Tom Higgins' Scuffs

Jimmie Chases Cale

   Jimmie Johnson is chasing Cale Yarborough, and he's on the verge of catching him.
   Huh?
   Wait a second!  Didn't Yarborough, who is in practically all the motorsports halls of fame, retire as a  driver in NASCAR's top division in 1988?
   Sure enough.
   Johnson isn't racing Cale on the track, but in the record book.

   When Johnson takes the green flag Sunday in the Ford 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway in Florida, he'll be going for a third straight driving championship at NASCAR's  leading level.
   Yarborough is the only other driver in the sanctioning body's history, dating to 1949, to take three titles consecutiverly,  achieving the feat 1976-78.
   Johnson holds a 136-point lead over Carl Edwards entering the long season's finale.  Johnson needs only to finish 36th or better to clinch the title.  Or 38th or better if he leads a lap, earning five bonus points.
   Three championships in a row is a record that many involved in NASCAR and those that follow the sport generally figured never would be matched.
   This and the seven overall titles taken by Richard Petty.  The late Dale Earnhardt tied Petty, winning seven as well.
   "Three in a row is remarkable," says Waddell Wilson, a  widely-respected, retired crew chief and engine builder.  "Considering how many good drivers there are, and also all that can go wrong to spoil a season.
   "It's something that Jimmie and Rick Hendrick justifiably can be very, very proud of doing."
   Hendrick is owner of Hendrick Motorsports, a mega-operation based in Harrisburg, N.C., which fields Chevrolets for Johnson's team, led by crew chief Chad Knaus.
    Pride is a ditto for Yarborough and legendary former team owner Junior Johnson, no relation to Jimmie. 
   "It might have been even more outstanding 30 years ago when Cale and Junior won three straight," continued Wilson, who once worked with Yarborough on the Ranier Racing team.  "Look at all the hall-of-famers Cale was racing against in those years--Bobby Allison, David Pearson, Buddy Baker, Benny Parsons, Bobby Isaac and Richard Petty.  To me, this magnifies what Cale did."
   Jimmie Johnson is a 33-year-old Californian from El Cajon who now lives in Charlotte.
   Yarborough, 68, grew up in little Timmonsville, S.C., and still resides there.  He crawled under the fence at Darlington Raceway as a 10-year-old to watch the inaugural Southern 500.  He now owns a variety of businesses in the area around Florence, S.C.  He later was to count five Southern 500 victories among his 83 triumphs, fifth-most alltime.
   Jimmie Johnson lists 40 wins, including seven in 2008 toward another Sprint Cup Series trophy.
   Cale was 36 when he claimed his first championship.
   "I knew when I hired Cale to drive for me in '75 that we were going to be champions together," says Junior Johnson, who sold his racing operation in 1995 and now raises cattle on an expansive farm in the Brushy Mountains of North Carolina, not far from where he was born.  "We had the same philosophy as drivers: FULL BORE!  And I knew Cale was as courageous and tough as they come.  He got every single horsepower out of his cars."
   Junior Johnson won 50 big-time races during his colorful career.  And he took three more points titles with Darrell Waltrip driving in 1981, '82 and '85 after Yarborough left the Johnson ride following the 1980 season.
   Junior for sure  proved a visionary in signing Yarborough for the team based in Wilkes County, N.C.
   In 1976, '77 and '78 the outfit mostly made it look easy in winning Winston Cup Series crowns.
   In '76 Yarborough won the championship by 195 points over Petty, clinching the crown merely by starting the season finale at Ontario Motor Speedway in California, a track that no longer exists.  He won nine races and posted 22 top five finishes in 30 starts.
   Yarborough triumphed by a whopping 386 points, again over Petty, in '77, clinching with two races to go.  That season he again won nine times and had 25 top fives in 30 events, finishing every race he started.
   The Junior Johnson & Asscoiates team won even bigger in '78, coasting home 474 points ahead of Allison, going to victory lane 10 times and notching 23 top five showings.  Again, the clincher came with two races remaining in the season.
   Such runaways eventually led NASCAR to inaugurate  "The Chase" format in 2004.  Under this setup, only the top 12 drivers in the point standings qualify for championship contention over the last 10 races.
   It has led to some exciting "squeakers."
   Kurt Busch took the '04 championship by only 8 points over Jimmie Johnson.  Tony Stewart won in '05 by 35 over Greg Biffle. 
   Jimmie claimed his first title in '06 by 56 points over Matt Kenseth.  And Johnson won once more in '07 by 77 over teammate Jeff Gordon, who is part co-owner with Hendrick of Jimmie's team.
   "Jimmie has a better cushion this year," observes Junior Johnson, "and it sure looks like Cale is going to have to share that three-championships-in-a-row record.
   "But you never know.  Remember 1992?  Alan Kulwicki came out of nowhere in the season's last race at Atlanta to overtake my driver, Bill Elliott, as well as Davey Allison.  Alan won the championship by just 10 points.  Anything can happen."
   That's racin'.

