Remember J D Mcduffie today
Stock Car Racing History
In 1974 or 75 can't remember which or whether it was spring or fall race. As usual some were having engine problems one of those were J.D. he had broken a valve spring and a valve dropped and hit a piston. He removed the head and seen what the problem was and after an exhaustive search through the garage area with no luck of finding parts I seen Herb Nabb go and talk to J.D. as he sat on the ground with the look of disappointment on his face. When Herb left he went and huddled with Jr. Johnson for a brief moment and returned to J.D. and said something to him and he lit up like child on Christmas morning.He soon went to work on the 70 car. As time neared for the garage area to close he was still going wide open. Gazaway called me to the garage office and ask me if I would stay to watch J.D. till he got done and I said sure.In those days the garage closed at 4:30 sharp. I can still hear Oscar Bowman hollering on the intercom at 4:25 each day layem down boy's and go home. And at 4:30 he would say the garage is now closed goodnight. Any how at 5:15 J.D. set the engine on the tail end of Ol Blue and tied it down and said thanks for staying with which I told him I was glad to stay anytime with him if it helped. I passed him on the way back to the Motel when I got there several of the guy's were hanging around in front of Herbs room which had a rope tied between to vehicles blocking the parking space. In a few minutes there was some noise & commotion outside and I looked out to see J.D. back into the space and a fellow we called bear that worked for Bud Moore and Herb and Junior pick the engine up and went into the motel room and quickly shut the door. After supper we were checking out the card games that were going on and the curtain to Herbs room was closed and the door locked. Someone said that he and Turk and Junior was in the room. The next morning we was leaving going to the track and on the back of Ol Blue was the engine wrapped in plastic.J.D. got to the track and installed the engine and Herb showed up just in time to fire it up. He done some fine tuning and J.D. was grinning like the kid in a candy store. Some say Jr. got a bill from the motel to replace the carpet and linens which was a good sum of money for the time. He just grinned when ask about it and said it was a small price to pay for such a good friend. I don't remember where he finished that day but I do remember him saying that was one fast engine and that he planned to run it as long as possible.