Lakewood Masters
Ted Horn won five events at Lakewood Speedway between June of 1946 and September of 1948.
Ted Horn was probably the most dominant open wheel racer to compete at Lakewood. Following the Labor Day event in 1946, Horn would pilot his AAA Sprint Car to two more wins at the track. Two years later, Horn would lose his life piloting his sprint car at the DuQuoin State Fairgrounds in Illinois.
On the stock car side, the drivers who had the best read on Lakewood had something in common – their last names.
The Fabulous Flock Brothers had a lock on Lakewood, and ran their hometown track like it had been built in their backyard.
Bob Flock, oldest of the three racing Flock Brothers, counted Lakewood as one of his two favorite race tracks.
Oldest brother Bob and middle brother Fonty started their careers as bootleggers, hauling whisky out of Dawsonville for their uncle, Peachtree Williams. Those moonshine runs naturally led to the racetrack, as both drivers took part in the 1938 stock car race at Lakewood.
Bob’s two favorite tracks were Lakewood and Birmingham, Ala. He would often hustle between the two to make both shows, one on Friday in one state and the other a day later. While driving for Raymond Parks, Bob won several modified events at the track. Later in his career, Bob would win the last two major races of his career, ARCA stock car events, at Lakewood in the mid ‘50s.
But it was for being an “outlaw” that Bob is best remembered at Lakewood.
Early in the ‘50s, the city of Atlanta decided that, in an effort to keep moonshine runners off of their track, they would pass an ordinance banning drivers who had been convicted of hauling liquor from racing at the facility.
That didn’t faze Bob, who was not going to let some damned city pencil pushers keep him off of his favorite racetrack.
Fonty Flock would become one of the most popular racers in the south.
Pioneer Georgia racer Tommie Irvin was getting ready to race on the day that Bob Flock decided he was going to race, city ordinance be damned.
“I remember it well,” Irvin said in a 2007 interview. “I was lined up out there, and this one car kept circling. Nobody realized at first it was Bob, because he had a handkerchief tied over his face. Then a police car came on the track, then another. They got down to the lower end, and had him hemmed up.
“He ran through the fence, and broke some boards. He took off through the field, and went up on the highway, with these police cars chasing him, and they took off down Lakewood Avenue. We found out later that it was Bob, trying to slip in there to race.”
Middle brother Fonty won his first major event at Lakewood, taking top honors in a 100-mile event in 1940. After the war, Fonty would go on to become one of NASCAR’s early stars. He was the 1947 champion of the National Championship Stock Car Circuit, the name Bill France used prior to forming NASCAR (Fonty was also billed as the 1947 NASCAR champion by France, a title NASCAR today refuses to acknowledge).
After brother Bob was injured in a crash in Spartanburg in 1948, Fonty took over the Raymond Parks owned Ford. He was a terror everywhere he went, but he was especially tough at Lakewood.
Tim Flock was taught the finer points of racing by his brothers at Lakewood Speedway.
Fonty won the first official NASCAR event at Lakewood, a modified race on March 27 of 1948.
Youngest brother Tim did not haul moonshine like his brothers, but was around them when they did. Bob and Fonty had planned to keep their little brother out of racing, but when he talked his way into someone else’s car at North Wilkesboro behind their backs, they decided they were going to have to show him some of their tricks. They figured what better place to learn than at Lakewood.
Bob and Fonty would take turns driving in one car while Tim would drive the other. Tim would watch his brothers closely, learning every move. At one point, Bob drove Tim off the track and through a fence, but Tim came back, and eventually learned how to handle not only his brothers, but also the demanding Lakewood track.
That training would come in very handy towards the end of 1949, when Lakewood took a bite out of Bill France’s new NASCAR.