   -30-

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.'"

Intimidating The Intimidator.

   After actively covering NASCAR for more than 40 years, I finally have to concede that the fog of time has caused many of the races I saw to blend into the mist.
   Several, of course, haven't.
   The 1958 Southern 500 at Darlington...The 1979 Daytona 500...The 1980 World 600 at Charlotte...The 1988 Winston 500 at Talladega.   And the Holly Farms 400 of Oct. 16, 1988 at North Wilkesboro.
   The latter produced a fireworks of a finish between Rusty Wallace, Phil Parsons and Geoff  Bodine, and a fire-breathing  feud between the late Dale Earnhardt and rival Ricky Rudd.
   The action 20 autumns ago was rather typical for the .625-mile North Wilkesboro Speedway, and it's a main reason why so many fans continue to lament the track's closing in 1996.

   That seasons's final Winston Cup Series event on a short track wound up as a throwback to the sport's rowdy old days on the smaller layouts, with a riled Rudd vowing vengeance against Earnhardt after a tangle that spoiled strong victory bids by both.
   The two slapped sheet metal in turn one and again in turn three as they battled for the lead on the 361st of 400 laps.  They alternately had dominated to that point, with Rudd leading 154 laps and Earnhardt 107.
    Rudd was on the inside, Earnhardt the outside when they first made contact.  Both temporarily lost control, but continued, with Rudd holding the lead.  Earnhardt, driving a  Chevrolet, popped Rudd's Buick in turn one on Lap 362, causing him to spin and bringing out the caution flag.
   For the restart, NASCAR officials ordered both Rudd and Earnhardt to line up behind the other drivers on the lead lap--eventual winner Wallace, Bodine, Bill Elliott and Parsons.  The penalties essentially ended the victory chances of both Rudd and Earnhardt with so few laps remaining.  Never mind they had the two fastest cars, a fact Wallace conceded.
   Bodine bumped Wallace's Pontiac  out of the way to take the lead in turn one on the final lap, but Wallace returned the shot to Bodine's Chevy in turn three and spurted ahead.  The Olds-drivng Parsons edged Bodine by inches for second place.
   However, all eyes were on the garage area, not Victory Lane, at the conclusion.  What WOULD Earnhardt and Rudd do after finishing sixth and seventh respectively?  Get physical!!!!?
   No, somewhat surprisingly, it turned out to be all-verbal.  But torridly.
   Rudd accused Earnhardt of "a dirty move" and of "taking cheap shots."  He threatened to get even.
   Earnhardt said, "Rudd hit me intentionally and wrecked my car."
   Rudd continued: "Earnhardt went into the corner looking into his mirror and overdrove and I got around him clean.  My car was working good down low, and that's where I was running.  He turned to the bottom of the track like he didn't even know I was there.  He wrecked himself.
   "Then, he comes back and spins me in turn two, knocking my front end out of line.  Clearly, that was a dirty move.  NASCAR put us both at the rear and cost us a chance to win.  We got beat by a cheap shot.  If he wants to play this game, then he can forget the championship.  We have nothing to lose.  Next year, too, if he wants it.  I'm not going to be like some other drivers.  I'm not going to take this crap."
   Added Earnhardt:  "Rudd turned me sideways in turn three.  Then I got into him.  I didn't mean to.  Even if I had, I didn't hit him any harder than he hit me.  I backed off so he could straighten out, but he spun anyway.
   "Did they penalize Ricky when he spun me out the last time with four laps to go?  No.  He's the one that got rough.  I wasn't worried about the points race, I just wanted to win this race."
   Rudd later was fined $6,000 by NASCAR for "over-aggressive driving."
   The race's outcome left Earnhardt 188 points behind leader Bill Elliott in the chase for the Winston Cup Series championship with three races remaining.  Elliott, who finished fifth at North Wilkesboro that day, won the 1988 title by 24 points over Wallace.    Earnhardt wound up third, 232 points behind.  However, Earnhardt eventually  reached seven championships, tying the record of Richard Petty, before losing his life in a 2001 Daytona 500 crash.
   Rudd indeed later got a measure of revenge on Earnhardt.
   During one of NASCAR's annual awards banquets in December at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York, the top drivers were introduced and brought onstage.  All looked dandy in their tuxedoes.
   Asked to comment, Rudd wittily said, "All of us had nice shiny shoes until we got backstage, then Earnhardt came in and walked all over us."
   Earnhardt now was introduced and he came out with face glowing red in embarrassment.  He was grinning, but had no comeback.
   Ricky Rudd had, in a humorous way, intimidated The Intimidator. 

