Getting Started
A common place for Charlie over the years - in victory lane. Photo courtesy Charlie Barrett
Charlie told us of his start with automobiles.
“I’ve always been interested in cars,” he said. “Back then, when I was thirteen, you could get in the family pickup and go out and spin the wheels. We had an old ‘B’ Model Ford pickup that would start once in a while. Usually we parked it where it would roll off. I would drive all over the farm. You didn’t let it go dead unless you were parked where you could roll it off. I got my hind end tore up for driving it but as soon as they would drive off, I was at it again. You learned right quick not to let it go dead.
“I wanted to get into automobile racing at an early age but I couldn’t afford anything. I got married. I got laid off from Brunner Refrigeration in Gainesville. Then I went to work for General Motors when they started making the ’57 models. They hired everybody they could but then they laid us off when the ’58 model wasn’t selling. After that we bought a little country store right up the road. A buddy of mine wanted me to go to New York with him to drive a hookup back. I borrowed a tow bar and on the way back I decided that was what I wanted to do. After I got back we sold the store in 3 or 4 days. We took the first offer we got and I went in the car business in 1965.
“I came along a right smart time after the others.”
Charlie’s oldest brother Talfort is 13 years older than him. Then came his other brother Ray and his sister Mildred. Charles, born February 27, 1938, is the youngest.
“I was the one they spoiled, I reckon,” Charlie said. “When I was four or five years old, my brothers went off to World War II. My sister, who was also a right smart older, got married when I was nine or 10 years old.” That left Charlie there on the farm as his dad’s only hand.
Charlie told us about his brothers. “My oldest brother is still alive. He is 85. He went to Tennessee Temple and stayed on to teach until he retired. And he has written several books – one on Revelations and one called Journey into Eternity. He went as far as you can go in college – he got a doctor’s degree. My other brother worked for Lunite in Toccoa. Actually he went to work there before the war but returned there after the war. He retired. Looked like the picture of health and took what he thought was a virus one Christmas. But he didn’t go to the doctor for 4 or 5 days. When he did, they told him there wasn’t anything they could do but prescribe morphine for him when the pain got bad. He lasted 90 days. He was 66 when he passed away. I’ve got a place in Daytona and we carried my brother and sister down. His wife had passed away and my sister’s husband had 5 or 6 years ago. We went to Disney World and he was like a teenager – riding every ride.”
Charlie’s wife Alwayne has been there from the beginning. “We went to church together,” she told us. “We went to school together. But it never crossed my mind that I would date or go with that man.”
“She had given up that nobody was going to marry her,” Charlie interjected.
“What it was that he figured nobody was going to marry him,” their oldest son, Mitchell, told us.
“I started dating when I was real young – 14 or maybe 13,” Charlie added. “Then we got together when we were 17 and married in 1956 when we were 18. We were sweethearts in the first grade then we broke up. We got back together in the 11th grade and got married. In 1958 we had Mitchell and in 1963 we had Kevin. They won a lot of races too – both of them did. I don’t know how my wife did it. She would come home from work, have supper on the table and the kids ready and then we would all go to Anderson. Now those two boys have children of their own. Mitchell has three daughters and Kevin has two boys.”