Jimmy and his friends all signed up for the Navy and served from 1946-1949. Mosteller, almost couldn’t enlist because of his size, but he ate and stuffed his pockets so he could stay with his friends in the same unit. For most of his service, he was a chauffer for a general over seas.
When he returned home to Ga in 1949, he was still doing odd jobs, mainly working at a few service stations and what-not. But it was at a pavilion of that same year where he met his late wife of 62 years, Betty. After they got married you could usually find them winning medals at the local dance hall dancing their souls out of their shoes.
It wasn’t long after that when Jimmy found his first steady job, a cigar peddler. It all started in one of the small country stores that Jimmy worked in. he always arranged the boxes of Hav-A-Tampa Cigars in a nice fashion so every customer that came in the store could see them. When one of the salesmen named Johnny Greene came in to see how much had sold, he took notice of the young man and soon offered him a job. From then on, Jimmy was to sell Hav-A-Tampa and Tampa Nugget cigars from his 40’ Ford and by knocking on anything that had a door. But what really propelled him was when one day as Jimmy was loading boxes of cigars into his car, and man in a long black Cadillac pulled up and asked him if his father had sold cigars, Jimmy introduced himself and told him he sold the cigars. The man in the Cadillac pulled out a salesman sheet and said he didn’t have a man with that name. And by the time the man in the Cadillac told Jimmy and his boss to come down with them to Tampa Florida, they found out that it was the president of the whole company!
Aside from cigars, this was also the time that Jimmy was first introduced to both announcing and racing. He started announcing when going to horse shows, and found out they didn’t have an announcer, so he offered to take his place for the night and really pulled it off. He also went to his first stock-car race when his long-time friend, Jack Smith took him to the Peachbowl to see a race in which Jack won that night. At that point, Jimmy had his mind made that he would stick to the stock car side of racing. And starting in late 49’, he invested in his own portable sound-system so he could carry it around to different tracks and he knew it wouldn’t have troubles.
See, he would plan his cigar routes at he beginning of the week so at the end of the week, he could end up at several racetracks to do some announcing jobs. At most of the racetracks he went to, he worked for free as long as his cigars could be set up at the concession stands. Since he done free announcing, he would usually get paid in home-cooking!
Most likely the one of the first races he announced at was either at Boyd’s in Chattanooga and at the Dallas Speed Bowl in Dallas Ga. What made him come back were the crowds. Whether he was in front of 50 people or 50,000, he always knew how to work a crowd. He paid the average race fan feel like someone special and that’s what made him one of the greatest there ever was.
One of the tracks that Jimmy got his start was at the Peachbowl Speedway in the early 50’s. He often went there right after it was built to watch em’ go, and within a year, he was co-announcer along with Norm Ash who was the first. After a while, Norm left to announce at another track and Jimmy became the resident announcer until the track closed in 1972. He was there when Nascar done a few weekly shows there in the early 50’s too. Later on in life, he had a chance to travel with Nascar and be one of the main broadcasters, but he turned it down because he loved what he was doing with the local tracks and cigars.
Speaking of Nascar, Jimmy called every Nascar race held at both Lakewood and then Atlanta International up until 1982 when he had a heart attack and when back to local shows.
What I can’t stress enough is how well Jimmy handled the crowd. Every spectator new, and old would feel like they were somebody when they entered the bleachers. He was always calm and knew how to work a worried crowd if there was a wreck. He would do things like advertise for people whose businesses sold his cigars. They didn’t pay him extra for that bit of advertisement, but he always felt like that was important. He would make a slow night seem exciting, like you wanted to jump out of your seat just so you could see what Mr. Mosteller was talking about. He was also known for bringing his cordless microphone and talking to the people in the stands before the race. Just a simple “What’s your name and where ya from” was all people needed to feel like they were on top and would always come back.
And Jimmy always didn’t stay in the booth, one day at the Athens Speedway in 1959, he went down to red-flag the field so more water could be put down on the track. At the moment when he left the safety of the stands, a car ran him over like a weed. When his friend and racer, Charlie Padgett came over to see if he was alright, all Jimmy wanted was another cigar. The next week, he was still in pain, but there was Jimmy, announcing at the Peach Bowl from the back bed of an ambulance!
Now back to the cigars, Jimmy and a group of fellow employees bought out the Hav-A-Tampa company and Jimmy was named Senior National Vice-President of the whole company. It was then when he realized that local dirt track drivers needed a better points system and pay. That’s when he got with friends Mickey and Mike Swims, owners of Dixie and Rome Speedways, and into the idea, and Jimmy founded the Hav-A-Tampa Dirt Racing Series with the series finale All-Star race ending at Dixie. The first year as president in 1990, things went good having competitors from several different states and racetracks. As it grew in the late 90’s, it was nick-named the Nascar of dirt racing. They had an honest points system and a good payout with by 1998, they met Jimmy’s founding goal of giving away $500,000 a race. Jimmy retired from both the series and Hav-A-Tampa in the late 90’s, and with-in two years, the Cigar company was sold and the racing series was sold and re-named the Lucas Oil Dirt Series which still today is one of the biggest dirt series in the country with races from Washington State to Florida.
Jimmy has announced at dozens of tracks (probably every one in Ga, including MGR when the moonshine still was found) from Lakewood, to the Peachbowl, to Boyd’s, Daytona, Atlanta, Columbia, Athens, Looper, Gainsville, Augusta, Valdosta, Dixie, Rome, Mobile Alabama, and the list just goes on and on. He called everything from Drag Racing, Stock Cars, Midget Racing, Sprint Cars, Go-Carts, Horses, Boats, and even Indy Cars. Even though he’s retired, he still makes the regular trek out to Dixie Speedway in Woodstock Ga and mingles with fans both young and old with cigar in one hand and his microphone in the other. He’s had a story book life.
I figured what better to write about on my fifteenth birthday, than the man who first let me talk on a microphone. Thank You Mr. Mosteller!
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