in qualifying.  However, during a 200-mile preliminary race it became apparent that the soft Hoosiers wouldn't stand the strain exacted by new pavement, higher speeds and heavier cars.  Many drivers switched to Goodyears for the 400, and under NASCAR rules, had to line up for the start much farther back than they qualified.  Drivers were required to take the green flag on the tires on which they had run time trials.
   But Davey Allison, the pole winner in Ranier Racing's Ford at 122.850 mph, stuck with Hoosiers.  Allison got a great break because of an early caution period, pitted on the sixth lap for Goodyears and dominated to win the first race at the "New Richmond." 
   There was no penalty for changing tire brands after the race began.
   For two decades now tickets to Richmond's Sprint Cup Series races have been almost in as much demand as those for the events at Bristol Motor Speedway in Tennessee.  Attendance at the Rock & Roll 400 in 2007 was a sellout 112,029.
   Through all the years I knew Paul Sawyer he and two other friends for whom we shared a fondness--Jack Daniels and George Dickel--put both of us under the table several times.  Paul took great delight in busting me and other pals in sessions of five-card stud.
   Always, at some point in these evenings, he talked of giving the fellow Virginians he loved a special track in the Richmond area.
   Twenty years ago, he made that dream a reality.
   One final anecdote about this tough, remarkable "coot" who passed away in 2005 at age 88.
   During the new raceway's first big weekend a bottleneck developed in pedestrian traffic.
   Paul, a "hands-on" promoter of the first order, rushed to the scene to determine the problem.
   Turns out it was a "rent-a-cop" whose uniform and badge had gone to his head.  The guy was giving fans a tough time even though they had the proper tickets.  He looked like Barney Fife but was strutting around like John Wayne.  Plus, he had a huge pistol strapped low on his right leg.
   Paul picked the show-off up by the back of the belt and yelled, "Open that damn gate!  And take off that (expletive) pistol!"
   The bully, white as a sheet, couldn't get the firearm unbuckled fast enough, almost allowing his pants to fall down in the process.
  Every time there's a Richmond race I laugh about the incident all over again.
  I imagine that somewhere, Paul Sawyer laughs, too.