Stick In the late 60s and early 70s my husband used to help with Freddy Smith's race car and we were at Concord, Metrolina, Carolina, Gaffney and Shelby race tracks every race. I remember Stick very well. Those were the days of Carl Smart, Hawood Plyler, Ralph Earnhardt, Speedy Thompson, Lefty Bolton, Freddy Smith, Mike Duval, Billy Scott, and so many more I can't remember but there are always those who stick in your mind because you got close to them. I used to go sit in the car with Stick's girlfriend (later his wife and mother of his daughter) and talk to her while he raced. Her car was a Monte Carlo, about a 70. I can't remember her name. Once during a race at Shelby Raceway, the fans had a temper tantrum about someone Stick put out and wanted their money back for their tickets. When the didn't get it back, they tore up the bathrooms in the stands and threw the commodes on the track. Stick, his girlfriend and myself were walking down pit road and his words were, " I love it when they hate me. It just makes me money." And he laughed. We all laughed. And yes he had a lot to do with teaching Dale Earnhardt to drive. He and Ralph would get Dale between them during practice on the track and Stick would push Dale into Ralph and Ralph would spin Dale out every time he hit him in the rear. Ralph was the best driver I ever saw who could put someone out when they hit him in the rear. They would really give Dale a hard time. One would push him into the turns really fast and make him so mad. He would come back into the pits very angry at them. Stick was pretty wild until he got married and had a daughter, then he settled down, bought a place to live and became a good father. What killed him was this; when they were building the by-pass around Shelby, he went to get some dirt from under the overpasses to fertilize his yard. There were pigeons that roosted under those underpasses and the soil was rich with their droppings. Stick would not eat chicken, hated it. But a bird is what killed him. He got some kind of disease in his lungs from those droppings and the doctors could not heal him. It was a very sad day. He was a fun loving, friendly, and awesome person who had finally found happiness in his life and it ended all too soon.