Bad Day At Birmingham
The Chevelle that Mincey drove for Day's Chevrolet of Acworth, Georgia.
“I ran for Day Chevrolet for about seven years, but I didn’t go to work there until 1975,” Charlie said. “We started with the Chevelle but later built a Camaro. That was the car in which I had my worst wreck at a big money race in Birmingham (Alabama, at the Fairgrounds).
“I was running third behind Simmons and Jody Ridley. A rod broke in the engine and I spun in my own oil on the front straightaway, spinning backwards into the first turn against he fence. I was sitting there looking at a car that lost it in the oil I spilled, and he hit me head on. They say I hit the guardrail twice. Once when he first hit me and then again after I bounced back off the rail and he hit me again.”
“They took me to the local hospital where the doctor told me I had broken ribs and sternum,” Charlie continued. ”I went home that night. They said it was a clean, straight break and there was no chance of any other damage as long as I didn’t race for about six weeks. I could have cut an artery and I would have bled to death before anything could have been done. The jolt threw me into the steering wheel and that is what broke my ribs.”
“After six weeks, I raced at Douglasville and won the first night back,” Charlie said. “But the next night I was to run at Rome, but there was just too much pain. I could hardly raise my arms.”
Mincey poses with the Day's Chevrolet Camaro.
In 1977, Speedy Evans built a Camaro for Charlie to drive for Harold Hanson and Eddie Comber on Friday nights at West Atlanta Raceway (later Seven Flags Raceway) in Douglasville, Georgia. They also ran the car at Dixie Speedway in Woodstock, Georgia on Saturday nights and on Rome’s half-mile on Sunday nights, better known as the Tri-Track Racing Circuit.
They won so often that Leon Archer protested Charlie’s engine at Douglasville. Charlie and his crew returned the favor but Leon loaded up and left, forfeiting his second place feature-finishing spot. Charlie’s ride was found to be legal but track management (Ed Massey and Mickey Swims) asked him if he would race somewhere else for a while. They then took over Boyd’s Speedway and Cleveland Speedway in Tennessee on Friday and Saturday nights.