A Race Without Humpy...

   As the PA announcers like to refer to them, "The Stars And Cars Of NASCAR,"  are at Lowe's Motor Speedway this weekend for the Bank Of America 500.
   Jimmie Johnson is there.  Dale Earnhardt, Jr.  Kyle Busch.  Carl Edwards.  Mark Martin.  Greg Biffle.
   One star who isn't there: Humpy Wheeler.
   For the first time since 1975 Wheeler won't be overseeing the track's part of the Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series shows.
   He was let go as president and general manager after the Coca-Cola 600 in May by Bruton Smith, majority owner and CEO of Speedway Motorsports, Inc., which includes the expansive 1.5-mile raceway just north of Charlotte in Cabarrus County, N.C.   A series of disagreements between the two, formerly close friends, led to the rupture.
   Never mind that Wheeler is recognized as the greatest, most colorful promoter in NASCAR history, dating to the late 1940s.

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   When Wheeler came to the track it was known as Charlotte Motor Speedway.  Smith, who co-founded the facility in 1959 with the late driving legend, Curtis Turner, had just regained control of the facility, which had been run by Richard Howard since falling into bankruptcy in the early '60s.
   Humpy was a natural choice.
   He had promoted short track races in the Carolinas with great success.  Then he led Firestone Tires' efforts in various forms of motorsports.  He knew racing thoroughly from many angles, perhaps most importanly the key people to deal with.
   Almost immediately, Humpy brought the same flair--sometimes outrageously--to Charlotte Motor Speedway that had drawn crowds to his short tracks.
   He created the big pre-race shows, in part to entertain fans, but mostly and ingeniously, to encourage them to arrive early.  This helped ease traffic jams in the couple hours befoe races were to be green-flagged.
   Among his spectaculars, he had "Jimmy, The Flying Greek" jumping a long line of junk cars in a school bus.  He enlisted the military to take part on Memorial Day weekends, re-enacting battles like Grenada and the first Gulf War.  He brought in a circus, which was a natural, because Wheeler had become known as "The P.T. Barnum Of Racing" and also "The Ringmaster."
   The appearnce of the circus led to an especially amusing incident.
   NASCAR officials, led by vice-president Les Richter, delighted in occasionally "rattling Humpy's cage," as the saying goes.
   Richter ordered that the show, staged on the grassy area along the homestretch between the racing surface and pit road,  couldn't include any elephants.  "They might go beserk and damage the race cars lined up on pit road," explained Richter, undoubtedly with tongue in cheek.
   Characteristically, Humpy stood firm.
   "There will be elephants," he insisted.  "We've advertised them, and the fans are going to see 'em."  Then, he added a motto that prevailed throughout his career as a promoter, "The show will go on!"
   For a couple hours there was an impasse, then Richter relented, ordering that tarps be placed over the cars as protection. 
   As if a tarp could save a car from a rampaging elephant.
   Once a  major TV network, airing a Charlotte race for the first time, ruefully learned just how tough Wheeler, a former champion in Golden Gloves boxing, could be.
   High network executives decided that the sponsor names of teams wouldn't be used during the telecast if those companies hadn't bought advertising time while the race was being carried.  It was out-and-out blackmail
   Team owners howled.  Howling loudest of all was Humpy, always a strong advocate for the competitors..
   When the network brass wouldn't yield, Humpy sent a very large wrecker to where the TV control trailer was set up.  The hook ominously was attached to the very heart of the telecast.
   "Unless ALL the sponsor names ane used and the logos shown, we're going to tow it away!" he declared emphatically.
   The network quickly caved in, much to its embarassment.
   Would Wheeler really have had the control center towed away?
   I have no doubt the answer is yes for this iron-willed man.  Never mind that cables were attached and the producer and engineers were still inside.
   These are among the many, many reasons Humpy will be missed so much.
   The biggest losers in him no longer being at the track are the fans and the drivers and their teams.

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.

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.