Farewell To Racing

Billy Carden (in white) inspects his car during a race at Elkin, NC as Billy Teague looks on. While they drove the Teague's Cadillac there, Lanier drove the truck. "I decided it was time for me to find something else to play at."

“Of course racing was one big headache and an expensive way to make a living unless you were one of few. To me it was obviously just a fad for a while. The last race I went to was in 1952. I towed by myself a car for Billy while him and Teague drove up together. The race was in Elkin, North Carolina. All I remember was it was a long way away and that was one steep banked track. Billy made a few laps and the rear end tore up.

“I loaded it and headed back toward Atlanta. I had a many a mile to think. And the more I thought the more I was thinking…this is stupid. Tow a car two days by yourself on those old back-roads and it will make you come to your senses. Next morning I pulled into the shop, put the keys up and left. Called Billy the next day and said I wouldn’t be back.

“Billy was the first NASCAR (Sprint Series) driver to own car number 8. That had been his number before NASCAR and took it at its onset in 1948. He stayed in racing up until the sixties because he could make a living doing it. I couldn’t.

“A month or so after the Elkin deal, I went down to see the Daytona races with Jimmy Teague. All I remember was there must have been over a hundred cars that were green flagged from a standing start. And how Curtis Turner could start broadsiding so early, setting up for that North turn going from sand to pavement. After the race you could always walk down to the South Turn and see a pile of cars in the hole where they had came off the pavement too fast and couldn’t make the sand turn.

“We watched that Saturday race, then kinda looked at each other and decided we wanted to go home and forget the Sunday event. So much for racing.”