Dodges, NASCAR & Living In Auburn
Summerour worked at Lenox Dodge late in his career and helped with the racing efforts of car owner Felton Crew, who fielded this Charger in limited events for Tommy New.
By 1970, Jimmy had sold all his cars and gotten out of the race track business and led a normal life working for Lenox Dodge. That was when Felton Crews had Jimmy build a 1965 Dodge for the NASCAR late model sportsman trail, which they sold to Marty Robbins. Then they built a 1968 Dodge Charger that Tommy New from Tucker drove. There was little success even though Felton put a lot of money into the project. They even built a Dodge Dart to no avail.
One treat that came from racing the Dodges was the time they took the car to Houston. At a race at Maryville, TN, “Red Farmer kept telling us how great the track in Houston was. Felton decided to take the car out there to race. We flew out to Houston to help with the car on Saturday and Sunday. Practice and time trails were on Saturday and they ran the race on Sunday. Red never even showed up. But the best part was leaving the track, turning in the rental car, flying home and being in my own bed before midnight on Sunday.”
Jimmy’s last foray in racing came in 1974 when T. C. Hunt called.
“NASCAR had dropped the Grand American Division for ‘pony’ cars,” Summerour said. “T. C. wanted to take his Camaro and rework it for racing at Dixie Speedway, which had been paved in 1973. The car as it ran NASCAR was too heavy to run at Dixie. I took the car and put a half a 1955 Chevy frame under it.
Jimmy's four door burgandy and black Ford, powered by a modified Chevy engine. It has air conditioning and all the modern luxuries. Jimmy salvaged the car over 30 years ago and transformed it into this beauty.
“T. C. could never tell you what the car would do or not do. One night at Dixie, I asked Bobby Allison to try the car out and see what was wrong with it. At first, Bobby didn’t want to get in the middle of any squabble over how the car worked but T. C. came walking up and asked Bobby to try it out to see what was wrong with it. First lap out, Bobby broke the track record. When he came back in he told T. C. that the car was working better than his. ‘If you put some tires on the car, you could win the race.’ T. C. qualified fifth and when they dropped the green flag he was leading the race. He led for about 30 laps but by another 30 laps they had lapped him. To my knowledge, he didn’t race after that.”
Jimmy continued to work at several Dodge dealerships around town until they all closed and traded off to someone else. He last worked for Sammy Shumate on Highway 78 in Lilburn. And when Sammy moved over to Five Forks – Trickum Road at Oak Road, Jimmy went along for awhile. But who was Sammy Shumate? He was this young kid who kept hanging around Joe’s shop and wanted to learn about auto mechanics. They tried to run him off but Sammy showed them what he could do by building a model of the #88 car that won the model car contest at the Peach Bowl. After that, Sammy helped around the shop and learned the trade. Now Jimmy is retired and lives in the North Georgia town of Auburn – a fitting place for a professor of Auto Mechanics.
Editors note: This story originally appeared in the December 2004 issue of the Pioneer Pages magazine. Jimmy Summerour was inducted into the Georgia Racing Hall of Fame in 2006. He passed away on June 24, 2011 at the age of 77.
Mike Bell is the CEO and historian for the Georgia Auto Racing Hall of Fame Association, Inc. (GARHOFA)
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