My NC Back Roads Journey Unearthed a Petty Family Remembrance

by: Dave Fulton

Johnny Mallonee recently posted on this site about Georgia back roads and the luck brought to racers who traveled them. Johnny and Tommie Clinard  were some of the hundreds of racers who've traveled the Georgia back roads over the years heading to long gone racing venues.

As we tried to guess the secret Johnny tempted us to uncover, we learned about various Georgia towns and courthouse squares that were the stuff of picture postcards.

My wife and I, along with our two grandsons, drove over from Charlotte to Wilson in eastern North Carolina for a couple of days this week to visit her remaining family in her birthplace and the birthplace of each of my grandsons' mothers. After enduring the traffic of Interstate 85 & Interstate 40 and inspired by Johnny Mallonee's back road memories, I hatched a plan that I would reveal to my wife and grand kids only when it was time to depart Wilson and return to Charlotte.