The front gate at Athens Speedway, circa 1965.

By Brandon Reed
Posted in Feature Stories 3/12/10

On Saturday, March 6, the inaugural Athens Speedway Reunion was held at the Bogart Community Center in Bogart, Georgia, just a few miles from the site of the Athens Speedway in Athens, Georgia.

Around 400 former drivers, officials, fans and family members came out to remember the speedway, which opened around 1959 and closed in 1991.  The speedway has long been a part of north Georgia racing lore, viewed by those who saw racing there as being one of the finest facilities in the northern part of the state.

The track saw all kinds of racing there over the years, but was known by many as the home of the ’skeeters’, modified coach bodied racers that buzzed around tracks all over the south, including Athens, Banks County Speedway, Toccoa Speedway and the famed Peach Bowl in Atlanta.

Though the track is quickly eroding, the memories of the grand speedway are not.  And thanks to organizers of this event, headed up by former driver Donald Brooks, it looks like the speedway will live on in the hearts and memories of those that came out to remember the Athens Speedway, and to tell others about the great track where racers once thundered by.

Here’s a look at some of the sights from the first Athens Speedway Reunion.

First, here's a look at the Athens Speedway from 1966.

Here's the Athens Speedway today.

Check out the back of Don Rhodes' shirt. To his left is Lewis Cooper. Rhodes and Cooper bought Athens Speedway during the winter of 1968/69, and made the track into a 3/8 mile facility. It was also Rhodes and Cooper who added the concrete grandstands to the track after a tornado destroyed the existing stands. Rhodes sold his portion of the track to Cooper in 1978.

Georgia racing legend Charlie Mincey. Photo courtesy GARHOFA

By Mike Bell
Posted in Feature Stories 3/5/10

When stock car racing started, they were mostly whiskey trippers driving race cars on the weekends with loads of moonshine form the Smokey Mountain areas to either Charlotte, Greenville, Knoxville, Chattanooga or Atlanta, the largest city in the south…then and now.  One of the myths presented over the years was that they were all war veterans looking for an extra paycheck and some thrills.

What if you heard about a fourteen year old that had been driving around Atlanta at the age of ten in 1941, and got his driver’s license at the age of 12 (yeah, he lied)?

“I was big for my age; I really looked sixteen,” Charlie Mincey told me recently, which was the legal driving age in Georgia.

Then two weeks after he got his license at twelve, he got his first speeding ticket for doing 85 miles an hour down Marietta Street west of the Georgia Tech campus.

“But the fine was only $27.50 or something like that,” Mincey said.

Charlie Mincey with his first moonshine car. He paid $575 for it, then got Georgia Hall of Fame member Bob Flock build a modified flathead racing engine for it with three carburetors. Photo courtesy GARHOFA.

Between the ages of fourteen and nineteen, Charlie Mincey ran moonshine at least once a night “seven days a week”, making about one dollar per gallon.

“You paid the moonshiner at the still $2.50 a gallon, and sold it in Atlanta for a dollar more a gallon,” Mincey said.

And how much whiskey did Charlie carry on a run?

“I liked to carry it in cans because you could get 200 gallons in one load, where if it was in Mason jars, you couldn’t get more than 120 gallons in a car.”

In five years of running ‘shine’, he never lost a load.

On his first trip to the mountains, he carried a veteran race driver and tripper named Guy “Crash” Waller.

“In those days, any headlights that came into your rearview mirror you ran from,” Charlie said.

And sure enough, they were jumped.

“Guy wanted to lighten the load by throwing some of the moonshine out, but I had just spent every penny I had for that shine and I wasn’t about to throw it out,” Charlie said.  “I told Guy to give me a minute and we would lose them, and we did.”

Charlie would sit in the truck plaza on Bankhead Highway in Northeast Atlanta and get bored.  Then for a lark, he would have them call the police.  When the squad cars would arrive, he would already be out behind the plaza, waiting in his car.  As soon as the police would pull up, he would roar out front and run circles around the pump, then take off with the sirens wailing behind him.  Or they would go down in front of Red Vogt’s garage and cut circles until the neighbors called the cops and the chase was on again!

A grizzled war veteran out looking for kicks and a few extra bucks?  Nah!  Just Charlie Mincey.

Mike Bell

By Mike Bell
Posted in Columns 2/26/10

In automobile racing, as in any sport, there are those people that work behind the scenes to make the racing program happen.  Generally, they are never known to the general public nor most of the fans.  The better the show goes, the less you think about who worked the front gate.  You just remember the great racing.

Over the years, the really great promoters are sought because you learn that is what makes for an enjoyable race program.

We lost one such gentleman back on May 30, 2002.  Bob Harmon of Prattville, Alabama, lost his short battle with lung cancer.  The world of racing lost one of it’s greatest promoters.

