An Uncle's Legacy to His Nephew
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He
was born in June of 1935, the fourth child of the Boyles family. His mother
named him Robert Ludwig Boyles as she was a lady who appreciated classical
music. The Boyles parents were a part of
a musical troop on weekends, playing mostly bluegrass and country music; but
Bobby, as he was called, would have no part of the music. Well, there was the habit of singing with the
radio when he was driving if that counts.
As
Bobby grew, he became fascinated with mechanical things, especially
automobiles. The story goes that when he
was 12 years old, he completely rebuilt the engine in a 1930 Plymouth his
father had parked when it "quit running.”
Almost immediately upon getting that Plymouth running, he cut off the
top making it what was known in the 50s as a hotrod, but this was long before
the era portrayed in the television
series "Happy Days.” Also when Bobby was 12, his sister gave birth to a
boy and as she and her husband lived just across the street from Bobby, it was
not unusual for Bobby to be engaged to "baby-sit" the kid.
When
the kid was a couple months short of his sixth birthday, Bobby and his Daddy
were going to the local half mile race track for the weekly races, as was their
custom. Whether it was Bobby's idea, his
father's idea, or the sister's idea, the kid was going to the races that
night. Looking back, it was probably
more of a blessing to Bobby's sister as she had another boy who had just turned
three and another not yet 8 months old.
Although
Bobby and his father would normally watch the races from the infield, it was
decided on that night that the grandstands would be the place to sit just in
case the kid couldn't take the noise they could get out and go home. They need not have worried. From the first sound of an engine firing up,
the kid was beside himself with excitement.
As the evening wore on and the cars raced around that dirt track, the
kid was forever changed in his outlook on life.
I know that for a fact, because I am that kid.
From
that very first night at the race track, Uncle Bobby, or simply
"Bobby" as I called him, knew he had a buddy for the races. His father, my grandfather, continued to
take us to the local track almost every week, but when Bobby got his driver's
license at 15, it was the local track on Thursday, another track nearby on
Friday and another track on Saturday.
When not at the race tracks, Bobby was working on cars and working on
his hotrod Plymouth. The family owned
almost 10 acres of flat land, mostly used for farming, but Bobby talked his Daddy
into letting him carve out a quarter-mile track on one corner or that
property.
I
actually learned to drive, probably around age 7 or 8 when Bobby took me out on
that track in that Plymouth. By age 10 I
was power sliding that Plymouth around that track like Tiny Lund could power
slide around a dirt track. I was around
12 when the engine in that Plymouth "blew" making a hole in the block
the size of a softball. That was the end
of the Plymouth.
Bobby
got a Cushman motor scooter and immediately went to work on the small
engine. After a couple days work, that
Cushman would fly. I clearly remember
sitting on the front porch on a summer evening, just after dark, watching fireflies
light up the yard when we heard Bobby coming down the dirt street leading to
our house at a very high rate of speed.
We watched in horror as that Cushman careened into the four strand
barbed wire fence and Bobby went flying into the field beyond. We all ran the 50 yards to where the Cushman
lay smoking and Bobby lay bleeding.
Bobby had managed to personally encounter all four strands of that
barbed wire at full force and he was bleeding all over. It was a long night as bandages and
mercurochrome were depleted from two households.
Over
the years Bobby and I, and later Bobby and his wife Mary, and then his daughter
Debbie, went to races from the local tracks to almost every speedway NASCAR was
operating in the Southeastern United States. Daytona, Darlington and Charlotte
were the three superspeedways around in those days and we were there for all
the races. Bobby never got tired of
going and I never got tired of going with him.
What adventures we had.
I
will never understand why Bobby never tried his hand at driving a race car,
other than his experiences on his homemade dirt track. He could drive with the best. Even if driving was not his interest,
certainly he would have been one of the best mechanics to ever turn a wrench on
a NASCAR team. Yet, he was content to be a spectator and to cheer his favorite
each week.
I
started talking about driving a race car on the way home from that first race
in 1952. Bobby never said much about
that but he would, from time to time, jokingly ask when I was going behind the
wheel. That finally happened on August
21, 1969, at the same speedway where I was introduced to the sport. That first night I finished second in the
heat, and a close third in the feature.
When I pulled into the pits afterwards, Bobby was standing behind the
wire fence separating the pits from the infield. I walked toward him and he stuck his hand
through the wire to shake my hand and with a tear in the corner of one eye he
said “you did it boy.” I often wish that
I had been grounded enough that night to respond “WE DID IT”, but Bobby knew.
After
five years behind the wheel, never as a winner, I gave it up and went into
radio broadcasting, covering racing for the local 100,000 watt FM Station,
eventually turning the show into a half hour every Friday to talk racing. Bobby never admitted he listened, but he
always would comment about something I had said so I know he was right there
beside that radio.
Bobby
died in October, three years ago. He had
been in failing health for five years, requiring dialysis three times a
week. Until the very end, he would roll
that wheelchair into that handicap van and drive himself there, as well as
anywhere else he wanted to go.
Bobby's
hobby, in later life, was going to car dealerships and playing with a salesman
all day, talking the guy down on the price of a new car until they were close
to paying Bobby to take it. When he
died, he had quite a collection of cars, all with minimal mileage. He had instructed his daughter to be sure I
got the silver 2005 Mercury Grand Marquis for all my racing travels. He was always thinking about cars until the
second he died. He and I spent many a
day in those last couple of years either in his hospital room or at his home,
talking over all the things we had experienced in all our years together around
racing. His memory was flawless.
Bobby
left me more than a silver Mercury.
Bobby left me the legacy of a love for stock car racing, which still
burns within me today. What happened
that night in 1952 sparked that fire and Bobby stoked it every day of his life.
I will be forever grateful that I had
Uncle Bobby in my life. I can assure you that if there are race tracks in
heaven, as we fans believe, Bobby is right there, with Mary, cheering on his
favorite. Thank you Bobby, for all you
gave me for my life.
And
that is the story of how I became so involved in stock car racing. Further, the
memories I have of all those early years and the adventures we shared at tracks
all over the Southeast, have made preserving the history and heritage of the
sport in an honest way… the way it happened, very important to me. Call it fate; call it irony, or call it
whatever you feel befits it, but when ghosttracks.racing
came calling with the offer of a partnership to work towards the goal of an
accurate record of racing history, I was ready.
It was akin to that hot August night in 1969 when I climbed through the
window of that '59 Plymouth to race for the first time. Bobby was there then, and Bobby is with me
now, reminding me that what we witnessed in those early years was the laying of
the foundation of a sport that would consume us both for life.
Thank
you Bobby. Thank you.