Racing Around
The Chevelle that T.C. Hunt drove at Middle Georgia Raceway in Byron, Georgia and other tracks after they replaced the 1955 Chevrolet. Later, Summerour sold this "gun-gray" colored racer, along with his trailer, spare parts and the truck to invest in a racing ventere at Atlanta's Lakewood Speedway.
“We built the Chevelle after wrecking the two cars so much,” Summerour said. “T. C. got his legs hurt in one of these races in LaGrange and it kind of took the sting out of his driving. It happened while he was lapping this guy. Before that, this same guy got wrecked by someone else but he thought it was T. C. As his car wrecked and got upside down. He was so far up in the air T. C. drove under him and left some paint on the other guy’s car. When T. C. went to lap him, he put T. C. in the wall. T. C. rode up on the wall and got upside down. The car came to rest almost at the starter’s stand on its top. Larry Honea came out of the fourth turned and plowed right into T. C. His legs got all beat up while he was hanging there. T. C. never ran the top side to pass anybody after that. He would do it at the Peach Bowl but at the faster tracks, if he couldn’t pass on the inside, he wouldn’t get by them.
“In 1967, Ike Bowen and T. C. started talking about running Lakewood Speedway at the fairgrounds. Joe Smith and I went in with them. We got Ernie Moore to come in by giving him 10% with him not putting up any money but working as the promoter.
“At the first race we had problems with dust and all. We talked to Dub Smith and he wanted to get Raymond Pitts involved also. They would get equal partnerships by working on the track. They brought in more clay and the equipment to work in the calcium chloride and water. We didn’t have dust for two or three races. If you would plow the track up, add 20 tons of calcium chloride and iron it out, you would have a good race track. But it cost so much money to do that. Plus, if it rained, you had to start all over again.
“We went to the city about building a 3/8 mile track in front of the grandstands. They looked into all the work it would take to do that and it came to about $1 Million and that killed that. The project would carry the sewer out into the lake to hold all the water that drained off from the apartments nearby.”