Crawfish and I traveled together for about two years in the 50s. We both lived in Greensboro NC and I worked on my car in his garage. The two most fun trips I had with him was to McCormic (sp)field in Ashville and Columbia SC then overnight on to Jacksonville NC. No sleep for over 44 hours.
We were both young and broke most of the time.
He was one of my best friends back in my racing days.
One of the main reasons was as a young man I got to race on the same tracks at the same time(not very successfuly) as many great Drivers.
Here is list of some of them:
Fonty Flock, Curtis Turner,Buck Baker,Jimmy Thompson,Jimmy Lewallen,Lee Petty,Jim Paschal,Frank Munday,Cotten Owens,Fireball Roberts,Bill Blair,Ray Duhigg,Shorty York,Bill Widenhouse,Ted Swaim,Speedy Thompson.Earl Moss,Ralph Liguori,Billy Myres, Bobby Myres,Bill Champion,Alton Haddock,Leon Sales,Gwyn Staley,Marvin Panch,Buddy Shuman,Perk Brown,Banjo Mathews,Joe Weatherly,Carl Burris,Ned Jarrett,Doug Yates, George Dunn, Glenn Wood,Dick Mendenhall, and many more.
It was fun!
I can remember as a 6 year old (1934) the old hand cranked wall phone. My mother and Aunts used to crank the phone then ask the Operator ring # ******. It was a 4 party line we were # 2 ring. If you wanted person to person, it was more expensive. We were in the middle of a depression so person to person was never used.
I saw Ted Horn win a race at the NC State Faigrounds in 1947.
In 1951 Big Bill decided to build Raleigh Speedway. The people of Raleigh fought him tooth and nail.
The wanted Raleigh to be maintained as aReligious and Educational Center.
The reason I replyed so quickly, "Curtis Turner" was I was on the track with him many times at Raleigh Speedway. You might notice I didn't say "raced", because if you tried to race him you would end up in the gaurd rail. In my old age (84) every so often I have a Night Mare. One of the dominent one is hearing Curtis' 180 degree crank engine pulling up behind me, I knew pull over and let him by!