Bob Harmon

When the rest of the world wondered what it takes to bring spectators to the track, Bob had the stands overflowing.  When everyone else had trouble getting racers to run at their track, Bob had the pits so full you wondered where all the cars were coming from.

At Nashville several years ago, at a special Old Timer’s Night, Georgia Racing Hall of Fame member Jack Jackson and I were trying to find out just where the heck over 100 cars were pitting.  It wasn’t like there weren’t other track not running on the same night as Bob’s tracks; the competitors would just rather be there.

Bob began his career at the Fairgrounds in Birmingham.  He later took over Montgomery Motor Speedway.  They raced the NASCAR Modifieds and the Modified Specials.  When NASCAR revised the modified rules to modernize the cars, Bob shouldered on with his programs.

Then he felt he could do it better with what was fast becoming the “touring series” format.  He established the All-Pro Series for asphalt Late Models.  He started and ran the series from 1980 until he sold it to NASCAR, who had tried to compete against Bob’s series with a similar one of their own.

Bob’s last hoorah was the Nashville Fairgrounds raceway.  The big half-mile asphalt track was close to extinction when he took over.  By the time Jack Jackson and several other of us old timers made it to the oval, you needed a computer to keep up with the program.  Cars must have been coming out of the light poles.  They were everywhere!  And we were back at the motel listening to more of Billy Carden’s stories before 11 p.m.

Mike Tankersly, sports reporter for the Montgomery Advertiser, reported that among those attending the funeral in Alabama were NASCAR president Mike Helton, along with Jim Hunter, Vice President of Corporate Communications and Dennis McGlynn, President and CEO of Dover Entertainment (who flew the flags at their corporate headquarters at half-staff in honor of Bob).  Two of the drivers on hand were the legendary Red Farmer and “Fast Eddie” Mercer, who obtained his nickname from Bob.

Mercer was quoted as saying, “He brought organization to all the haphazard short track promotions across the South and built it into an entity that NASCAR purchased.  That says it all right there.  He single-handedly saved short track racing in the South.”

Former assistant Dave Kohler flew in from Pittsburgh and praised Bob for all his good work, saying “Bob’s secret was good old fashioned legwork.”

Red Farmer was quoted as saying “he always stood by his word.  So anytime he wanted me to race for him or be there for him, I was always glad to do it.”

To paraphrase Bob’s life, we will use a favorite saying of his.

“It was awesome.”

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in the September, 2002 edition of the Pioneer Pages magazine.  Harmon was also instrumental as a promoter in Georgia, at the Middle Georgia Raceway near Macon, as well as being one of the men behind the first “World Crown 300″ at what is now known at Gresham Motorsports Park. His All-Pro Series held numerous events in the Peach State, spotlighting drivers from Georgia throughout it’s existence, and his contributions to racing in the state are immeasurable.

Mike Bell is the CEO and historian for the Georgia Auto Racing Hall of Fame Association, Inc. (GARHOFA)

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Brandon Reed

By Brandon Reed
Posted in Columns 2/19/10

Plans got underway this week for the third annual Lakewood Speedway Reunion, which is planned for August 7 at the Georgia Racing Hall of Fame in Dawsonville, Georgia.

The reunion has fast become a favorite gathering for many of Georgia’s racing heroes.  During the first event, around 400 people came out to take part, telling stories, shaking hands and remembering good times at one of the greatest race tracks in history.

Among those who have turned out over the last couple of years include car owner Raymond Parks, whose drivers won multiple times at Lakewood, 1960 NASCAR champion Rex White, Georgia legend Mike Head, and 2009 Georgia Racing Hall of Fame inductee Buck Simmons, who won the final race ever held at the track in 1979.

Lakewood Speedway, seen here in 1946, was one of the most historic and important tracks in southern racing history.

One of my favorite people that came out to the first reunion was racing pioneer and 2009 GRHOF inductee Tommie Irvin.  Irvin started out his career as a driver, applying for his NASCAR license in 1948.  He raced at Daytona Beach, and even traveled to Chicago to race for Andy Granatelli.

Irvin not only raced at Lakewood, but can also boast a victory there.

Irvin was victorious on the 1-mile dirt track in 1955 in a race held in conjunction with the annual Southeastern Fair.

Irvin says that victory was the biggest of his career.  The trophy now sits in a place of honor at the Georgia Racing Hall of Fame.

The track, which was built in 1916 around a former reservoir for the city of Atlanta, was known for its speed and its danger.  The first turn was a tight cut between the lake and Lakewood Avenue.

Irvin told me in a 2007 interview that the track was a fast one to race on.

“You got as fast as you wanted to go,” he said. “When you went into that upper turn, you would be running a good bit over 100 miles an hour, which was fast at that time.  But when you came down through that lower turn, you’d come out at around 60 or 65 miles an hour.  You lost all your momentum going around that lower turn.  But coming down that straightaway, you could get on up there.  You were really running.”

