Mike Bell
By Mike Bell
Posted in Columns 9/24/10
Jerry Wimbish died on June 22, 1998. Two days prior, he had been part of a team representing the Georgia Auto Racing Hall of Fame Association (GARHOFA) at the Alabama Auto Racing Pioneers Banquet in Talladega, Alabama.
Jerry was a true pioneer of the sport and no stranger to Atlanta’s racing addicts, especially those who frequented the Peach Bowl in Atlanta and at Lakewood shortly after World War II.
During the war, he flew several dozen missions as a bombardier over Germany. I once asked him why he had a slight limp.
Bruce Brantley waits on the start of the 1968 Permatex 300 at Daytona.
By Eddie Samples
Posted in Feature Stories 9/17/10
Young Bruce Brantley, known to friends as Pat, spent childhood moments wondering how things worked.
“Ever since he could walk, Pat was always under a truck or tractor, or at the garage in town watching men stick weld. It all fascinated the little fellow,” said an old time family member.
And so it was for the Wrightsville, Georgia country boy. Even though his family had a successful logging business out of nearby Blackeye, they, like so many others after the war, decided a move to the city might lead to an easier life.
Ken Stanford
By Ken Stanford-Guest Columnist
Posted in Columns 9/10/10
My first NASCAR race really wasn’t my first one.
That’s because rain postponed it. It was to have been the Atlanta 500, sometime in the early 1960s but rain got in the way.
I’m not sure of the year but I know it was the Spring race… then known as the Atlanta 500, the one that has just been pulled from NASCAR’s schedule.
Brandon Reed
By Brandon Reed
Posted in Columns 9/3/10
When the NASCAR Sprint Cup tour rolls into Atlanta this weekend, it will be mark the last time the tour will visit the 50 year old facility twice in one season for the foreseeable future.
It’s an odd situation to see Atlanta lose its spring race date. Since it’s first event in 1960, the speedway has hosted to Cup events yearly.
But the spring race has always been a tough sell. And, with the opportunity to go to new venues, the decision was made to limit AMS to only one event, the successful Labor Day race, for 2011.
