Moving Up
This is Charlie’s first late model ride owned by Bud Ridley and Gene Walker. Daniel Justus drove the car until his untimely death in a highway accident near Dahlonega. This is the first night in the car at Forsyth County Speedway up on the mountain and Charlie won. Photo courtesy Charlie Barrett
The next step for Charlie was to a full blown late model.
“Then Bud Ridley and Gene Walker of Dahlonega had a good ’56 Ford,” he told us. “Their driver, Daniel Justus, was killed in a highway accident over in Dahlonega. I can’t remember who I contacted – either Bud or Gene – but we won a lot of races with that car. We ran at Anderson and Taccoa. We ran a few times over on ‘The Mountain.’ I didn’t run much on Sunday.
“I know I won a lot of races at Tri-County (in North Carolina) and Toccoa. But I won even more at Anderson Speedway (in South Carolina). To show you how stupid I was, I was getting some appearance money. One week I would get Jack Wimpy up at Tri-County to give me $50. The next week I would get Garland Sheriff to give me more. This went on until I was getting about $400 just to show plus whatever I won that night. Well, one week neither one of them called so I called Garland. He told me that he and Jack wasn’t going to give me any appearance money. I just got greedy. That was why my wife would have to answer the phone to tell everyone where I was going. I wouldn’t know until Saturday morning. But they got together and wouldn’t give me anything.
“We got in a little trouble at Tri-County. Bud Ridley was real sharp on a racecar, especially on the handling part. But he got pretty well interested in several women over there and some of them were married. And that was the trouble we had at Tri-County.”
But through it all, they won some championships – 1967 at Tri-County, and at least three at Anderson Speedway. They ran so well that Charlie had a bounty on him several times at Tri-County.
“One time at Brasstown Bald, Russell Burnette had qualified on the pole and I was outside of him,” he said. “When we went into number one at the start, I wouldn’t back off and neither would he. Of course he got sideways and I did too. I almost went over that back and it was a long way down – let me tell you! So on the next restart I backed off and he went into the lead.
“Another time up there it was a special mid-week race. It rained all around the race track – hard – but only a little at the track. When we got there there wasn’t about 20 or 30 people in the grandstands. He came around and said, ‘we can go home or we can race. If we race, I’ll give you everything we get at the gate if I can have the concession stands.’ We ran and I won but I didn’t get but about $30.
Charlie poses next to a later version of the Bud Ridley/Gene Walker 1956 Fords that he drove. Photo courtesy Charlie Barrett
“Over at Toccoa, we had trouble with Horace York. I ran a ’56 Ford and he did too. One of us would spin the other out sometime during the race. It didn’t do anything but mess up the race car. We would have to fix it the next week. Garland Sheriff came by my shop and told me he hated to do it but he was going to have to ban Horace if he caused any more problems. He gave me $150 to help fix the car. Years later, Horace came by my car lot and we got to talking. Come to find out Garland was telling Horace that he was going to ban me if I caused any trouble. It had all come to an end one night when I spun Horace out. I came back around to the yellow flag but I could see Horace on the backstretch waiting on me. He was sitting so that I couldn’t get by him on the inside so I just went full bore and here he came. Of course I tore my car up but I knocked his front-end off.
“When I ran at Athens Speedway I won the race but they gave it to a local guy. It was a 100-lap race on a holiday weekend. I don’t remember what holiday, but it wasn’t a Friday or Saturday. Bud Lunsford was leading with Charlie Padgett second. I was running third and I had already figured that that was as far as I was going to be able to go. They got tangled up front and spun and that put me in the lead. There was another ’55 or ’56 Chevrolet that we had already lapped before all this happened. I came around and the white flag was waving and then the checkered. But they gave the race to the local guy in the Chevy that we had already lapped. We got into it but you know how it is when you are that far from home. We had some of our guys with us but they had a lot more. I told them fine but I’ll never be back and I never went back. And I was about to lap him again because he was right in front of me when the checkered flag fell.
“I ran Barrow County a few times and won down there. Pretty rough track and a pretty rough crowd. I didn’t run down there many times but I won 2 or 3 races. I had a friend that lived in Winder and he kept wanting me to come down there.”