When I was seven years old, in 1962, I wanted a bicycle for Christmas, more than anything! (Do children ask Santa Claus for bikes, now?) Well, anyway, I wanted a bike, and that Christmas, all the neighborhood kids felt the same. Evidently, we had all been good boys and girls, and jolly old St. Nick made it down a lot of Shallotte, NC chimneys that year with bicycles! Me, and my first cousins Al and Jamie Milliken, all woke up to find black and chrome "Roll-Fast" bikes that glorius morning. Me and Al's were identical, 26 inchers, (except on that Christmas morning, Al's new bike had a flat reat tire, and when he and his dad got that fixed, the front tire went ka-putt!..........and IT had to be patched..........I a'int making this up, either) while his younger brother, Jamie's was a 24 inch version and Jamie had to stand on top of a cinder-block, just to get on his bike.We had never head of "Roll-Fast" before, and I can't say that I've heard of them since. Our bikes all made a clanging sound, when coasting.....the chain would flop up and down and audibly striking the chain guard, and the gleaming chrome fenders rusted the very first night from the dew-fall, but none of that mattered. Santa Claus had also included these handle bar grips equipped with these streamers and we all got a "basket" which we all thought looked really dumb, but the baskets had to be installed because Santa had brought them..............etc. etc. I had one friend that got a totally chromed "Firestone" bike that year, and another got a "Western Flyer", and his sister got a blue "girls" 'Flyer.............. one kid woke up that Christmas morning to find his OLD bike re-painted, and awaiting him under the tree by a budgeting S. Claus!My parent's house was right behind my dad's Esso station, BUT beside the station was a vacant lot, and it was owned by those "Western Flyer"-bike kid's father. As winter became summer, one afternoon after a rain shower, I rode my bike over to the vacant lot. It was RED CLAY, common in the North Carolina piedmont, but rare on the coast. We was just plain lucky! Red clay and rain fall can always be counted on to create the ultimate fun-mixture-surface, and, for some reason, I began riding my Roll Fast around that wet red clay vacant lot in an OVAL pattern. And since the clay was impressionable, I was making distinct tracks as 'round and 'round I went.Without really planning it or thinking about it, I soon could imaging myself and my bike being transformed into Richard Petty, his blue Plymouth and I was RACING around RAMBI raceway, clay and EVERYTHING! Well, next afternoon, guess what the neighborhood buzz was about? That's right, we all had bikes, we could all RACE them.........even the girls wanted in on the action.But, first things first. Before any racing could begin, the first requirement was to "become" a REAL race driver. No problem, for me, all the group acknowledged me as the "racing boss" since I had "discovered" the whole thing, so I got first choice, and that was easy: Richard Petty..........he became me......and I affixed a paste board placker featuring "43" to my now-bent-from-too-many-bike-crashes front basket. (guess those dumb baskets were good for something after all!). Jamie was Fred Lorenzen, Kyle White was Ned Jarrett, Emerson Arnold was David Pearson, and Al was having a difficult decision: he loved the number "99" but he also kind of liked Marvin Panch and the Wood Brothers #21. In the end, Al became................ GENE HOBBY.............because Gene was number 99!For some unexplained reason, we named our track..........Blue Raceway. I a'int got a clue. We made a sign, erected it right beside US hwy 17, as the speedway was so located, and the sign included all pertinent information: BLUE RACEWAY...........Racing Boss: Bobby Williamson..........one Saturday, we had a "big" race, and hung balloons on the sign............I remember drafting, for a long time, the blue "Western Flyer". See, its rider had named it "Bluebird" (after Sir Malcolm Campbell??) scrawled with a white Crayola crayon on the rear fender..............but before the race was over, I passed the "Bluebird" in a singshot maneuver..........'cause she was a girl.........and I wurn't gettin' outrunn by no girl racer!