Curtis Turner Inducted Into NASCAR Hall Of Fame
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This piece is offered in loving memory of legendary
NASCAR driver Curtis Turner, who on Friday, January 22, 2016 will finally
assume his rightful place as an inducted member of the NASCAR Hall of Fame.
Congratulations to his family and friends, who have waited so long for this
honor. Curtis, I wish you were still here to see the festivities as NASCAR
finally acknowledges you as the driver extraordinaire that you were. “Suzi”,
this one’s for you! ~PattyKay
Way back in the beginning, long before Richard Petty
became "The King", before Dale Earnhardt ever intimidated anyone and
even longer before Jimmy Spencer never forgot and another Jimmie won six times,
there was a racecar driver named Curtis Turner who made those good ol’ boys seem like pussycats by comparison. It’s probably safe to say that Curtis
wouldn’t have made it in today’s politically correct NASCAR, so it’s a good
thing that he came on the scene when he did because he is a legend, pure and
simple.
When on the racetrack, he would never have been
satisfied with merely intimidating a competitor. He was far more likely to
erase them, even at the expense of wrecking himself in the bargain. Today’s car
owners and mega-bucks sponsors seem to have some problem with that sort of
behavior. Back in the 50s when NASCAR was in its infancy, drivers didn’t make
much money, but they were allowed to have personalities, so hang onto your hats
because I have some marvelous tales to spin about Curtis Turner and his
personality!
Curtis was born in 1924 in Floyd, Virginia, which lies
just west of where the Blue Ridge Parkway traverses the mountains, and grew up
with a father who was in the lumber business.
When grown, Curtis took over that business and managed to make $millions
with it, but managed to spend or lose as much as he made, only to wheel and
deal and make it all back again. I don’t know for sure, but it seems to me that
his middle name must have been “fun” because that is what he lived and died
for, the fun of it all.
Growing up in the mountains of Virginia, it was just a
natural thing that he would align with the local moonshine runners of his day,
or the “Shine clan” as he called them. It can’t be proven that he ever actually
transported “corn squeezin's”, since he was never arrested for it, but
certainly, he raced and partied with a whole lot of those that did.
He ran his first actual race (One that wasn’t through
the back woods of Virginia) in 1946 at a small track in Mt. Airy, NC, and was
ready and waiting when Big Bill France initiated NASCAR as a sanctioning body
for stock car racing. His first “official” win came in September of 1949 at the
little circular bullring in Langhorne, PA. By far his most impressive year was
1956 when he was racing in the convertible division and claimed 22 victories
out of 43 races. Putting a cap on that year, he welded a top on his car and
dominated the Southern 500 as well.
Turner was never crowned a NASCAR Champion, for a
couple of very good reasons. The first reason was that although he racked up
over 350 wins in his career, a large percentage of them were not NASCAR
sanctioned races. The second reason is that it is a given fact, had he not
destroyed so many cars on the track his win total would be far greater than it
was.
In the garage area, he was known as “Pops”, which was
not the fatherly term that it would seem to be. It stemmed from the noise that
is made when one car “pops” another in the left rear quarter panel, a move that
usually culminates with the car that was popped finding the wall. To Turner,
that was part of the fun! As much as he loved to win, he also thoroughly
enjoyed seeing someone else lose, even if that someone was teammate and best
pal, Little Joe Weatherly.
(The actual singer on this recording is Frankie Starr.
"Clay Pitts" is a stage name for the group that recorded this along
with its flip-side, "The Great Fireball." Both songs
are now available on a CD called "Elevator Boogie" by Frankie
Starr.)
Those two sometimes would go to banging on each other
just for the pure joy of it and every time they did it, the crowd went wild. If
you could get Turner and Weatherly to come to your race track, you’d have a
sold out grandstand every time. Maybe the only one that didn’t totally enjoy
“the show” as they called it, was car owner Ralph Moody, who had to pick up the
bills for both beaten and wrecked racecars.
