In 1966 I entered the academically prestigious University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Va. as a first yearman (freshman at all other non stuck-up schools). The student body at that time numbered about 11,000 and there was maybe one other stock car racing fan besides me in that number, which was all men, except for the graduate school of nursing. We wore coats and ties and wingtip shoes to class and all other on campus (excuse me, the "grounds" ) functions except sports activities. I met some very nice folks there, but also some particularly stuck up, very rich Yankee prep school grads. The tuition for these out of state boys was many times the in-state tuition and I was using both academic and need scholarships, in addition to borrowing all I could and paying it back for ten years after my college graduation. (Well, I can see some things never change, the lead story in today's Richmond paper opens with this lead: One state legislator, upset that so many constituents' children with stellar grades are denied admission to the University of Virginia, says the school could be called the "University of New York, Charlottesville campus.") You can bet those Richie Rich guys didn't want to talk about stock car racing. I endured my share of barbs every week when my copy of Southern MotorSports Journal arrived at the University post office. Anyway, I have been blessed with a very deep and distinctive voice. I was always the one who had to narrate in school and had a co-lead in the Senior Class Play in high school, etc. Frank Wilson even commandeered me to give the invocation at the American 500 at Rockingham one year when he couldn't find Ned Jarrett. Anyhow, I was encouraged to tryout for the very popular, highly rated, rock-n-roll WUVA-AM radio station (we also had a classical FM station, WTJU). I tried out and was offerred the job of doing a nightly sportscast. This new position afforded me some payback each night to the rich and stuck up. I made sure nightly to intersperse between stories of Bobby Hull's latest goal and Cookie Rojas' new hit total, some kind of racing piece straight from the pages of Bob Hoffman's Journal. Opened the show with a recording of Robert Mitchum's "Thunder Road." Much of the movie had been filmed around Asheville, NCon property owned by one of my classmates' grandparents. But, the biggest coup and trick I played was that I used the name FONTY FLOCK on the air. Nobody else ever guessed or knew who Fonty really was. I never saw Fonty race, but I always loved the stories and liked his mischievous looking photos. It was years later that I finally met brotherTim. I always enjoyed saying, "This is Fonty Flock with sports" on the air. The goofy things we used to do.
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"Any Day is Good for Stock Car Racing"
updated by @dave-fulton: 04/05/17 11:07:23PM
