B. Baker And The B'ar.

   It was to be the highlight of Buddy Baker's 1975 hunting/fishing season.
   Buddy, the NASCAR driving star from Charlotte and an avid outdoorsman, was going bear hunting in the Great Smoky Mountains of North Carolina with some fine friends.
   The group included the colorful Buck Brigance, a many-times American Motorcycle Association racing champion from Charlotte who had become a member of Buddy's pit crew on the Winston Cup Series tour; Crash Grant, a veteran field operative in Goodyear Tire's motorsport programs; and two of Baker's ultra-outrageous friends, the brothers Jim and Jack Heafner, also of Charlotte.  A few others were along.
   The party had rented a way-back-in-the-woods shanty in an area known to hold plenty of black bear.  The property bordered the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
   "We're going to have a fine time," promised Buddy.  "We're going to celebrate one of my best racing seasons."
   Indeed.
   Buddy, driving Fords for the legendary  Walter "Bud" Moore, had won four major 500-mile races that year.  He swept the Winston and  Talladega 500s at the track then known as Alabama International Motor Speedway, now called Talladega Superspeedway.  He swept the last two races of the year, the Dixie 500 at Atlanta International Raceway and the L.A. Times 500 at Ontario Motor Speedway in California, a track that no longer exists.

   It was a heady, exciting time for the fun-loving Buddy and his pals.
   They arrived at the remote shack, picked their bunks, stowed their gear and started making plans to begin hunting early the next morning.
   Crash Grant announced he wasn't waiting.  He was hitting the trail right away.
   Unknown to Grant and most of the others, a practical joke had been planned against the excitable, mercurial Brigrance.
   Baker began handing out "house-keeping" assignments.  Buck was to go to a well about 100 yards from the shanty and draw up a couple pails of water.
   Meanwhile, Jim Heafner had sneaked out of the house.  From a bag hidden in his vehicle, he pulled out  a rented bear costume.
   It must have been a big one, for the late Jim Heafner was a grizzly-sized man, as was every male in the family.  (Jim's son, Larry, was an All-American linebacker at Clemson and No. 1 draft choice of the Green Bay Packers, for whom he played until a knee injury ended his NFL career).
   Brigrance dutifully went to the well and was winding up a pail of water when he heard an ominous growl.  A monster bear with big fangs and claws then rose up and eyed Brigrance.
   Buck threw the bucket down the well and lit out for the shanty, screaming in horror with every leap and bound.
   The shack was built to the contour of the land, so it had a very high front porch, at least 6-8 feet above the ground.
   Baker and the rest, aware of what was going to transpire, were hooting and hollering in delight.  Buck was too scared to hear them and realize it was a prank.
   "At that time Buck was about 5-6 and probably weighed 300 pounds," Buddy said later.  "Even so, I swear he made it onto that porch in a single bound.  He was as frightended as any man I've ever seen.
   "All of us were rolling around in the floor laughing, including Jim Heafner, who had taken off the head part of the very realistic bear costume.  Buck was enbarrassed and mad and threatening to shoot every one of us.
   "It ceased to be real funny when Crash Grant came rushing in.  Crash had been sitting on a ridge above the house and the well and saw all this unfold.  He wasn't in on the joke and didn't know that it wasn't a real bear chasing Buck.
   "Crash said he started to shoot to save his buddy Buck,  but that something told him to hold fire.  Thank God for that."
    Buddy and I recall this tale every October as bear season rolls around again in North Carolina.  And we lament the passing of friends like Brigrance, Grant and the Heafner brothers.
   "We went up to the Smokies several times, and we always had fun," said Buddy, a hall of fame driver and long retired.  "But we never bagged a bear.  It sure would have been great if one of us could have made like Daniel Boone and carved on a tree, 'D. Boone killed a b'ar here.'"