Tom Higgins' Scuffs

Long straights, famed curves all part of old track's lore

It generally takes a fine touch to drive on any NASCAR track.

This was especially true at Occoneechee Speedway, a nine-tenths-mile dirt oval near Hillsborough, N.C., that was part of the sanctioning body’s major tour from 1949 through 1968.

   “You’d go so fast on the long straightaways that you’d have to pitch your car  practically sideways in the turns to scrub off speed so you could make it through the corners,” legendary driver Junior Johnson recalled this week.

“I’d say Buck Baker, Curtis Turner, Ned Jarrett,  Lee and  Richard Petty and myself were the best at doing this.”

The six, not coincidentally, all are members of numerous motorsports halls of fame, as are other winners at the layout, which also was sometimes known as Orange Speedway.

The old Occoneechee track comes to mind because some stock car racing fans have organized and are in the process of restoring it.  Not for racing, but as a link to the sport’s past.

The organization working at Occoneechee is named the Historic Speedway Group.  So far its work has led to restoration of the original ticket office and fencing.  Grading of the track has begun.

“I sure wish them luck and I’ll help when I can,” said Johnson.  “There was some terrific racing there.  It will be great if present-day fans, who know only the superspeedways with the big, high grandstands, can see a place like that.

  “When I was racing in the late 1950s and early '60s it was among my favorite tracks.  I really enjoyed it because of the speed and because you had to know how to handle down-shifting.

   “This was right up my alley.  I had a lot of experience in this from my days (and nights) of hauling moonshine whiskey.”

Bob Flock won NASCAR’s first race at Occoneechee on Aug. 7, 1949.  It was only the third race of the organization’s first season.

Through the following years the victors at the speedway in races promoted by NASCAR founder Big Bill France and his associate Enoch Staley of North Wilkesboro Speedway included these pioneer drivers:

   Fireball Roberts, Fonty Flock, Herb Thomas, Tim Flock, Jim Paschal, Joe Eubanks, Cotton Owens, Joe Weatherly, Rex White, David Pearson, Ned Jarrett, Turner, Johnson, Baker, both Pettys  and Dick Hutcherson.

   All are in the National Motorsports Press Association’s hall of fame except Eubanks and Hutcherson – and “Hutch” should be.

   Johnson chuckled.

   “I remember seeing several guys go out of that track, which I never have learned to pronounce right.

   “The trouble those drivers had is sort of amusing now, ‘cause I don’t remember any of them being badly hurt.

   “One of ‘em who took himself a ‘ride’ was Bobby Isaac.  He went out of the park when Ned won there (in September of 1964).  Best I recall Bobby’s car wound up tangled in the tops of some trees off the third turn.

   “Going out of the track in the second turn was a scarier deal.  There was a good-sized stream not far from the turn.  We always had in mind there was a possibility of going into the water.”

   Almost certainly the most memorable triumph in Occoneechee’s history was Johnson’s victory on March 10, 1963.

   Driving a white No. 3 Chevrolet he made famous that year, Johnson held off a late challenge by Paschal, who was in a Petty Enterprises Plymouth.

   Waiting to accompany  Junior to Victory Lane was Jayne Mansfield, a blonde, bosomy Hollywood actress. France, Staley and Hank Schoolfield, who helped out with promotions,  had brought her to Hillsborough as the race’s grand marshal.  The three figured Mansfield  would generate plenty of publicity and help draw a big crowd.

   Her presence worked.  An estimated 15,000 showed up.  Many of them came just to see the Marilyn Monroe look-a-like, not the 168-lap, 148.5-mile race.

   “A lot of the fans got pretty well intoxicated during the race, and they were determined to get close to Jayne Mansfield,” continued Johnson.  “It turned into one of the wildest post-race things I saw in all my years in racing.

   “Some guys were tearing at her clothes.  I had to hold her little boy so she could protect herself.  Finally enough lawmen got there to restore order.”

   Johnson won seven races in that white Chevy in ’63.  The  car now is parked in a prominent position in the N.C. Museum of History in Raleigh.

   Ms. Mansfield, the mother of present-day television’s superstar Mariska Hargitay, lost her life on June 29, 1967, in a car wreck in Mississippi.

   “She (Mansfield) was very nice, like most of the movie and TV stars that Charlotte Motor Speedway, Darlington and Daytona were bringing in for races in the 1960s and ‘70s,” said Johnson.  “It was fun meeting her, and I was shocked and saddened when she died.”

   Jayne Mansfield’s visit is part of Occoneechee Speedway’s rich lore.

  Maybe a photo of her smooching a beaming Johnson will be among the pictures from the track’s glory years that eventually will be put on display as part of the restoration, taking  visitors back to a colorful NASCAR era.

Father-son trip to Daytona ignited an enduring fire

The NASCAR driver, holding a press conference at Daytona International Speedway, smiled in fond recollection as he told story after story.

“I can remember being about five years old, sitting on my daddy’s lap while steering his car and we were running about 80 miles an hour.