He (Ralph) told a story about a race in Virginia where
Curtis and Lee Petty got into it on the race track, but it didn’t end there. If
you have a long memory, you know that Lee Petty was a very serious racer. He
made all the races, which few others did back in the early days, and nothing
but winning was deemed acceptable. Lee was as tough a driver as you’d want to
see, but he wasn’t one who would take you out for the fun or it. Curtis was!
They commenced to banging on each other throughout the race, with Curtis coming
out the eventual winner while Lee brought home only a damaged racecar.
After the race, Curtis was sitting on a split-rail
fence, enjoying an adult beverage from a bottle in a paper bag when Lee walked
up to him with a rolled up newspaper in his hand that he was gently slapping
against his leg. “I want to talk to you,” Lee said, and then proceeded to whack
Curtis right off the fence when that newspaper hit his head. Inside that
newspaper was a torque wrench! I’ve heard tell that it didn’t accomplish what
Lee had hoped, because he was in Curtis’ sights on the racetrack from that day
forward.
Little
Joe (L) & Curtis (R) 1956 Orange Speedway
Once, Moody got so mad at Curtis for slamming Joe’s
car around at Darlington that he told him, “If you do that again, we won’t pit
you.” Of course, Curtis did it again, and the next time he pulled into the pits
the crew just sat there looking back at him and made no move toward the car.
According to Moody, Curtis was so mad that he just slammed the car into the
cement wall, but it didn’t end there. The next day, driving a brand new
Cadillac, Curtis showed up at the garage and drove that car right through the
roll-up door (Which was closed at the time), backed up and drove away. (And
they say that Jimmy Spencer never forgets!)
There was one time when Curtis was driving the pace
car at the Charlotte fairgrounds and had a reporter, Max Muhleman
from the Charlotte News, in the back seat of the 1956 Ford convertible. When
the green flag flew, Curtis didn’t pull off the track as he was supposed to,
but floored that Ford and took off, leading the pack. Poor Max in the back seat
was tossed every way but loose and scared about out of his wits. Remember, cars
had no seat belts back then. He kept screaming at Curtis that the racecars were
going to hit them. Curtis laughed and said, “Nah, they won’t hit us, and if
they do, I’ll hit them back.” That lasted for two laps before Curtis finally
turned the poor fellow loose in the infield, laughing all the way.
Now, as wild as the antics of Curtis and his pal,
Little Joe were on the track, they didn’t even compare to some of the stuff
they pulled off the track. These were not your basic family-oriented men and
what both loved to do was party! If you thought that Tim Richmond traveled in
the fast lane, Curtis and Joe would make him look like an altar boy by
comparison. Every year they rented a place together in Daytona Beach that they
referred to as the “Party Pad” and it soon became legendary. Parties at the
Party Pad didn’t last for hours. They lasted for days! Hard liquor flowed like
water over Niagara Falls and the place never closed. Now, mind you, no one here
is promoting the idea of making Canadian Club the pre-race beverage of choice,
but those boys did it with regularity. Arriving at the track hung over and
without sleep was almost the norm, but it never seemed to detract from their
racing skills.
There was a scene in “Days of Thunder” in which Cole
Trickle and Rowdy Burns were frammin’ and bammin’ in a pair of rental cars. That scene was based on an escapade that actually
involved Curtis and Little Joe.
One year at Daytona, they had each rented a car and
decided that a race back to the motel was in order. They took those cars out on the four-lane and
commenced to banging each other, strewing car parts in their wake as they went.
When they reached the motel, Turner slowed, but Weatherly kept right on
driving. After all, there was a bottle of Canadian Club on the line, and a
little trip into the swimming pool wasn’t about to stop him from winning it.
Emerging from the sunken car, Joe collected his winnings and toasted his
victory on the spot. Reportedly, his
first comment was, "Guess we're gonna have to call a tow truck, huh Pops?"
The rental car company blackballed both men, to the point of sending their
pictures to offices near every track, with instructions never to rent to them
again.
