in 60 the Nashville race came up. at first we weren't going then we decided to.
we were at southern pines where we kept the olds. The owner owned a junk yard there and he had bought the olds from Lee Petty. me and Roy drove from his home in red springs every day to work on the car. well we loaded all our stuff in his 54 chrystler 4 door hooked up the race car and off we wen't A long drive. after stopping in Ashville for a snack and coffee, we headed on west. It was just getting light as we started up a big mountain befor crossvill tenn. I was driving and tyner was laying up against his door sleeping. climbing the mountain, I glanced back at the race car and all I saw was smoke. I stopped and Roy woke up wanting to know what was going on. we started to get out when fire came out from under the car. A trucker stopped and put the fire out. well, Roy said he would get in the race car and push me up to the top of the mountain where we could pull off and see if we could fix the chrystler. I got in the chrystler and he cranked up the olds and when he let the clutch out we didn't move. I walked back to the race car and saw gears rolling accross the road. blew the bottom out. the trucker took a chain and pulled us up to the top of the mountain where we got off in a gravel area. several drivers stopped and offered help but with nothing they could do went on. we patched the spark plugs up, put some oil in the transmission and started down the other side of the mountain . at the bottom, we pulled into a resturant and as we got out, the car caught on fire again. hell, we just went on inside and let it burn itself out. inside we found a guy that owned a junk yard close by he sold us a 48 chevrolet with bald tires,bad brakes and no back seat but it ran. we put all our tools and parts in the old chevie and headed on to Nashville. by the time we got there everybody including Nascar knew of our problemwith a tore up transmission we couldn't race but we found the car would pull in high gear so Nascar agreed to let us put the car out and take the green flag so we could get last place pay. I towed the olds all the way back home with that old vacumn shift chevy and the owner came and towed the chrystler back. I actually beat them home by a couple of hrs. what a life.
Here's the race report from Racing Reference showing Roy earning $75 and going out with "Transmission" issue, lol. Great story, William.
Sunday, August 7, 1960 at Nashville Speedway , Nashville, TN
400 laps* on a .500 mile paved track (200.0 miles)
Average Speed: 56.966 mph
Pole Speed: 74.81 mph
Margin of Victory: n/a
Attendance: n/a
Lead changes: n/a
wow, can't believe you found that, thanks what site did you find that?
use this link, William for racing Reference: http://racing-reference.info/
Race preview from The Tennessean showing Roy in the #9 Olds.
great thanks $75. didn't go very far. the track paid for our motel room since we had so much trouble getting there. we traveled on a shoestring in the day as did others. side note, when we got home we tried everywhere to locate a transmission. Olds didn.t make many straight drive transmissions and you couldn't buy one from the dealer. only for police cars etc. we went to Darllington ready but with no transmission. got the engine through inspection and as a last resort had to get lee petty you bring us one as he had stocked up when he got the car. high dollar too. wish we hadn't as we were involved in the fatal wreck with Bobby Johns on the back stretch. I was sitting on the pit wall near turn 4. roy had spun out on the front stretch and made a surprise pit stop. I checked his tires and sent him back out. didn't know if he had flat spotted the tires or not so I was watching for him every time he came off turn 2. I saw him in the middle grove and Bobby past him on the outside. bobby had barely got by roy when his pontiac suddenly dove right accross roys front end like something broke. he got sideways and roy got into his door and both were heading for Joe Lee Johnstons car in the pits. Paul Mcduffy saw them coing and told Joe Lee to go. he just got gone as Bobbys car caught up with McDuffy, Joe Sweatland and Pops tailor, a nascar official. I saw Bobbys car flipping with one of the men caught in the bumper.. it turned out to be a disaster. not only that everyone was blowing tires that day. on the home stretch Spook Crawfords car was making a pit stop and Spook had his head in the window of bunkey Blackmans car when a spinning car crashed into him, broke all the bones in Spooks face and nearly killed him. don't know why they didn't cancel the race after all the fatalilties that day but they finished the race. all vidios I have found don't even show the wreck and give it little attention.