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Bobby Whitmire at speed at one of his favorite race tracks, the old Gainesville Speedway in Gainesville, GA. Photo courtesy the Bobby Whitmire collection

Bobby was so young that, to run the local races, he had to sign a waiver for the promoters.  Bobby remembers when all this happened.

“Later, Max Looper came by the house to get daddy to sign a waver so I could race at his track,” Bobby told us.  “Daddy told him he didn’t know anything about it.  Max told him that I had been going down south and racing.  That was the first he knew about me racing.  Daddy told him he wasn’t going to tell me he couldn’t but he wouldn’t sign no statement.  I got a bookkeeper to write a release and notarize it.  I signed his name to it, and gave it to Max.  Max never knew the difference.”

There were more problems when Bobby got to the track to race.

“When we got to the race track and started to pull out to qualify, the flagman made me stop,” Bobby said.  “He asked me if I was the driver of the car.  I told him I was, and he told me to back into the pits.  Max noticed we were having some trouble, so he came down to find out what was going on.  The flagman told Max I was just a kid and he wasn’t going to let me get out there and maybe get hurt.

Whitmire gets his car ready for action at the old Gainesville Speedway. Photo courtesy the Bobby Whitmire collection

“Max told him that he had advertised that I was going to race and the he had a notarized statement okaying me to drive.  They got over to the side and discussed it for some time.  Then they let me go out to qualify, but the flagman told Max if I got hurt he didn’t want anybody saying anything to him about it.  I won a heat race and blew the car up in the feature, but they never did rebuild the car.”

“After that, I drove some for Thomas Hanes at Gainesville Speedway,” Bobby continued.  “I drove for somebody that had a Mercury convertible that didn’t even have a roll bar in it.  The car had burnt in the showroom and they made a race car out of it.  Jack Ingram had been driving it, but he built his own car.  I only drove that car a few times.

“Then Willie T. Edge bought Willard Talley’s old modified car.  We took it to Cordele to race it.  The car still had mechanical brakes on it and that thing would fly!  I had to pull in because I couldn’t see, it was so dusty.  Someone else went out to try it and they pulled in too.  He couldn’t see either!  I had a great uncle who had a motel pretty close to the track in Cordele.  The crew stayed at the motel and I spent the night at my great uncle’s house there in Cordele.”