The Life And Good Times Of Curtis Turner
5/16/2014
PattyKay Lilley
This piece is offered in loving
memory of legendary NASCAR driver Curtis Turner, who left us far too soon, on October 4, 1970.
If there ever was a man capable of raising Hell in Heaven, Curtis Turner was
that man, and I hope when I get there, the party is still going on.
Way back
in the beginning, long before Richard Petty became "The King", before
Dale Earnhardt ever intimidated anyone and even longer before Jimmy Spencer
never forgot and another Jimmie won six times, there was a racecar driver named
Curtis Turner who made those good ol’ boys seem like pussycats by
comparison. It’s probably safe to say
that Curtis wouldn’t have made it in today’s politically correct NASCAR, so
it’s a good thing that he came on the scene when he did because he is a legend,
pure and simple.
When on
the racetrack, he would never have been satisfied with merely intimidating a
competitor. He was far more likely to erase them, even at the expense of
wrecking himself in the bargain. Today’s car owners and mega-bucks sponsors
seem to have some problem with that sort of behavior. Back in the 50s when
NASCAR was in its infancy, drivers didn’t make much money, but they were
allowed to have personalities, so hang onto your hats because I have some
marvelous tales to spin about Curtis Turner and his personality!
Curtis
was born in 1924 in Floyd, Virginia, which lies just west of where the Blue Ridge
Parkway traverses the mountains, and grew up with a father who was in the
lumber business. When grown, Curtis took
over that business and managed to make $millions with it, but managed to spend
or lose as much as he made, only to wheel and deal and make it all back again.
I don’t know for sure, but it seems to me that his middle name must have been
“fun” because that is what he lived and died for, the fun of it all.
Growing
up in the mountains of Virginia, it was just a natural thing that he would align
with the local moonshine runners of his day, or the “Shine clan” as he called
them. It can’t be proven that he ever actually transported corn squeezin's, since he was never arrested for it, but
certainly, he raced and partied with those that did.
He ran
his first actual race (One that wasn’t through the back woods of Virginia) in
1946 at a small track in Mt. Airy, NC, and was ready and waiting when Big Bill
France initiated NASCAR as a sanctioning body for stock car racing. His first
“official” win came in September of 1949 at the little circular bullring in
Langhorne, PA. By far his most impressive year was 1956 when he was racing in
the convertible division and claimed 22 victories out of 43 races. Putting a
cap on that year, he welded a top on his car and dominated the Southern 500 as
well.
Turner
was never crowned a NASCAR Champion, for a couple of very good reasons. The
first reason was that although he racked up over 350 wins in his career, a
large percentage of them were not NASCAR sanctioned races. The second reason is
that it is a given fact, had he not destroyed so many cars on the track his win
total would be far greater than it was.
In the
garage area, he was known as “Pops”, which was not the fatherly term that it
would seem to be. It stemmed from the noise that is made when one car “pops”
another in the left rear quarter panel, a move that usually culminates with the
car that was popped finding the wall. To Turner, that was part of the fun! As
much as he loved to win, he also thoroughly enjoyed seeing someone else lose,
even if that someone was teammate and best pal, Little Joe Weatherly.
(The
actual singer on this recording is Frankie Starr. "Clay Pitts" is a
stage name for the group that recorded this along with its flip-side, "The
Great Fireball." Both songs are now available on a CD called
"Elevator Boogie" by Frankie Starr.)
Those
two sometimes would go to banging on each other just for the pure joy of it and
every time they did it, the crowd went wild. If you could get Turner and
Weatherly to come to your race track, you’d have a sold out grandstand every
time. Maybe the only one that didn’t totally enjoy “the show” as they called it
was car owner Ralph Moody, who had to pick up the bills for both beaten and
wrecked racecars.
He
(Ralph) told a story about a race in Virginia where Curtis and Lee Petty got
into it on the race track, but it didn’t end there. If you have a long memory,
you know that Lee Petty was a very serious racer. He made all the races, which
few others did back in the early days, and nothing but winning was deemed
acceptable. Lee was as tough a driver as you’d want to see, but he wasn’t one
who would take you out for the fun or it. Curtis was! They commenced to banging
on each other throughout the race, with Curtis coming out the eventual winner
while Lee brought home only a damaged racecar.