Along with winning the 1955 Southeastern Fair event, Irvin was present for one of the most legendary moments in the track’s history.

The facility was owned by the city of Atlanta.  In an attempt to keep out former moonshine runners, the city fathers passed an ordinance barring drivers who had been convicted of hauling liquor from racing at the facility.

Georgia racing Hall of Fame member Tommie Irvin says his 1955 victory at Lakewood Speedway was the biggest of his career. Photo courtesy Tommie Irvin

That led to a day when legendary Georgia racer Bob Flock decided he was going to race, city ordinance be damned.

“I remember it well,” Irvin said. “I was lined up out there, and this one car kept circling.  Nobody realized at first it was Bob, because he had a handkerchief tied over his face.  Then a police car came on the track, then another.  They got down to the lower end, and had him hemmed up.

“He ran through the fence, and broke some boards.  He took off through the field, and went up on the highway, with these police cars chasing him, and they took off down Lakewood Avenue.  We found out later that it was Bob, trying to slip in there to race.”

The final automobile race at Lakewood was held in 1979.  A few years later, a music venue was built on top of the fourth turn, while a parking lot covers the third corner.  Very little of the legendary racetrack remains.

Irvin believes that Lakewood would still be a viable racing facility today if it had gotten the proper guidance and attention.

“If the city of Atlanta had paved it, I don’t believe there would be an Atlanta Motor Speedway there today,” Irvin said back in 2007.  “They had the parking, they had the security, they had the fences, they had plenty of room there, and they had the ideal race track.  Everybody loved Lakewood.  I’ve seen boys from Illinois and everywhere up north come down to race there.  They really had a racetrack down there.

“But the city of Atlanta owned it, and they didn’t care if anybody raced there or not.”

Fortunately, there are those who care about preserving the memory of Lakewood.  Many of those are expected to turn out on August 7 to remember and celebrate the speedway, as well as racers such as Tommie Irvin who raced and won at a track that was called “The Indianapolis of the South.”

Editor’s note: Portions of this column were originally published in the Sept. 3, 2008 edition of The Jackson Herald.

Brandon Reed is the editor and webmaster of Georgia Racing History.com.

Questions, comments, suggestions? Email us!

This website is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Georgia Racing Hall of Fame or the Georgia Auto Racing Hall of Fame Association, Inc. All content is the intellectual property of the individual authors. All opinions are those of the individual authors. Please do not repost images or text without permission.

Georgia racers have been winners at Daytona from the beach days up to the superspeedway era.

By Brandon Reed
Posted in Feature Stories 2/12/10

With the 52^nd annual Daytona 500 scheduled to take the green flag Sunday afternoon, many people have been talking about the rich history not only of the 500 and the speedway, but also of the events that took place on the beach before it.

One fact that seems to elude many of those that look back through the records books seems to be that drivers from Georgia have had a dominant presence at Daytona Beach.

From 1940 to 1957, the Georgia Gang recorded 20 victories on the beach at Daytona.  From 1960 to 2000, the Gang recorded 13 stock car victories at Daytona International Speedway.  That doesn’t include wins in the Rolex 24 or Paul Revere 250 sports car events or the Daytona 200 motorcycle race.

Georgia has had a significant hand in molding the history of Daytona.  From the beach to the high banks, drivers from the Peach State have been a part of writing history.

And it goes back almost to the beginning.

Rick Minter

By Rick Minter-Guest Columnist
Posted in Columns 2/5/10

Georgia’s had more than its share of famous race tracks over the years, but few have had the enduring magic of the one known as the Peach Bowl.

Last Sunday, for the 21st straight year, drivers, mechanics, owners, fans and friends of the Peach Bowl gathered in Riverdale for a gathering that is more like a family reunion than a racing affair.

The first reunion, held in a barbecue restaurant on the north side of Atlanta, drew about 100 people. Jack Jackson, a Peach Bowl veteran and the reunion’s organizer, said he got the idea for the gathering after attending the funeral of a fellow competitor. It seemed that the funeral home talk was dominated by stories of the Peach Bowl.

The reunion was just the ticket for racers who had gone their separate ways for the most part after the track closed.

Over the years, many of the attendees at the first reunion have passed away. But their survivors continue to attend the reunion, and now the crowd generally numbers more than 200.

Opened in 1949 in Atlanta, the Peach Bowl soon became a mainstay in Georgia auto racing. Despite closing in 1971, the track remains a part of Georgia racing legend.

The success of the reunion shows that the little quarter-mile track and the relationships it fostered still have a big place in the hearts of its participants.

“I don’t have to call people to get them to come,” Jackson said. “They come because they want to be here.”

