Every year for the past 45, there's been a little get-together in these parts called The Georgia Mountain Moonshine Festival. RacersReunion was to have a "large presence" at the Festival this year, but as it neared, things fell apart. Amazing how all those folks from any state with Carolina in the name all beg me to come to this or that function, which is "only" eight or more hours from my home... on the expressways... without pit stops. This year, when asked to make the trip going the other way, it suddenly became too far to drive... price of gas, you know.
I was, to say the least, very disappointed that so many I'd looked forward to seeing would not be coming after all. Enter Bill McPeek another time. Bill was coming up to the retreat, along with his neighbor Steve Miller, another Florida racer. They planned on going to the Festival and would I like them to pick me up? Wow! Would I ever! They pulled into my driveway at the appointed hour on Saturday morning, and we were off for the big city of Dawsonville, Georgia, home of that red-headed kid that made all that noise on the tracks back in the '80s.
To say that the place was packed doesn't begin to do it justice. It was a mob scene, pure and simple. We had to park somewhere near the next county over, out behind the Georgia Racing Hall of Fame. I had wisely loaded up on Advil before leaving, and had a supply on hand. No old Greek was going to spoil my good time. I'd deal with him another day. Bill, as it turned out, had never met a female like me... or so he gave me to understand. He was completely taken aback when in the course of conversation it became clear that I not only knew the words "caster" and "camber", but knew which was which when I unconsciously mimicked the positions with my hands while talking. (The Irish can do that too!)
All day long, he continued to remark on how much I knew about cars and racing... "for a girl." I guess that's why they used to call me a "Tomboy." Today, I'll happily settle for being called a girl. We had a marvelous time that Saturday, and did manage to run into a couple of RacersReunion members, quite by accident. In a crowd estimated to be in excess of 150,000, it's difficult to find someone on purpose. It wasn't until the day was almost over that I found out Bill and Steve had made the trip, not to close the retreat for the winter, as I had thought, but simply to escort me to the Festival. While many thought it too far to come from nearby states, Bill McPeek... a man I had met in person only once, drove from Orlando Florida to North Georgia solely to see that an old lady got to go to the Moonshine Festival and have a good time. Is it any wonder that Bill, still racing well into his 70s, is my Saturday Night Hero? He more than earned that honor!
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This is a story I was asked to write about one of my Saturday Night Heroes. This story takes a long time to tie the ends together... forty nine years to be exact, and started way back in 1963, when I was a young man… 23 years old.
After completing a 15-month tour of duty in beautiful Goose Bay Labrador, I was ordered to report to the Air Defense Headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Before I was sent to the “Goose” I had been at Griffiss AFB in Rome, NY and had enjoyed building a nice '37 Plymouth modified coupe and got to run it a few times at several area tracks. As a noncompetitive back tracker, I was always pulling for the unknown guys and underdogs.
The air force refused to ship anything except our primary car, which was a 1955 Chevy 2- door with a warmed up 283 C.I. motor. We had to sell all my race equipment or almost gave it away, but that’s the way it was in the service. I asked for and was given a 30-day leave, so on August 1, 1963, I caught a ride on an Air Force Transport plane to the base in New Jersey where we all left from or re-entered the U.S. My next hop was to Dover Delaware and then I caught a ride down to McCoy AFB in Orlando, Florida where my wife and son were staying with her parents, who had just retired after 26 years in the Air force.
After spending a couple weeks trying to get warm again, we decided to drive to Colorado Springs. A stopover in Kentucky to visit my uncle and cousins was planned before driving up to Chicago and then on to Colorado. I remember we arrived in Kentucky on August 14, 1963, which was my birthday. The following week end my cousin asked me if I was still interested in stock car racing. I said sure and why did he want to know. He then told me that the next day, Sunday, August 18, was a big race day over in Ona, West Virginia… the Mountaineer 300, and started naming all the big names that were going to be there. After he said Richard Petty, Junior Johnson, Buck Baker and Fred Lorenzen, I was more than ready to go. We drove over in the morning, about 45 miles, and stood in the longest line I had seen since basic training. There were over 15,000 fans there counting every piece of standing-room space. I remember that the #28 car of Fred Lorenzen was on the pole and won the race. As I remember, Richard Petty was several laps down at the end and Junior Johnson finished 100 laps of the 300 on the 3/8-mile track.
It was the only time I ever got to see Wendell Scott drive and only remember that because he was so many laps down. This brings me to the guy that really impressed me that day. He was driving a ‘63 Ford owned by a Mr. Zervakis, and I remember how the local announcer massacred the owner’s name over and over. All I knew was that car #20 really put on a show that day and the announcer kept saying it was his first or second race and everyone was pulling for him. He finished just outside the top ten that day, behind Marvin Panch and Richard Petty .
I had forgotten his name after going on to Colorado, building another car and staying out there for two years before moving to Dayton, Ohio and working for the Chrysler Corporation.
In 1980 we moved to Tampa, Florida and then over to Orlando in 1986, where I got back into racing on the local level and ended up with a very storied 1937 Plymouth modified coupe with a long history at the Wall Stadium in New Jersey… but that’s another story for a later date.
About 5 years ago, I was asked to join the Living Legends [of Auto Racing] group in Daytona Beach and have enjoyed my time there a great deal. One of the fellow members is Jack Anderson and I got to know Jack very well. A year ago, I went to New Jersey and picked up a 1935 Chevy coupe with a strong 6-cylinder motor and it carried the number 20. At one of our recent meetings, Jack Anderson and I were talking about my new car and he mentioned that he liked the # 20 as that was his car number also. I then started to tell him about the young man I saw 49 years ago drive the # 20 in West Virginia. He looked at me funny and said “you’re kidding me, right?” I asked what he meant and he then told me he was the driver of that #20 Ford in the first Mountaineer 300. I was floored, to say the least. What are the odds, 49 years after a chance visit to a small track, you get to see someone you had admired all those years? 
Jack went on to tell me he had lost all his trophies, programs and racing stuff a few years back. I went home and started digging through all my stuff that the wife always wants to throw out, and found the copy of the NASCAR bulletin listing the finishing order and payout for that race.
This past Tuesday evening we had our monthly meeting and potluck dinner at the Living Legends Museum and I gave my copy to Jack. He was floored and actually had a tear in his eye. I was happy to do that for a Saturday Night Hero and a friend of mine……
-Bill
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Isn't it amazing, the things we attribute to "coincidence?" One has to wonder if indeed it could be merely coincidence that put Bill and Jack together after 49 years. What are the odds indeed, that two men that had never met, and only one of whom even remembered the other vaguely, would come together and become friends in what amounts to almost a different lifetime?
I shall probably never meet Jack Anderson, but I already like him, as an extension of the friendship Bill has offered to me. Who does things such as drive several hundred miles just to give a ride to a friend, and a day of companionship? Well, Bill McPeek does... the same Bill McPeek that would spend hours or perhaps days digging through 50 years of memorabilia to find a single bulletin in order to give it to a friend. Oh, and I probably should also mention that Bill and Bunnie plan to retire soon to their mountain retreat, and I... I shall have new neighbors, just up the road a piece.
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