Blazin’ Buddy Baker

I suppose that most everyone who follows sports has heard the much-frayed cliché, “Records are made to be broken.”

   Lately this has held true.

   In baseball, for example, Barry Bonds shattered the home run records for both a season and a career, although both may be adorned with an asterisk since he is alleged to have had steroid help in doing it.
 

Golfer Tiger Woods shoots incredibly low scores and won the U.S. Open a few years ago by a whopping
15 strokes, easily a record. 

       However, NASCAR’s Buddy Baker holds a mark that may never be approached, much less bettered. On Feb.17, 1980, Big Buddy drove to victory in the Daytona 500 at a stunning average speed if 177.602 mph.

   At the time Baker’s feat qualified as  the fastest 500-mile race ever run anywhere, including Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

    Arie Luyendek took this record in 1990 when he won the Indy 500 at an average of 185.981 mph.

   NASCAR’s Mark Martin now is the fastest 500-mile victor in history, winning the Winston 500 at Talladega (Ala.) Super Speedway in 1997 at 188.534.

   But Baker, who retired in 1994 and now hosts a Sirius Radio show on racing, continues to hold the stock car  mark for the sport’s most glamourous  event, the Daytona 500, and I suspect he will for a long, long time.

   Bill Elliott threatened Baker’s record in 1987, averaging 176.623 mph at Daytona International Speedway in winning the 500.  No one else has come close.

   “I’m prouder of finally winning the Daytona 500 after trying to take it for 20 years--two decades that produced a lot of disappointment in that particular race,” says Buddy, now 68.  “But I’m proud of going that fast for 500 miles in our spsort’s biggest show, too.”

   And what a show it was 29 years ago!

   Buddy was driving the No. 28 Oldsmobile owned by the late Harry Ranier and engineered by crew chief Waddell Wilson.  The sleek car had a black and grayish/silver paint scheme.  It was so fast that the colors tended to blend into the asphalt, causing other drivers to complain that they sometimes couldn’t Buddy coming up behind them.

    The car thus was given the nickname, “The Gray Ghost.”

     NASCAR  officials ordered the unusual step of having Wilson put pink day-glo strips on the car’s front so rivals could see Baker bearing down on them.

    Members of some teams predicted that Buddy, who had qualified at 194.009 in taking the pole, simply was going to drive away from the field.

   Buddy led a dominating 143 of the 200 laps at the great 2.5-mile Daytona track, but he didn’t drive away.

   By using the aerodynamic draft, Dale Earnhardt, Bobby Allison and Neil Bonnett were able to hang with him.

    As the race wound down a final pit stop for enough fuel to finish faced all the leaders with 20 laps to go.

    Crew chief Wilson decided to gamble and put only one 11-gallon can of gas in Buddy’s car rather than the usual two.

    Wilson told gasman Buck Brigance, a great motorcycle racing champion in the 1950s, “Buck, you’ve got to make absolutely sure you get every drop out of that can into the fuel tank.”

    Brigance had an idea how to assure this and even speed the flow of the fuel.

    “Do you mind if I damage that can a little?”  he asked Wilson.

    Waddell said he did not.

     When the nozzle of the can was put into the car with the bottom pointed upward, Brigance made his move.  He punched a hole in the bottom of the can with a big screwdriver.  The gas gushed in.

    “All the while I was reaching through the driver’s window and had a tight grip on the neck of Buddy’s driving uniform.  I knew how excitable and impatient he could be sometimes, and I wasn’t going to turn him loose until all that gas was in.

   “As Buck jerked the can out Buddy went roaring off simultaneously, causing both Buck and me to go tumbling down pit road.  I must have done two or three somersaults.”

   Neither Wilson nor Brigance was hurt.  But they had to worry if Buddy had enough fuel to make it the final 50 miles.

    The sizzling pit stop had taken only 6 seconds, and this left Buddy with a substantial lead of 13 seconds since his rivals had been on pit road almost twice as long.

   Over their radio hookup, Wilson began imploring Baker to slow down to conserve fuel.

    In a sing-songy voice Baker replied, “I can’t hearrrr youuuu!”

    An argument ensued between the two.

    What was said?

    “Who knows?” Buddy said with a laugh.  “We were jabbering.  It sounded like Saturday night in Junior Wong’s kitchen.”

   The late Wong was a fishing pal of Buddy’s who ran a popular Chinese restaurant in Charlotte.

   Consumption of fuel became a non-issue for the team when John Utsman’s car spewed oil on the track, forcing the final three laps of the race to be run under caution.

   Overall, there were only five yellow flags covering 15 laps, and this contributed to Baker’s record average speed.

   There’s a funny footnote to the tale of Buddy Baker being the fastest Daytona 500 champion ever.

   Baker was at Talladega a couple years ago, serving as an advisor to the Penske South team.  One of the current young drivers from another team approached Buddy, who was chatting with friends.

  “Hey Baker, do you think you could handle the speeds we’re running down here now?” the driver said in a needling way.

    Buddy gave him an evil-eye stare.

   “Son,” he said very deliberately, “I’ve never run this SLOW down here.”

   The driver knew he’d been zinged, wheeled and walked away with the laughter of Buddy’s pals ringing in his ears.