The Peach Bowl’s alumni roster reads like a Who’s Who of early stock car racing. Red Byron, the first champion of the circuit now known as Sprint Cup, raced there in a Midget early on. One of the Peach Bowl’s most dominating drivers, Jack Smith, went on to win 21 Cup races and earn a spot in the Stock Car Hall of Fame at Darlington. Rex White, the 1960 Cup champion, was a Peach Bowl veteran as were Gober Sosebee and Roscoe Thompson, two early NASCAR stars. In later years, Bobby and Donnie Allison were among the Cup stars who raced at the Peach Bowl.

NASCAR founder Bill France Sr. promoted races there in the early 1950s, and it was at his suggestion that the track was converted from dirt to asphalt.

The Peach Bowl also had its share of amateur drivers, who became crowd favorites and helped fill the grandstands every week.

Few amateurs pleased the crowd more than Jackson, the reunion organizer.

Just like in the days when the Peach Bowl was running, the reunion crowd includes both professional racers and amateurs.

White, the 28-time Cup winner, recalled leading 300 laps of a 400-lap NASCAR Short Track Division race at the Peach Bowl in the late 1950s only to burn out a right front wheel bearing.

Harvey Jones, the legendary racing mechanic from Atlanta, shared tales of his days on the early NASCAR circuit as well as the nights he prepared cars at the Peach Bowl.

Those seated at one table showed just how many race drivers the mill town of Griffin produced. There was Roscoe Smith and his son Clint, Leon Archer, David Castille and Kenneth Collins.

Georgia’s Who’s Who of racing announcers were there too. There was Jimmy Mosteller, the voice of the Peach Bowl and countless other Georgia tracks. And Johnny Clark, whose booming voice is familiar to fans at Dixie and Rome Speedways as well as to drag racing fans from the old strip in Dallas. And Captain Herb Emory, known to most for his racing show and traffic reports on WSB Radio, but also a former track announcer at West Atlanta Raceway in Douglasville.

Fans and drivers get ready for an event at the Peach Bowl in 1953.

Jackson said the mixture of pros and Saturday night heroes, and racing people in general, during the Peach Bowl era and at the reunion wouldn’t have been possible without the leadership and vision of the Peach Bowl’s long-time promoter, the late Roy Shoemaker.

“Roy was the best promoter ever,” Jackson said. “I would have never gotten to race if he hadn’t started the amateur class. I couldn’t compete against guys like Jack Smith,”

But through racing at the same track, and through the long-running reunion, Jackson and other amateurs have gotten to know the NASCAR greats on a one-on-one basis.

Mike Bell, the leading racing historian in the Atlanta area, said Shoemaker left another legacy that’s often overlooked, even in a city known for its role in racial integration.

In the early 1960s, with no outside pressure and before the civil rights movement really got going, Shoemaker integrated the track, pushing the old “White” and “Colored” grandstands together and making them one. He opened the competition to anyone regardless of color, and advertised his races in the city’s black newspaper, The Atlanta Daily World.

“He did all that on his own,” Bell said.

And nearly 40 years after he promoted his last race, Shoemaker’s legacy is still being celebrated. And the everyday people he helped turn into local folk heroes still get to relive the thrills of victory, every last Sunday in January.

Rick Minter is an award-winning sports journalist who began covering motorsports for the The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 1991, as well as serving as a bureau chief. Minter focused on racing exclusively from 2000-2008 . Minter and his wife Joanne live on the family farm in Inman, Georgia. In his spare time he collects and restores antique tractors and trucks.

Questions, comments, suggestions? Email us!

This website is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Georgia Racing Hall of Fame or the Georgia Auto Racing Hall of Fame Association, Inc. All content is the intellectual property of the individual authors. All opinions are those of the individual authors. Please do not repost images or text without permission.

Georgia's Billy Carden was a stock car racing pioneer and an early NASCAR competitor.

By Eddie Samples
Posted in Feature Stories 11/27/09

When we first approached him for an interview, Georgia stock car legend Billy Carden initially declined, saying we should be talking to some of the drivers from either South or Middle Georgia.

“Those boys are not getting the recognition they should,” stated Carden, a native of Mableton, Georgia.

Carden was a legend on the tracks around Georgia.  He began racing in 1947 along side the likes of Bob and Fonty Flock and Ed Samples.  He won championships at Chattanooga and Nashville, Tenn., as well as at Huntsville and Birmingham, Ala., along with picking up wins and titles all over the state of Georgia including many at the legendary Peach Bowl in Atlanta.

He also made 73 starts on what is now known as NASCAR’s Sprint Cup series between 1949 and 1959.  While he didn’t win at that level, he did record four top five finishes, two in 1951 and two in 1955.  His best finish came on the half-mile dirt oval called Pine Grove Speedway in Shippenville, PA.  There, he piloted his Sam Knox owned Oldsmobile to a third place finish.

