Bubba letter.

Dear Tony,
I seen your blog post about NASCAR Hall of Fame on the internet. I want to tell you what me and Darlene done not so long ago. "Bout three weeks, I guess it was.  We went to a dirt track race like the kind we used to go to way back  before stock racing got so popular. Back when you never seen a driver that didn't walk with a limp or had some scars from wrecks.  Before all the cars looked alike and drivers spoke better english than I do. And there was drivers like Fireball, Little Joe, Banjo, Junior and Fearless Freddie. You Remember them days?



We was at this little dirt quarter mile track up near the mountains. They was having what they called "Old Timers Day".  Me and Darlene went.  She said we ought to dress up like we did then. Well I slicked back my hair back in a duck tail, rolled  up a pack of Marlboros in my white T-shirt sleeve and pulled on a new pair of Levis. I had on my black penny loafers with white socks. Oh, yeah, I hung a well used church key on a chain around my neck. I looked like a worn out teenager from the fifties. Darlene on the other hand looked pretty darn good.  She had her hair tied back in a ponytail and wore a black T-shirt that was about a size too small with white short shorts. Solid white tennis shoes was on her feet. She had a good summer tan on her legs and looked as good as she did the first time I seen her.

When we got to the dirt track the crowd was gettin' pretty big and there were a lot of folks dressed up in the late fifties and early sixties style. The water truck had just pulled off the track and some of the cars were starting warm-up laps.  I knew we would be dodging chunks of red mud for a while when the cars went into the first turn. It was looking like old times as the sun went down and the lights come on. They lit up almost the whole track. Willie Johnson, the promoter, would save a buck anyway he could so the backstretch was kinda dark. Some said Willie would rig a race if he could. Everybody knew Willie liked to have Charlie Chappells win because the  fourteen-year-old from Lincolnton, Georgia, would really draw a crowd.
But that was many years ago and Charlie was retired now after racing in NASCAR a few years. They had found a few of the old race cars like we had watched back in the day. It was quite a show as the old coupes from the thirties and forties with their flat head Fords and inline six cylinder Chevys barrelling into the turns. Many of the superstars of NASCAR got their start on tracks like that. It was back in the day when a guy running  a filling station or garage could build a car in his spare time and really be competitive. I don't think that happens any more. There were three heat races before the main race.  We watched the cars as they entered the first turn with engines roaring.  The chunks of red mud rained down on us and the smell of exhaust pipes and oil filled the air. Darlene and me managed to keep the mud out of our faces but got some red stains on my white t-shirt from marble sized bits of red clay. Heat races were short bout ten laps I think.  There was a lot of banging and crashing between the cars. We got us a hot dog between the races. Between races we saw Woodie and Shelly Winthrop. We hadn't seen them in a coon's age. You remember them don't you? Used to drive a black '60 Chevy coupe with "Mister Lonely" painted on the rear quarter panels. It was said to pass everything on the highway but the gas pump!  We enjoyed talking with them about old times. They said Buddy Johnson's daughter would be driving today. She's about our age you know. Remember that when we were in high school that her daddy was such a dirty driver that nobody would talk to her! The other heat races for the cars were just like we remembered. Yep, there was even a fight in the infield after one of the heats. In this kind of racing the driver has to beat 'em on the track and then sometimes beat 'em in the infield. Darlene always gets excited at these events and jumps up and down yelling.  At the race she was attracting considerable attention. Darlene does not believe in any restraining undergarments. That used to bother me.  You know, the men staring at her but not anymore.  You see, she always goes home with me.
For the special main event they had rounded up a bunch of "skeeters". They were the little early thirties coupes and sedans whose bodies were chopped, channelled, and sectioned.  They were powered by small block Chevys or Fords with fuel  injectors and burning alcohol. (All the alcohol at the track wasn't being burned in the cars!) They didn't have transmissions, just in-out boxes. They were called "skeeters" because of the wing they had on top.  When they were racing it sounded like a swarm of bees.  On a quarter mile oval the straightaway ain't not very long. They put on a great show.

We were on our way to the truck to go home after the races when we happened on a fight in the parking lot. It seemed two fellas had a different opinion over who the greatest race car driver was and were sluggin' it out. But then the law came.  She must have been nigh on to 200 pound and a good six feet tall.  She walked up behind one of the fellas and grabbed him by the collar and said, "Git into my car over there!" She was talking about her county car with the star on the side.
Before he could say anything she had reached between his legs and grabbed a sensitive part of the male anatomy. His voice was a couple of octaves higher as he asked, "What car do you mean?"

As we drove away from the track we talked about going by Tastee-Freeze for a dipped cone.  She tried to find Dick Biondi on the radio but couldn't. I guess Dick is gone.  But he sure was great back in the early sixties on WLS Chicago.

That's all for now
Your ole buddy,
Bubba