From Straight Lines To Left Turns
Bruce takes the checkered flag in an event at the Peach Bowl in the early 60s.
The first oval track car Brantley built was a super modified (commonly called a Skeeter).
“Actually it was a pretty good one,” Brantley said. “I did all the welding and fabrication, getting parts and pieces from Dub’s wrecked cars. I felt more comfortable making my own roll cage. And I remember going through Bud Lundsford’s ‘throwaway stuff’, and got a good set of hubs. Bud only ran the best.”
“My first race was in 1961,” Brantley said. “Roy Shoemaker allowed practice laps at the Peach Bowl, and I really thought I was flying until those other cars showed up. A friend of mine told me he could get Eddie MacDonald to drive the car. Eddie was already a ten-year veteran and was glad to offer his services. He would drive mine, and then take over his car for the main event. One night at Athens, Georgia, I told him it as my turn. Don’t know how ready I was but I took my bumps and did okay.”
Bruce’s long time friend Dick Tasse told us, “Eddie MacDonald and his family would come up from south Georgia on the weekends, park his station wagon in Brantley’s driveway and bed down the kids. Once going to a race in Cleveland, Tennessee, Eddie, while caught in traffic, simply drove his wagon on the sidewalk with the skeeter in tow and headed for the track. A cop stopped him and said ‘I can’t pull you over because you’re too far over now.’ MacDonald explained they were late for qualifying, while Bruce, the wives and the kids just wished they were back home. Eddie might have been a little rough around the edges, but everything always turned out fine.”
Bruce Brantley indeed was ready and began winning early on. But, as he said, he did have his bumps and scrapes, and so did his wife.
“I remember a race at Dallas, Georgia, where my car hit a post, caught fire and literally launched over into a briar patch. I was able to jump out before it left the track. Sue though, thinking I was still in the car, got hurt more than me looking through those briars. They still put me on a stretcher, and the driver passed by the stands two and three times trying to find the way out of there. Sue still thinks he just wanted to show off his new ambulance to the crowd.”
“At the moment of the accident, I as so nervous I handed out son Gary to someone in the stands and took off to look for Bruce,” Sue added. “Luckily Carolyn Mincey (wife of Charlie Mincey) came down and retrieved him.”