Carden was also an occasional competitor on NASCAR’s famed convertible circuit in the late 50s.  There he recorded one win in 1958 at Columbia, S.C., where he outdistanced NASCAR champ Lee Petty for the victory.

But perhaps his most memorable win came right at home.  In 1950, Carden won the longest ever event to be held at the famed Lakewood Speedway in Atlanta, a 200-lapper put on by the AAA.  Carden out dueled NASCAR champ Red Byron for the win in a race that lasted well over three hours.

We did get Billy to tell us a few of his stories, for which he is famous, and a brief background of his racing career.

“I started driving right after the war,” Billy said.  “Bob Thompson of Mableton and a few of us decided to build a race car.  We didn’t know anything about modifying engines back then.  Red Vogt was one of the few mechanics in town that mastered that.  He worked for Raymond Parks, who I knew from his Hemphill Avenue Service Station.  Anyway, I was a quick study and before long, we were building good, fast motors.”

Brandon Reed

By Brandon Reed
Posted in Columns 1/22/10

There are people who move into and around your life that always have a significant impact on you.

Kenny Turk is one of those people for me.  A life long race fan, Kenny was an influence on my life for the better part of 20 years.

A native of Oakwood, Georgia, Kenny attended his first race at the old Jefco Speedway (now Gresham Motorsports Park) in 1968 when the Grand National series (now Sprint Cup) made their first stop there.  Cale Yarborough won that race.  He was there again one year later when the late Bobby Isaac took the win.

He and my mother met when they both worked for Cummins Engine Company in Flowery Branch, Georgia.  There was a definite chemistry between the two of them.  From there on, Kenny was part of the family.

Kenny Turk smiles for the camera during graduation services at Piedmont College in Demorest, Georgia in 1998.

There are many stories I can tell you about Kenny.  Like when I took him to Richard Petty’s final race, which was run at Atlanta Motor Speedway in 1992.  I had gotten the tickets at the last minute, and offered the second one to Kenny.

Kenny was a long time Dale Earnhardt fan, and when Earnhardt tagged the backstretch wall, Kenny showed his displeasure by punching the cooler.  He hurt his hand, but wouldn’t complain about it, knowing I would rib him endlessly.

And I did.

Then there was the time we were at an ARCA race at Atlanta one cold March Friday.  Actually, cold doesn’t even begin to describe it.  The temperature never got above freezing.  As I sat there, watching Tim Steele dominate the race, I suddenly realized two things.  First, it was spitting snow all around me.  Second, Kenny had disappeared.

About 15 minutes later, he reappeared.  At first, he wouldn’t admit where he had been.  He had snuck off to the restroom to drink a beer because it was too cold to drink it sitting in the stands.

Now, how cold is it when it’s too cold for a beer?  I never let him live that one down either.

But my favorite story involving Kenny and racing goes back 14 years to a trip to Daytona for Speedweeks in 1996.

I got the call about a week before.  Kenny offered to fly me down, had the tickets for the Twin 125 qualifying races at Daytona International Speedway, which would set the starting field for that year’s Daytona 500, and he had accommodations all squared away.  We would be staying on the houseboat of a friend of his roommate.  Everything would be covered.  All I had to do was be the designated driver, which wasn’t a problem for me, as I don’t drink anyway.

Needless to say I jumped at the chance.

There were four of us going.  Along with Kenny and myself there was our friend Jack and Kenny’s roommate Richard.

We flew down the day before the qualifying races.  I had never flown before, and wasn’t very enthusiastic about it.  Kenny, of course, tried to calm my nerves by first telling me about the report he had just read on a major plane crash out west, and then by offering me the window seat.

Needless to say I declined and kept a death grip on the armrests of my seat.  A flight attendant came around asking if we wanted drinks, and I declined.  Kenny ordered a Bloody Mary.  It should be noted that this was a 9 a.m. flight.  You can see why I was the designated driver.

As we finally got airborne, the flight attendant tried to be friendly by offering me a complimentary package of “Grandma’s Old Fashioned Molasses Cookies”.  I politely declined.

However, by the fifth time the flight attendant offered me the same package of cookies, I wasn’t as polite as I had been the first time.

“Ma’am, I don’t want the damn cookies,” I said firmly.

Seizing the opportunity, Kenny reached over and took the cookies, saying “I believe I’ll have me them cookies, ma’am.”  Shooting a glance and a grin at me, he added, “I bet they’re tasty.”

He proceeded to eat the cookies, chasing them with liberal sips of Bloody Mary.  When he finished, he looked over at me, smacked his lips and said, “You know, them cookies tasted like crap!”

When we landed safely in Jacksonville, we secured our Rent-a-Wreck and headed for our accommodations.