Curtis was also an accomplished pilot and used his
personal aircraft not only for traveling to races, but as a tool in his
thriving lumber business. Of course, being Curtis, he also used that plane for
shenanigans. There’s been a story around for many years, in different versions,
of Curtis putting that plane down on the main street of a small southern town,
making an alcoholic purchase and taking off again, to the detriment of the
power lines which just happened to be in his way. Depending on which tale you
believe, he either got away with that or had his pilot’s license lifted. Heck,
he may have done it twice and both stories are correct.
Another tale has him up in the air with Little Joe and
a journalist, when he decided to have a bit of sport with Weatherly. He quietly
cut one engine, and then pointed the fact out to Joe. When Joe, who was also a
pilot, began to fret, Curtis cut the second engine and started the plane in a
spiraling descent. About the time that Joe was ready to go into cardiac arrest,
he re-fired the engines and straightened the plane, laughing all the way. The
journalist, I’ve heard tell, needed a change of BVDs.
It’s said that he took prospective buyers up in the
plane to survey timberlands and often closed high–finance deals before even
landing. The same talent that he had for driving and partying was equaled by
his ability to deal with people and most certainly, with money. In his short
lifetime, he made and lost entire fortunes and it never seemed to bother him.
Well, I take that back; once it did bother him, and that’s the next chapter in
our story.
Curtis Turner was the man who built the Charlotte
Motor Speedway. No matter what you’ve heard about Bruton Smith, he entered the
picture a bit later. The original concept, construction and financing were all
attributable to Curtis Turner. It was his baby, and it cost him part of his
racing career.
The track opened for business at the World 600 in
1960, heavily burdened with debt. Curtis had to dig into his own pockets to
assure purse money for that race, and the money from the gate helped some, but
there were still many creditors looking to be paid. Curtis hired a skilled
accountant to handle the speedway finances and within a year, many of the debts
had been paid and there was light at the end of the tunnel. Unfortunately, the
Board of Directors didn’t see it that way and in June of 1961, summarily ousted
Curtis as President of the Speedway. The man who had recently become
Vice-President, Bruton Smith, resigned in protest of the Board’s action.
Curtis took it in stride and decided to do something
about the outstanding debt on the track. With contact initiated by his
accountant, he met with the Teamsters’ Union (An idea that had been suggested a
year before but never acted upon) and agreed to try to organize the drivers as
a Local of the Teamsters. In consideration of that effort, the Union proffered
a loan reported to have been in the $800,000 range, ample to satisfy all of his
creditors.
As good as his word, Turner went about contacting all
of the drivers and pushing hard for the idea of a union. On August 8, 1961, he
released a statement that read, “A majority of the drivers on the Grand
National Circuit have signed applications and paid initiation dues of $10 for
membership in the Federation of Professional Athletes.”
That statement was tantamount to waving a red flag at
a charging bull, and that bull was known as Big Bill France. When word got to
France about the union, he made a little statement of his own: “No known
Teamster member can compete in a NASCAR race, and I’ll use a pistol to enforce
it.” (He had been known to do that very thing)
Before the next race, at Bowman Gray Stadium in
Winston-Salem NC, France met with the drivers and issued what amounted to a
decree, “Gentlemen, before I have this union stuffed down my throat, I will
plow up my two-and-a-half mile track at Daytona Beach and plant corn in the
infield. Auto racing is one of the few sports that has never had a scandal.
We’ll fight this union to the hilt.” Following that, he issued lifetime
suspensions to Turner and two drivers who assisted him in the organizing
effort, Tim Flock and Glenn (Fireball) Roberts, for “Conduct detrimental to
auto racing.”
Within two days, Fireball Roberts resigned from the
union and realigned himself with France. He was reinstated in NASCAR, but Flock
and Turner remained under suspension. Other drivers soon followed Roberts’ lead
and resigned from the union. In the end, France stood victorious as so often
happened. It was his game, and folks were expected to play by his rules. Turner
and Flock fought the NASCAR law…and the law won.