After
the race, Curtis was sitting on a split-rail fence, enjoying an adult beverage
from a bottle in a paper bag when Lee walked up to him with a rolled up
newspaper in his hand that he was gently slapping against his leg. “I want to
talk to you,” Lee said, and then proceeded to whack Curtis right off the fence
when that newspaper hit his head. Inside that newspaper was a torque wrench!
I’ve heard tell that it didn’t accomplish what Lee had hoped, because he was in
Curtis’ sights on the racetrack from that day forward.
Once,
Moody got so mad at Curtis for slamming Joe’s car around at Darlington that he
told him, “If you do that again, we won’t pit you.” Of course, Curtis did it
again, and the next time he pulled into the pits the crew just sat there
looking back at him and made no move toward the car. According to Moody, Curtis
was so mad that he just slammed the car into the cement wall, but it didn’t end
there. The next day, driving a brand new Cadillac, Curtis showed up at the
garage and drove that car right through the roll-up door (Which was closed at
the time), backed up and drove away. (And they say that Jimmy Spencer never
forgets!)
There
was one time when Curtis was driving the pace car at the Charlotte fairgrounds
and had a reporter, Max Muhleman from the Charlotte
News, in the back seat of the 1956 Ford convertible. When the green flag flew,
Curtis didn’t pull off the track as he was supposed to, but floored that Ford
and took off, leading the pack. Poor Max in the back seat was tossed every way
but loose and scared about out of his wits. Remember, cars had no seat belts
back then. He kept screaming at Curtis that the racecars were going to hit
them. Curtis laughed and said, “Nah, they won’t hit us, and if they do, I’ll
hit them back.” That lasted for two laps before Curtis finally turned the poor
fellow loose in the infield, laughing all the way.
Now, as
wild as the antics of Curtis and his pal, Little Joe were on the track, they
didn’t even compare to some of the stuff they pulled off the track. These were
not your basic family-oriented men and what both loved to do was party! If you
thought that Tim Richmond traveled in the fast lane, Curtis and Joe would make
him look like an altar boy by comparison. Every year they rented a place
together in Daytona Beach that they referred to as the “Party Pad” and it soon
became legendary. Parties at the Party Pad didn’t last for hours. They lasted
for days! Hard liquor flowed like water over Niagara Falls and the place never
closed. Now, mind you, no one here is promoting the idea of making Canadian
Club the pre-race beverage of choice, but those boys did it with regularity.
Arriving at the track hung over and without sleep was almost the norm, but it
never seemed to detract from their racing skills.
There
was a scene in “Days of Thunder” in which Cole Trickle and Rowdy Burns were frammin’ and bammin’ in a pair of
rental cars. That scene was based on an
escapade that actually involved Curtis and Little Joe.
One year
at Daytona, they had each rented a car and decided that a race back to the
motel was in order. They took those cars
out on the four-lane and commenced to banging each other, strewing car parts in
their wake as they went. When they reached the motel, Turner slowed, but
Weatherly kept right on driving. After all, there was a bottle of Canadian Club
on the line, and a little trip into the swimming pool wasn’t about to stop him
from winning it. Emerging from the sunken car, Joe collected his winnings and
toasted his victory on the spot.
Reportedly, his first comment was, "Guess we're gonna have to call
a tow truck, huh Pops?" The rental car company blackballed both men, to
the point of sending their pictures to offices near every track, with
instructions never to rent to them again.
Curtis
was also an accomplished pilot and used his personal aircraft not only for
traveling to races, but as a tool in his thriving lumber business. Of course,
being Curtis, he also used that plane for shenanigans. There’s been a story
around for many years, in different versions, of Curtis putting that plane down
on the main street of a small southern town, making an alcoholic purchase and
taking off again, to the detriment of the power lines which just happened to be
in his way. Depending on which tale you believe, he either got away with that
or had his pilot’s license lifted. Heck, he may have done it twice and both
stories are correct.
Another
tale has him up in the air with Little Joe and a journalist, when he decided to
have a bit of sport with Weatherly. He quietly cut one engine, and then pointed
the fact out to Joe. When Joe, who was also a pilot, began to fret, Curtis cut
the second engine and started the plane in a spiraling descent. About the time
that Joe was ready to go into cardiac arrest, he refired the engines and straightened the plane, laughing
all the way. The journalist, I’ve heard tell, needed a change of BVDs.