As I mentioned before, we were staying on the houseboat of a friend of Richard’s, who supposedly was a former vice president of a major corporation.  I only ever caught the name “Foster”, and that’s still all that I know him by.

We arrived at the marina and made our way out to Foster’s slip.  As we walked up to the boat, I spotted something that made my hair stand on end.

There, face down and spread eagled on the deck, was an older gentleman.  Richard looked surprised.  Kenny and I looked at each other worriedly.  Jack had his camera out, snapping pictures.

“For God’s sake, Jack, put the camera away,” I whispered.  I was worried that we had stumbled upon some sort of underworld hit.

Richard stepped over onto the boat and helped Foster to his feet.  It turned out that Foster was one of the biggest drunks in greater Jacksonville area.  He had been on an all night bender, which had turned into an all-morning bender, which had come to a sudden and unconscious end with a face plant on the deck.

I think you can see where some of this story is going, can’t you?

After securing Foster in his bunk, we grabbed a quick bite of lunch and decided to head into Daytona.  I drove south on A1A and before long found myself on the strip.

Daytona during Speedweeks is something to see.  Traffic and people are everywhere.  But I drove solidly through town, heading towards the speedway.  We were already having a good time.

I was in a particularly tight bit of traffic and paying close attention to the road when suddenly I heard the three passenger windows go down.  All three of my passengers were leaning out their windows, hooting and hollering.

A view of Daytona's tri-oval from our vantage point on Feb. 15, 1996. Photo by Brandon Reed

“Yeah, baby!” I heard Kenny yell.  “I looooove you!”  Similar yells were coming from Richard.  Jack was taking photos.

I figured the person they were yelling at had to be the most beautiful woman in all of Daytona Beach.  There was no other conceivable reason for them to be yelling like that.  With that in mind, I took my eyes off the road to steal a glance.

There was no beautiful woman.  The person they were hooting at turned out to the guy delivering Miller Lite to a package store.  He did, however, have on shorts, along with a pretty perplexed look on his face.

“I looove you!” Kenny yelled again.

“I’m surrounded my morons,” I said when they had all rolled their windows back up.

The next memorable moment came that night as we all tried to get some sleep aboard Foster’s boat.

Kenny, as the senior member of the group, took the front bunk.  Jack and I were about halfway back.  He was in the top bunk while I took the lower one.  Richard was sleeping out on the deck with Foster.

All was well until about 2 a.m., when we were all awakened by the following sound:

“Zeus!  Zeus, stay!” came a very slurred, very intoxicated sounding voice.

From the bunk above me, I heard Jack say “Brandon, who is Zeus?”

“Zeus is a Greek god, Jack,” I replied.  “Go back to sleep.”

It was quiet again for a moment, and then Jack asked, “Brandon, why is Foster talking to a Greek god?”

“Jack, Foster has at least three bottles of bourbon in him,” I said.  “We’re lucky he’s not talking to the light fixtures.  Go back to sleep!”

Unbeknownst to any of us, Foster had actually gotten up about an hour before and, through some miracle, driven to his house to fetch his dog, a Labrador retriever named ‘Zeus’.

But the disturbances weren’t over.

Just as I was about to drift back to sleep, I heard another cry come from the deck.

“Myrna Louise, you’ve got to take care of me,” Foster yelled in a slurred, drunken voice.

From the bunk above me, I heard Jack’s voice say “Brandon, who…”

“I don’t know, Jack,” I almost yelled.  “For God’s sake, go back to sleep!”

Fortunately, we made it through that virtually sleepless night and the next day, drove out way to the World’s Center of Speed, Daytona International Speedway.

Before we went in, Kenny did something I had hardly ever seen him do.  He was very fair skinned and had always come up with some excuse to not put on suntan lotion when my mom had asked him to.

But this time, he did it.  As we stood in the parking lot, he slathered it on.

He looked at me and said “You make sure you tell your mom I did this.”  We both laughed and made our way into the track.  Our seats were just off of the fourth turn at the entrance to pit road.

From our vantage point, Dale Earnhardt fights with Dale Jarrett and Sterling Marlin during the first qualifying race at Daytona in 1996. Photo by Brandon Reed

What a show!  In the first qualifier, Brett Bodine crashed on the backstretch, clipping Bobby Labonte’s car in the process.  Labonte’s Chevy flipped over, finally coming to rest upright after a lazy tumble.  Nobody was injured.

Dale Earnhardt went on to hold off Sterling Marlin for the win.  I looked over to congratulate Kenny on his man winning only to find an empty seat.  I had no clue where he had gone to, although I knew it was far too warm to have to sneak to the bathroom to drink a beer.

In the second race, Ernie Irvin completed his comeback from being injured by holding off a hard charging Ken Schrader for the win.  The only scary moment in that one came in front of my seat when Rusty Wallace took an unexpected, high speed pass down pit road after being cut off in traffic.  He made the move to avoid a crash.  It worked, as the race went wire to wire without a caution.

