Area Heroes

Irvin wins a race at Atlanta's legendary Peach Bowl in the early fifties.

“There are a bunch of drivers I admired,” Tommie said. “You take Roz Howard.  That guy could manhandle a car.  He could take an automobile totally unfit to drive and make a winner out of it.  And Frank Mundy, he had a deal where he could go down the front straight at Lakewood full speed in reverse and do that spin around in front of the grandstand, shift gears and never break his line.  I tried it several times and kept tearing up transmissions.  And Gober Sosebee could be leading a race and make the guy behind him spin out.  Someone would start bumping him, and he would just go in the turn as fast as he could, let the guy behind him get a little crooked, then back off enough so the fellow would hit his bumper and send the man spinning.  And over at Dallas Speedway, the Rakestraw brothers and George Alsobrook knew how to really drive those high banks as good as anybody,” he concluded.

Irvin hit his stride in 1954, winning the Southern Racing Enterprises Association’s Championship.

“Actually Thomas Aiken could have won the title, but he missed a race at Gainesville one particular week, which cost him dearly.  Anderson, South Carolina was on our points schedule, as were the tracks at Canton, Toccoa, Dallas and Jasper, to name a few.  At one of the races at Jasper that year I won and only got $67 first place.

“I loved to race all the tracks.  We would run one, change a rear end and maybe tires and go again the next day.  Macon on Sundays and try to get to the Peach Bowl that night.  Never won a feature there.  Usually I would still be running dirt tires on asphalt, but always had a great time.  Promoter Roy Shoemaker made rules and stuck to them.  One size tire, no quick change and no straight drives.  I guess Jack Smith, Billy Carden, Charlie Mincey, Charlie Padgett and Jack Jackson were some of the best in their eras at the Peach.  They would run there on Sunday, Wednesday and again on Friday nights.”