By Alex Abrams
Times-Union sports writer,

About twice a month, Barbara Moon opens a piece of fan mail addressed to her husband, Tommy.

Many of the letters begin with variations of the same question: "Are you the Tommy Moon?"

Is he the same Tommy Moon who 50 years earlier had fans asking for his autograph when they saw him in a restaurant or when they stopped by his automotive garage to wish him luck before a race?

The answer is yes.

"It's nice to be remembered after so many years," Tommy Moon said. "Of course, a lot of the people that used to be my fans are not around anymore."

Moon, a lifelong Jacksonville resident, is the oldest licensed NASCAR driver -- even though he hasn't raced in 49 years. The 77-year-old is a link to the early days, when racing was a family business. He was at the heart of an auto racing rivalry that divided Jacksonville in the late 1940s and early 1950s. And he had a career that ended while he was in his prime as the result of an accident that forever changed his life.

"I don't know anybody that tried to talk me out of [racing]," Moon said. "I guess it wouldn't have done any good [to try] anyway."

As the only son of Thomas Henry "Pop" Moon, Tommy Moon was destined to follow his father's tire tracks.

Pop Moon raced cars, motorcycles and bicycles in his native Australia and then in the western United States. There is even a story, contained in his diary, of the elder Moon touring the country with a young race car driver whom he picked up hitch-hiking. The hitchhiker's name was Charles Lindbergh, who went on to achieve greater fame as a flier than a driver. By time Pop Moon settled in Jacksonville, he had become a mechanic.

Before Tommy Moon could start his racing career, the United States entered World War II. To avoid being drafted, a 17-year-old Moon joined the Army and was sent to war shortly after completing boot camp. On June 6, 1944, D-Day, Moon was among the thousands of U.S. soldiers who stormed Omaha Beach in Normandy, France.

His time at war, however, didn't last long. While on duty in Brest, France, he was shot in the back. One piece of the bullet passed through his chest, but two pieces lodged close to a main artery. Because surgery was a greater threat than leaving the fragments alone, surgeons left them there. They remain there 58 years later. He received the Purple Heart for his service.

When Moon returned from war, he spent six months building his first race car, a 1939 Ford. He nicknamed it the "Little Duck," partly because it made a loud noise as it went around the track. Despite the noise, Moon won the first race he entered at Coco Beach in 1947, four years before Dale Earnhardt was born.

"When we first started, well, we didn't know anything much about racing, and people didn't seem like they wanted to help you," Moon said.

With his father building the engines, Moon raced as often as four times a week. He would compete in Hawkinsville, Ga., on Thursday nights, Macon on Fridays, Jacksonville on Saturdays and Savannah on Sundays. The winnings never added up to more than a few hundred dollars, so Moon worked during the week at the automotive garage and wrecker company that has borne the family name since his father opened it in 1932.

"Some people just naturally drive race cars," Moon said. "A lot of people can and don't want to. I see people do other things every day that I wouldn't want to do, but they do it. It's just kind of what you come into, I guess."

As Moon's success on the track increased, so did his popularity in the Jacksonville area. That popularity increased further with the establishment of an on-track rivalry with another area driver, David Ezell. Moon and Ezell quickly became the area's most successful drivers, and local racing fans split into two passionate camps.

For Barbara Moon, whose name at that time was Barbara Heavener, there was no question which driver she supported. The high school student at Lee High School was a Moon fan. Only later did she realize the rivalry existed among the fans, not the drivers.

"After I married Tommy, he said something about 'Well, David Ezell is probably going to come by this afternoon,'" Barbara said. "I said, 'David Ezell?' I couldn't believe it. They were friends. And I said, 'I thought y'all were bitter enemies.'"

In truth, Ezell and Moon were such close friends that people used to incorrectly think they were brother-in-laws. The two drivers went on dates together with their wives, and they shared a two-story apartment in Daytona Beach when they were racing on the Beach-Road Course.

Ezell claims Moon is the one who got him hooked on the cigars that he still smokes. On the long nights they spent together in Moon's Garage working on their cars, Moon would go to a store across the street and buy a five-pack of cigars. He always offered one to Ezell.

The men shared more than late-night cigars.

"There were a couple of time I can remember I blew my engine up, and I told him, 'Well, I'm just going to quit [racing]. I haven't got the money for no engines,'" Ezell recalled. "Tommy would call me the next day and say 'Come over here. I've got an engine for you.' He'd let me go out there in his old junkyard and get an engine out of one of his old cars."

In October of 1954, Moon was the one who needed a favor. Moon's car had a broken axle, and he needed a car to run in the annual Junior Chamber of Commerce Race at Jax Raceways, which he had won the previous year. Ezell let Moon drive a spare car, a 1937 Ford, in the 10-lap heat race.

During the third or fourth lap, Moon was boxed in by two cars on the back straightaway. One car hit him on the driver's side, causing Moon's car to flip and roll on its side. As it was rolling, a second car hit Moon's car, crushing the roof and splintering the oak wood that lined the car's door. Moon was hit in the head with the wood. Nine cars were involved in the accident.

"Nobody thought Tommy was hurt," said Ray "Piggie" Bennett, who was in one of the cars involved in the accident.

Bennett said he was more concerned for another driver who was believed to be dying in his wrecked car. That driver suffered a punctured lung. Not even Moon realized the extent of his injuries.

"I didn't think I was hurt," Moon said. "I was hurt so bad I didn't realize it. I was in the hospital, and I was making plans about when I would get back to driving."

Moon learned two weeks later that his spinal cord had been severed during the accident, leaving him paralyzed and unable to ever race again.

"I used to really missing [driving] for a long time," said Moon, who still watches NASCAR on TV.

The Chamber of Commerce race was renamed in his honor. Two years after the accident, Moon became the second person presented with a lifetime membership to NASCAR. Red Vogt, an Atlanta-based mechanic who was one of stock car racing's most successful mechanics and most colorful characters during the 1940s and 1950s, was the first person to be given a lifetime membership.

Moon was inducted in the Jax Raceways Hall of Fame in 1991. He was honored at the 1993 Daytona 500 with a parade lap around the track, which drew a standing ovation and chants of "Tommy! Tommy!" from the crowd.

"I didn't think he would live a year when he got back [from the accident]," said Jack Schutte, 79, who was also in the 1954 race. "Now, I think he might outlive me."

Moon has been bed-ridden for much of the last year. However, he reads every letter, and always responds with an autographed photo, card or note.

And if he had life to live over, would he race knowing the consequences?

"I have no regrets. If it hadn't been for racing, nobody would have heard of me."

And no one would be sending him fan mail, asking for his autograph.

What you have just read was wrote by a reporter in Jacksonville Fla. I can remember him from when my father raced in the 50's. Also if you needed help when you were in the area tommy would always send help to you. I broke a tongue on my trailer at old Jax Speedway and Tommy sent the wrecker out to tow it back to his shop in Marretta Fla. just west of Jacksonville Fla on interstate 10. He had a welder pulled out front of his shop waiting for me to use when we got there.
A many day I would stop by just to say hi to Tommy who was everywhere in his wheelchair and always asking questions of racing.