The Short, Intense Racing Career Of Lanier Englett


Carroll Tillman

Carroll Tillman's car sits in the first turn at Lakewood Speedway in Atlanta in 1949. Though Carroll escaped, the very next year at the same spot Florida's Skimp Hersey was not so fortunate. Tillman himself was later killed in a fiery plane crash in Oklahoma while transporting liquor.

“One of my acquaintances from the Mableton area was Carroll Tillman. A wiry likeable guy but with a temper. Carroll was a part-time whiskey runner, numbers man, mechanic, playboy and racketeer. Or I guess better put in those early days, your average stock car driver. Regardless, he was a character and he and I got along great.

“In 1949, I had a 1939 Ford coupe and Charlie Marks had a sweet running two carburetor V8 in his Ford convertible. Carroll needed a car to race at Lakewood so I told him to take it. We put Charlie’s motor in my car, and locked the rear end. As I say, Carroll was just a wildcat of a guy, but more than that, I knew he could drive. And during the race, our car was actually running close to the front and I was really pumped. About half way through the race though, the carburetor linkage fell off. I went from a champ to a chump. But we did have a car that Charlie and I were proud of that day, and we proved that we could run with the big boys.

“I remember one time Billy, Carroll and myself went out to the old Atlanta Crackers’ Ballpark across from the Sears Building on Ponce de Leon. We were putting out posters for an upcoming race. Carden was driving and Carroll saw this guy walking up the street. He told Billy he knew him and to pull over. Carden pulled over and Carroll got out and hit the fellow as hard as he could, got back in and said let’s go. I never figured that one out and just didn’t ask.

“Another time Carroll and I were drinking at a bar around midnight in Austell. A cop wanted us to leave. Well, Carroll had a 1940 Ford and we left and went over to his paw-in-law’s house where him and his wife lived. He kicked the door open when no one answered quick enough, and got his .45 pistol. We went back to the Austell Police Department and he started tapping on the window trying to get the cop to come outside. He said ‘run me out of town now, you SOB.’ I don’t remember, but I’m assuming we left after that pretty quick.

“At Lakewood I believe in 1949 he was driving a car for Howard Hill who owned the Columbus, GA track. The car caught on fire in the first turn. The only way they could put it out was dip it in the lake. Carroll like a lot of those guys had an extra tank of fuel inside the car. He could have died that day. About the same kind of deal at the same location happened to Skimp Hersey the next year. Skimp just couldn’t get out in time. I remember after that the city was going to ban racing at the track except for horses, which it was built for. But it never passed into law.

“Tillman later ended up out in Oklahoma hauling liquor via flying an airplane. He told me you could make a lot more trips than just driving a car back and forth from Dawsonville, GA. I think about a month or so later he flew into the side of a mountain. The only way they could identify him was by recovering his billfold out of his back pocket. That was the only part of the wreckage that wasn’t burnt to a crisp, his billfold.”

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