A Racecar And A Wife
Willavene and Jimmie Day’s wedding in 1955. “He played a tough, hard-to-get guy, but it was just a front,” she told us.
In 1955 Jimmie got married.
“Willavene worked in the dime store there in Easley,” he said. “I had met her at a friend’s party and I guess she was attracted to me because I was full of it.”
“I think he thought he was some kind of big shot, and that kept me amused,” Willavene said. “But under all of that I could tell he was a good guy. When he had the beer place he would come into my store and buy the girls their underclothes, telling me he was responsible for keeping them up. He thought he was being cute and trying to make me jealous, but it didn’t work.”
“He is right about one thing though, he was full of himself,” she added with a laugh.
(Later the “girls” took different paths in life. Pat is married to Jimmie’s cousin Joe and lives back in Kentucky. Unfortunately for Shirley, she went to prison for murder.)
Jimmie also told his wife he had obligations to a racecar.
“The first thing I told her was I had this car and no matter what, I wanted to race.”
When J.B. got out of jail in 1952, he went and bought an old orange #77 Ford sitting at a Gaffney, South Carolina service station.
Jimmie and old #77. He might have lost a tire here at East Park Speedway in Anderson, South Carolina in 1955, but he never lost his sense of humor. The speedway closed down in 1958.
“I called Bill France and asked about using that number, and he said to consider it mine. Back then you could call Bill with no problem.”
To J.B., driving the bullrings around the Carolinas was like a big party that began in 1953, lasting on and off for nearly 20 years.
“Later on I had a race car called the ‘Black Cat’”, he said. “I left it parked in the yard so that every morning I could see that painted red-eyed cat on the hood while I ate breakfast. When I sold it, it wasn’t a month later and I was back racing. That car sitting there had been my pacifier.”
This type of need for pacification led Jimmie to sponsoring cars and drivers, mostly as they rose through the ranks at Greenville-Pickens Speedway, or even the larger ones like Charlotte and Pocono that host both NASCAR and ARCA events. Such names as David Roberts, Maxie Bush, David Smith, Stanley Smith, David Porter, a young David Pearson and a list of others all drove cars associated with Jimmie Day. Jason Keller, who is currently contending for the NASCAR Busch Series Championship, won in Day’s car at Charlotte in 1992, an ARCA qualifying event duly noted as the very first “race under the lights” at the track.
And until they both retired recently, Jimmie’s sons Raddy and Ricky both drove cars with much success for nearly 20 years beginning in 1976. Both also started out at the old Greenville-Pickens track.