It was near the end of this race that Kenny made his return.  He had been down in the medical center.  Apparently it had been so long since he had applied suntan lotion (if he had ever used it) that he had forgotten that you’re not supposed to put it near your eyes.

He had begun to sweat pretty good under the hot Florida sun, and the lotion had gotten into his eyes.  His eyes started stinging so badly that he ended up going to the track infirmary to have them washed out.  When he returned, he was looking at me from behind a cheap pair of sunglasses he had bought to try to help his eyes a little.

“That suntan lotion sucks, man,” he said.  “I’m never using that crap again.”

We flew back to Atlanta on the red eye (I gave Kenny hell about that) early the next morning.  I was a lot calmer about this trip, and even took the window seat.

Maybe it was the time of the morning, but the flight attendants were far less friendly on this trip.  They didn’t even talk to us, much less offer beverages of some sort.

Twenty minutes in, Kenny looked at me and said, “Damn, I was hoping for a Bloody Mary.”  I just shook my head.

Forty minutes in, he looked around for the flight attendants again, who had disappeared shortly after take off.

“Hell,” he said, “I’d just be happy if I could have one of those packs of crappy cookies.”  We looked at each other and had a good laugh.

That’s one of my favorite memories, and it became even more important last week.

On January 12, Kenny Turk passed away after a valiant fight with a persistent illness.  He was 57 years of age.

Everybody grieves in his or her own way.  Mine is by writing and telling stories.

Kenny was a special person, and I couldn’t have cared more for him if he was my flesh and blood.

We love you, Kenny.  We miss you.

Brandon Reed is the editor and webmaster of Georgia Racing History.com.

Questions, comments, suggestions? Email us!

This website is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Georgia Racing Hall of Fame or the Georgia Auto Racing Hall of Fame Association, Inc. All content is the intellectual property of the individual authors. All opinions are those of the individual authors. Please do not repost images or text without permission.

Brandon Reed

By Brandon Reed
Posted in Columns 1/15/10

The NASCAR nation has been all abuzz this week with word that the accursed “Car of Today” may soon begin to resemble the cars of yesteryear.

NASCAR is reportedly flirting with the notion of losing the IMSA style rear wing from the back of the car, replacing it with a more traditional looking spoiler.  Word has been that they may also do away with the front splitter in favor of a more traditional air dam, giving the car an older style look that hopefully will be more pleasing to the fans.

For whatever reason, many fans have just not embraced the futuristic COT models, with some likening the car to the “Batmobile” of comic book fame.

Reports say NASCAR's "Car Of Tomorrow" may be seeing some changes in the near future. Photo courtesy Rhonda McCole.

Certainly, the new racer does not seem to have the same presence as past NASCAR racecars, which have traditionally been big American made cars with monster V8 engines that produce tons of horsepower.

But the COT is not the first odd car to make it’s way into NASCAR’s ranks.  In fact, some of the entries that have started NASCAR Cup events in the past might surprise you.

For example, did you know that foreign car makes had competed in NASCAR’s top series long before Toyota hit the scene?  In fact, a foreign not to mention before Kyle Busch scored the manufacturer’s first victory at Atlanta back in 2008, despite NASCAR’s PR machine insisting it was the first win for a foreign nameplate.

That honor actually goes to Jaguar.  The late Al Keller piloted a Paul Whiteman owned Jag to victory in NASCAR’s first ever road race, held on June 13, 1954 at Linden Airport in Linden, New Jersey.  Keller outdistanced Joe Eubanks in a 1951 Hudson to record the second and final win of his NASCAR career.

What you have to understand is that, back in the 50s, Big Bill France wasn’t necessarily opposed to having foreign makes run on the big circuit.  If you look through the records, you’ll see that, on more than one occasion, there were events run with these cars in the field.

In the first race at the famed Riverside Raceway, a road course, in California, several foreign makes turned up in the rundown.

While the top 17 finishers were all American made iron, the results show a pair of French built Citroens finishing 18th and 19th, piloted by Bill Jones and Ralph Roberts, respectively.  Then a little further back is a Renault driven by Hylan Micka.  So the foreign car make roots go a lot further back.

But perhaps the neatest of all the foreign cars known to have competed in NASCAR’s top series was in an event at Langhorne Speedway in Pennsylvania.

But maybe the neatest of all the foreign cars to compete in NASCAR had to be at Langhorne Speedway in Pennsylvania on June 21 of 1953.

In that event, Philadelphia native Dick Hagey entered a Volkswagen Beetle in the event.  Hagey’s number 18 VW qualified 32nd in the 38 car field, and putted right along in the 200 lap event to finish 19th.
That’s not too bad for a little car equipped with a four-cylinder engine that produced less than 40 horsepower!

