Spartanburg honors Cotton Owens

By DAVID GREEN

Modern NASCAR Nation's attention this weekend was focused on New Hampshire International Speedway and the first weekend of the Chase for the Cup. On Saturday, in Spartanburg, S.C., the Chase was an afterthought, if it was thought of at all.

Instead, the focus was on 82-year-old Everett Douglas Owens, known since his childhood by his nickname -- Cotton.

Cotton Owens is one of a number of racing heroes in a town that was once as much the epicenter of stock car racing as Charlotte is considered to be today. On Saturday, the town celebrated Cotton Owens Day with a festival at the Spartanburg Memorial Auditorium.

Owens was one of several young men from Spartanburg who began dabbling in auto racing after they finished military service during World War II. Owens had gotten the bug before the war, when he attended a race for midget cars at Duncan Park, a municipal facility with a baseball stadium, in the 1930s.

That race was promoted by a fellow named Joe Littlejohn, who in 1939 would open the Piedmont Interstate Fairgrounds half-mile dirt oval across town. Owens, then a teenager, was among several who watched races at the fairgrounds track from the vantage point of one of several trees that loomed over the board fence surrounding the facility. Littlejohn was one of the men who joined with Bill France to form NASCAR in December 1947.

Owens had no such lofty ambitions, but not long after his discharge from the Navy, he was very much interested in stock car racing. He and friends Bud Moore, Joe Eubanks, Harold Ballard and John Tinsley joined forces to put together a 1937 Ford modified in 1946. Owens drove the car in its first outing, at a dirt track in Hendersonville, N.C. He won his very first race, a preliminary heat, and finished second in the feature.

Owens' driving career suffered a setback early on, when he suffered serious injuries in a crash at Charlotte in the spring of 1951. His face hit the steering wheel of the car, resulting in numerous facial injuries, and eventually, vision problems led to his retirement from driving.

But, before the physical effects of the crash took their toll, Owens won countless modified races and nine events in what is now the Nextel Cup Series, including a victory in 1957 at the Daytona beach and road course. He also won the pole for the second Daytona 500 in 1960.

In 1966, he and young sensation David Pearson gave their hometown a championship team, with Pearson driving Owens' white-and-red No. 6 Dodges to 15 victories and the first of his three Grand National championship titles.

It was not an altogether new experience for the "Hub City." Moore was chief mechanic for Buck Baker's 1957 GN title and Joe Weatherly drove Moore-owned Pontiacs in his back-to-back championship seasons in 1962-63. Also, 1960 GN champion Rex White and one of the top drivers of the 1950s, Jack Smith, migrated to the Spartanburg area before their racing careers were finished.

But the '66 title was special because both the driver and the car owner who were celebrated as champions were Spartanburg's own.

Forty years later, on a warm September afternoon, the Memorial Auditorium grounds were packed with visitors who came to celebrate the heritage of what has grown to be a national sport.

Numerous vintage racecars were on display, along with shiny street vehicles -- most of them Chrysler products, in a nod to Owens' long-time affiliation with Dodge. Also on hand were many of Owens' peers, including Moore, Pearson, Glen Wood, Ned Jarrett, Junior Johnson, Junie Donlavey and others, who joined in sharing memories of Owens. The stories and memories flowed freely.

Much of modern NASCAR Nation has largely forgotten Spartanburg, or never knew much about it in the first place. But Spartanburg has not forgotten Cotton Owens.