Curtis continued to race over the next few years,
though not in NASCAR sanctioned races. By 1965, Big Bill had a change of heart
and offered to reinstate both Turner and Flock. Turner accepted, but Tim Flock
declined and never ran another NASCAR race. Curtis won his first race after returning
to NASCAR at the North Carolina Motor Speedway in Rockingham. He started the
inaugural American 500 in fourth place, driving for Glen Wood, and was a force
to be reckoned with right from the start. In the end, it was a two horse race
between Turner and young Cale Yarborough, with Turner coming to the checkers
first. It was obvious that the man could still drive!
The year 1967 found Curtis driving one of Smokey Yunick’s famous Chevelles, but
after he crashed hard at Atlanta, Smokey took leave of that partnership saying,
“I will not build the car that Curtis Turner was killed in.” Smokey, if you
will remember, was always more concerned with the drivers than with the races.
After that, Curtis rather drifted in and out of
retirement, racing only when the price was right or something intrigued
him. He continued that way until his
premature death in 1970 at age 46. Ironically, Turner did not die on a race
track, but while he was chauffeuring professional golfer Clarence King in his
airplane. The plane hit a mountainside in Pennsylvania and both were killed. It
was rumored that Curtis sometimes set the controls on auto-pilot and caught a
little nap while flying, but no one will ever know exactly what happened that
day because there was no one left to tell of it.
In his short but fun-filled life, Curtis Turner
stacked up some very impressive records and accomplishments:
Ø He is
the only NASCAR driver ever to win 25 major NASCAR races in a season driving
the same car in each. (1956 ~ 22 wins in the #26 in the convertible division
and the rest, including the Southern 500, with the top welded in place)
Ø He is
the only driver to have won a major NASCAR race that was red-flagged because he
was the only car still running. (Asheville-Weaverville track in NC, on
September 30, 1956)
Ø He was
the first driver to climb Pike’s Peak in less than 15 minutes. (14 minutes, 37
seconds ~ in a 1962 Ralph Moody Ford)
Ø He was
the first driver to qualify for a NASCAR Grand National race at a speed greater
than 180 miles per hour (1967 Daytona 500 ~ Smokey Yunick’s
#13, a 1967 Chevrolet)
Ø In 1968,
Turner was featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated (A first for a NASCAR
driver) with an accompanying article entitled, “King of the Wild Road,” wherein
he was referred to as the “Babe Ruth of Stock Car Racing.” In his racing
career, he racked up 353 race wins in various venues.
The year after his death, Curtis was voted into the
National Motorsports Press Association Hall of Fame. On that occasion, Big Bill
France, who knew them all and had seen them all race said, “Curtis Turner was the greatest racecar driver I have ever seen.” Turner was inducted into the International
Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1992, and in 1998 was named as one of NASCAR’s
fifty greatest drivers.
Curtis Turner might have never won a NASCAR
Championship, but he was a champion in every sense of the word. He lived life
to the fullest, every day that he lived. He drove hard, he wheeled and dealt
hard and most assuredly, he partied hard. No, Curtis would not have made it in
today’s Politically Correct version of NASCAR. We have seen multi-thousand
dollar fines dished out for a mere cuss word. Just try to imagine Mike Helton
dealing with Curtis. (There is your hilarious visual for the day!) I don’t
think they make fines that big!
I hope you’ve enjoyed this stroll down Memory Lane
with me, because it’s been a pure joy for me. There are so many tales about the
life and times of Curtis Turner that in the interest of space (and keeping you
reading) I have only touched on the highlights here. Do yourself a favor and
learn more about this giant among men. It is great reading!
Gentle readers, this old fan will be watching and
cheering this Friday as Curtis Turner is finally officially inducted into the NASCAR
Hall of Fame, adding that honor to all the other Halls of Fame into which he
was inducted years ago. Allow me to close in my usual gentle and sedate manner
by saying, “It’s about damn time!”
(In the interest of space and your valuable time,
there will be not Classic Country Closeout this week. It will return to this
page with the next article.)
Be well gentle readers, and remember to keep smiling.
It looks so good on you!
~PattyKay