It was the only Cup event for Hagey, and to date is the only time a VW Beetle has competed on NASCAR’s top circuit (unless you count Herbie The Love Bug in that movie from a few years back).

On a side note, according to an interview at Racer’s Reunion.com, veteran Goody’s Dash driver Horace Long says he campaigned a #77 VW Beetle in the four cylinder series for two years, and was the only one to race one of the little cars on the circuit.

But the foreign makes aren’t the most interesting of the odd cars to make starts at NASCAR’s to level.  There have been more than a few interesting American makes that have made for some memorable moments.

One of the best moments occurred at Canfield, Ohio in a 200-lap event on May 30, 1950.

There really wasn’t anything overly special about the event at the half-mile dirt track.  Among the cars on the starting grid were Plymouths, Fords, Mercurys, Oldsmobiles, Lincolns and even a Kaiser.

But there was one very special and very rare car prepared to start that day.  It was Joe Merola’s number 12 Tucker Torpedo.

You didn’t misread that.  Merola was racing a 1948 Tucker, one of only 50 such cars ever manufactured.

Joe Merola qualified this rare 1948 Tucker for a NASCAR race in Canfield, Ohio in 1950. This was one of only 50 Tuckers ever produced.

For those who may not be familiar with the story of the car, the Tucker automobile is arguably the most sought after and coveted American automobile by collectors.  Preston Tucker, the cars designer and builder, decided to take on the big Detroit auto makers in the late 40s by designing a car that was light years ahead of its time, including safety innovations that have only hit modern cars in the last 10 years or so.

In the end, the powers that be had the Tucker plant closed down.  Truth be told, they were afraid of his cars because, to be blunt, they were just too darned good.

When the doors closed forever on the Tucker plant, only 50 of the futuristic looking cars had been manufactured.

So the idea of one of those rare cars being on a half-mile dirt track is amazing, to say the least.

But the Tucker’s NASCAR debut was short lived.  Merola broke a right rear axel, and the car never completed a full lap.

Incidentally, the racing Tucker is believed to have been later lost in a warehouse fire in Florida years later.  It’s one of the few Tuckers that do not still survive.

So, no matter what NASCAR decides to do with the wing and the splitter on the new Car of Today, remember that it’s not the first odd-looking car to grace NASCAR’s top series.

Just think about Joe Merola’s Tucker and Dick Hagey’s Beetle.  We’ll never see cars that cool on the track again.

Brandon Reed is the webmaster and editor of Georgia Racing History.com.

Questions, comments, suggestions? Email us!

This website is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Georgia Racing Hall of Fame or the Georgia Auto Racing Hall of Fame Association, Inc. All content is the intellectual property of the individual authors. All opinions are those of the individual authors. Please do not repost images or text without permission.

Pete Craig was one of the first auto racing stars out of Georgia.

By Mike Bell
Posted in Feature Stories 1/8/10

Atlanta had three national stock car champions in the late 1940s, and these were considered to be the grassroots pioneers around the south.

When Red Byron won the first NASCAR Strictly Stock (now Nextel Cup) title in 1949, Georgia’s Pete Craig had been retired for over a decade.  Craig started racing Indy-type cars in 1922.

The aforementioned “pioneers” were just kids when, in 1930, Craig, a native of Gainesville, Georgia, held the 100-mile racing record at Daytona when they were barrel tracking at the Beach.

This was still six years before the stocks started their 22-year rein at the old beach/road course that driver Bill France Sr., and later Bill France Sr. aka NASCAR, promoted.

Pete Craig at Daytona Beach during the ealry days. Craig began his racing career professionally at age 20.

If you were lucky enough to get a copy of a magazine/yearbook/program called “Who’s Who in Automobile Racing – The Blue Book of Speed”, you will find on page 25 a mention of a young Georgia driver named Pete Craig.  You’ve never heard of him?  First, you have to realize the publication was printed in 1937.  Second, there just weren’t that many drivers from the South.  There was Paul Bost from North Carolina, and the Callaway brothers originally from Macon, but who soon moved to Miami.

In doing research on racing at Lakewood, Weyman and Bill Milam of Atlanta dated back to building and racing Indy-type cars in the thirties.  As for Craig, I already knew of him but had no idea where to start looking for any next of kin.  He was in his thirties in the 1930s, so he would have to have been over a hundred to still be living.

GARHOFA’s late Aubrey Holley had recently been searching for relatives before he himself passed away last year.  Ironically, at this years’ South Georgia annual GARHOFA picnic, much of which has been through the efforts of Aubrey and Eddie MacDonald, a fellow introduced himself to me as Pete Craig.

“What???”

Actually, he is Pete Craig, Jr.  We had finally made contact.