The Short, Intense Racing Career Of Lanier Englett


Lanier Wins A Race

The car that carried Lanier Englett to his Cordele victory. Here it is being repaired after car owner Ralph Edwards' last driver had a guardrail go thorugh the front seat.

“If there was ever a spare car, I wanted to drive it. Things were much simpler back then. And Billy was there to make sure it was passed to me if he didn’t want it. I’ll always remember those words from Carden; ‘Lanier will drive it.’ And so went my racing career. I just loved being around race cars, and Billy and I were becoming fast friends. So wherever we went and there was a spare car, Carden had the influence to get me in it.

“As usual, during one of my weekend passes back in 1949, I came home. Over the last few years I had became friends also with J Ralph Edwards who owned a race car. He was sort of an older fella I had met at the tracks, and he had a driver. But his driver had a 2×4 piece of fence go through the cowl during a race and impaled the passenger side of the front seat. Quite unnerving for the poor fellow. So at Cordele Speedway in South Georgia, Edwards called me and wanted to know if I wanted to drive it because his guy quit. I jumped at the chance.

“I remember it raining for two days and nights and the track was mud. Basically by the luck of the draw I was close to the front. Edwards had a good car, and I quickly darted to the front. After that, to pass me you had to go around. And on that track that day, you were not going to go around me. I’m thinking it was Barney Smith who was dogging me the whole time and could have probably spun me. But nobody wanted to chance getting out of the one-lane groove. I just held my line and won the thing. My car was good enough to keep anyone from mounting a charge. Cordele was just an old horse track. I collected $62.50.

Then it was back to the Army. My weekend was over, but what a weekend!”

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