Not too many people now a days know who Marty Robbins is, but even less knew that he was once a great race car driver. Marty was born in 1925 in Arizona. He lived there until WWII, when he joined the Navy. When he returned home, he was living in Phoenix, until he started to sing, so he moved to Nashville. Thats where he got interested in cars and speed.

He first started out in Micro-Midgets, which would be the equivalent to a quarter midget today. He was now a pretty well known name in the music industry and had some money to play with. Soon, he went from small to big, by getting out of a micro midget and into a custom built 33 Ford coupe called the Devil Woman. He went from just a sponsor, to now a sponsor AND driver. A guy by the name of Bob Reuther had driven this car for Preacher Hamilton. When Marty had heard that Bob was retiring in 1963, he wasted no time in trying to secure that ride. This machine of a car was built by future Nascar driver, Bobby Hamiltons grandfather, whom everyone simply called him preacher. Preacher Hamilton was not only the car owner, but he also built many of the cars that Marty Robbins raced through-out his career. This 33 Ford was purple and yellow, much like his Winston cup cars. The car first had a fairly new 292 Ford, then the next year was switched to a new Chevy 327 engine. He ran this car all over Tennessee, North Alabama and even into the Carolinas and Georgia. He was a competitor against his future Nascar friends of the Allison brothers, Coo Coo Marlin, Red Farmer and many more.

In 1965, his home-track of Nashville was beginning the change that was happening all over the south of getting away from the 30+ year old modified to the newer late model cars. At first the Preacher had built him a 1959 Plymouth, but since that was soon wrecked, a 1962 model car was built and became unstoppable! Just about the only person that could out-run the purple Plymouth was Coo-Coo Marlin. The last late-model he ran there was a 1964 Plymouth with a 57 Chevy frame underneath. Marty was always a kidder and sometimes an honest cheater, and one thing they done was put the radiator in the trunk to even out the weight since the car was set back so much.

In 1967, when the Nascar Grand Nationals visited Nashville for their race, Marty wanted to join in on the fun. He was never competitive, but he had loads of fun, and sometimes, thats all that matters. He never ran a Nascar race again until the next year for the Daytona Firecracker race. He loved Daytona, and made sure to race there as often possible. Unfortunately for Marty, he only completed about 7.5 miles, or three laps. He would drive off and on for the next few seasons, skipping numbers, owners and cars. Some races he would compete in a 3 year old Ford, or a repaired Dodge. Just whatever it took to get into a race. In fact, Marty was the grand marshall for the 1970 Firecracker weekend, in both the Paul Revere 250 and the Firecracker 400. Not because he was a driver, but because of his singing status. He even drove several races in Nascars controversial Grand American series, which featured pony cars like Mustangs, Matadors, Barracudas and Camaros.

Over the next few years in the early 70s, even though winless, Marty was still a fan and driver favorite. He often had some kind of bad luck, whether it was car failure, or a wreck. One time where a bad wreck occurred was at Charlotte in 1974 for the National 500. He was running towards the back of the pack when a wreck occurred in the exit of the dog-leg into turn 1. Cars were spinning side-ways left and right. To avoid the car spinning in front of him, Marty made a hard right turn into the wall at over 160 miles per hour. He wouldve rather taken out the side of his car or the nose, instead of t-boning somebody. And because he done that, he prevented himself from hitting a young Richard Childress square in the drivers door.

Another instance of a good run turned bad by on purpose by Marty was at Talladega in 1972. A special carburetor had been built to compete with Nascars finest. In practice and qualifying, a motorcycle spoke was put in place so the loose restictors would not fall in the ports. He qualified 9 ^th at 174 mph. During the race, he was leading with over 190 mph. He strategy was to run hard and lead for a few laps, then slow down and fall several positions behind, then do it all over again. At one point, he was a whole half-straight behind Buddy Baker, by a half a lap later, he was on Buddys bumper! Its un-known, to me atleast, where he finished, but as soon as he took the checkers, he pulled into the impound yard, found an official, and popped the hood to show him the illegal modification. Before this, Nascar wanted to give him rookie of the race, move of the race and the money for the place he was placed in. But since he wanted to un-hook his modification, he was fined $250 and earned $752 for a 50 ^th place finish.

For the next 10 years, Marty would run Nascar off and on until his last race in Atlanta in 1982, where he finished 32 ^nd , driving a #22 Buick. Less than a month later, he passed away of heart failure at the age of 57 at his home in Nashville. For the last two years when the Winston Cup raced at Nashville in 1983 and 1984, they were both re-named the Marty Robbins 420.

-Cody