   “We’d head toward those one-lane bridges they had back then near where we lived and I’d scream, ‘You take it!  You take it!’  And he’d say, ‘You keep it or we’re going to wreck!’  He loved to see me get scared.  He got a kick out of that.  He was a thrill seeker.”

   The fellow doing the talking in July of 1989 was Mark Martin, then in just his second season with the high-powered Winston Cup Series team owned and led by Jack Roush. Martin was the star of the press conference because he’d just won his first pole position in big-time stock car racing, qualifying fastest for the Pepsi 400.
 
  I’ve been writing about motorsports since 1957 and the interview Martin gave that day 20 years ago rates very high among the most compelling I  ever participated in.

   It returns to mind because the immensely popular Martin is seeking to qualify for “The Chase,” or NASCAR’s end-of-season Sprint Cup  “playoff” for the series championship.

   Going into Saturday night’s Chevy Rock & Roll 400 at Richmond International Raceway, Martin is in tight, dramatic competition for one of the 12 spots available.

   He enters the 300-mile race on the 3/4th-mile track in 10th place in the standings.  Martin is a single point ahead of Greg Biffle, 48 points up on 12th place Matt Kenseth and 69 ahead of Brian Vickers, who is in 13th position.

He starts from the pole.

 When the “Dandy Dozen” are determined at Richmond, they’ll race over the final 10 events for rich post-season bonuses, including millions of dollars for the title winner.

But back to that intriguing press conference of two decades ago at Daytona, in which - in spite of his fond recollections - Martin was in no way endorsing or encouraging irresponsible driving on public roads.

   “It was about 100 miles to Memphis from my hometown, Batesville, Arkansas.  And it was 125 miles to Little Rock,” continued Mark.  “I can recall my dad, Julian, making those trips in a little over an hour - and over two-lane, winding roads.  It was always a big deal and thrilling to go.

   “As fast as my dad, Julian, and his friends drove, they were conscious of wrecking.  Whenever there was a fatal highway accident in the area, dad would take me to the scene where it happened.  He’d tell me things like, ‘He had two tires over the edge here and overcorrected too quickly.’  But he never, never said that whoever it was that wrecked was going too fast.

   “Back in the early to mid-1960s the area where I grew up was like the Wild, Wild West.  There was a lot of lawlessness.  People did what they wanted to do, especially while driving.  There wasn’t a highway patrolman every 100 square miles.

   “I’m not picking on Arkansas.  That’s just the way I remember it.”

   Considering Julian Martin’s fascination with fast cars, it probably was inevitable that he’d go to Florida for Speed Weeks at Daytona.  He did, in 1973, taking the then 14-year-old Mark along.

   “We camped just outside the first turn,” Mark went on.  “When race day came, watching the Daytona 500 was an incredible experience.  It just overwhelmed my dad and me.

   “Before that, we weren’t stock car racing fans.  But when we went back home, dad started building a race car for me.  It was a ’55 Chevy six-cylinder that we planned to run in the street class on area dirt tracks.  The roll bars were made out of heavy water pipe.”

   Mark began racing in 1974 and was so boyish in appearance he had a tough time even getting into the pits at some tracks.

   In 1975 he won a dozen features and the Arkansas state championship for his class.  A career had begun that was to lead to four American Speed Association titles, crowns that eventually would land Martin his ride with Roush.

   Mark scored his first Winston Cup victory in October of 1989 at N.C. Motor Speedway.

   He now counts 39 triumphs, including four this year for Hendrick Motorsports, which he joined at the beginning of the season.  Mark, at age 50 obviously just as talented and savvy on the track as he ever was, is tied for the 2009 lead in wins with Kyle Busch, 26 years his junior.

   A consummate pro, clean driver and all-around gentleman who is admired by his rivals, Martin holds the Nationwide Series record for victories, 49.

   Missing from this remarkable driver’s resume, however, is a championship at NASCAR’s major level.  He has been runner-up in the standings four times, including 1990 when he was edged for the title by Dale Earnhardt by a mere 26 points.  Some observers continue to contend that Martin would have taken the crown that year except for a 46-point penalty ordered by NASCAR officials for an alleged carburetor infraction.  The ruling remains controversial to this day.

   The penalty against Martin and his Roush team was ordered in March of ’90 at Richmond, the very place where Mark will try this weekend to position himself for a championship run.

   I am well aware that journalists ideally are supposed to be impartial.

   However, this is difficult for many when it comes to Mark Martin, especially those of us who have covered his career for so long.

   Nothing against the other drivers contending to make this season’s playoffs, but…

   The driver who first experienced speed as a kid sitting on his daddy’s lap deserves to make The Chase.

   Beyond this, Mark Martin deserves to win the Sprint Cup championship.

   If such a storybook development happens, Mark can dedicate the title to the memory of his father.

   Julian Martin lost his life on Aug. 8, 1998, near Great Basin National Park in Nevada in a private plane crash that also claimed Mark’s stepmom and half-sister.