It’s
said that he took prospective buyers up in the plane to survey timberlands and
often, closed high–finance deals before even landing. The same talent that he
had for driving and partying was equaled by his ability to deal with people and
most certainly, with money. In his short lifetime, he made and lost entire
fortunes and it never seemed to bother him. Well, I take that back; once it did
bother him, and that’s the next chapter in our story.
Curtis
Turner was the man who built the Charlotte Motor Speedway. No matter what
you’ve heard about Bruton Smith, he entered the picture a bit later. The
original concept, construction and financing were all attributable to Curtis
Turner. It was his baby, and it cost him part of his racing career.
The
track opened for business at the World 600 in 1960, heavily burdened with debt.
Curtis had to dig into his own pockets to assure purse money for that race, and
the money from the gate helped some, but there were still many creditors
looking to be paid. Curtis hired a skilled accountant to handle the speedway
finances and within a year, many of the debts had been paid and there was light
at the end of the tunnel. Unfortunately, the Board of Directors didn’t see it
that way and in June of 1961, summarily ousted Curtis as President of the
Speedway. The man who had recently become Vice-President, Bruton Smith,
resigned in protest of the Board’s action.
Curtis
took it in stride and decided to do something about the outstanding debt on the
track. With contact initiated by his accountant, he met with the Teamsters’
Union (An idea that had been suggested a year before but never acted on) and
agreed to try to organize the drivers as a Local of the Teamsters. In
consideration of that effort, the Union proffered a loan reported to have been
in the $800,000 range, ample to satisfy all of his creditors.
As good
as his word, Turner went about contacting all of the drivers and pushing hard
for the idea of a union. On August 8, 1961, he released a statement that read,
“A majority of the drivers on the Grand National Circuit have signed
applications and paid initiation dues of $10 for membership in the Federation
of Professional Athletes.”
That
statement was tantamount to waving a red flag at a charging bull, and that bull
was known as Big Bill France. When word got to France about the union, he made
a little statement of his own: “No known Teamster member can compete in a
NASCAR race, and I’ll use a pistol to enforce it.” (He had been known to do
that very thing)
Before
the next race, at Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem NC, France met with the
drivers and issued what amounted to a decree, “Gentlemen, before I have this
union stuffed down my throat, I will plow up my two-and-a-half mile track at
Daytona Beach and plant corn in the infield. Auto
racing is one of the few sports that has never had a
scandal. We’ll fight this union to the hilt.” Following that, he issued
lifetime suspensions to Turner and two drivers who assisted him in the
organizing effort, Tim Flock and Glenn (Fireball) Roberts, for “Conduct
detrimental to auto racing.”
Within
two days, Fireball Roberts resigned from the union and realigned himself with
France. He was reinstated in NASCAR, but Flock and Turner remained under
suspension. Other drivers soon followed Roberts’ lead and resigned from the
union. In the end, France stood victorious as so often happened. It was his
game, and folks were expected to play by his rules. Turner and Flock fought the
NASCAR law…and the law won.
Curtis
continued to race over the next few years, though not in NASCAR sanctioned
races. By 1965, Big Bill had a change of heart and offered to reinstate both
Turner and Flock. Turner accepted, but Tim Flock declined and never ran another
NASCAR race. Curtis won his first race after returning to NASCAR at the North
Carolina Motor Speedway in Rockingham. He started the inaugural American 500 in
fourth place, driving for Glen Wood, and was a force to be reckoned with right
from the start. In the end, it was a two horse race between Turner and young
Cale Yarborough, with Turner coming to the checkers first. It was obvious that
the man could still drive!
The year
1967 found Curtis driving one of Smokey Yunick’s
famous Chevelles, but after he crashed hard at
Atlanta, Smokey took leave of that partnership saying, “I will not build the
car that Curtis Turner was killed in.” Smokey, if you will remember, was always
more concerned with the drivers than with the races.
After
that, Curtis rather drifted in and out of retirement, racing only when the
price was right or something intrigued him.
He continued that way until his premature death in 1970 at age 46.
Ironically, Turner did not die on a race track, but while he was chauffeuring
professional golfer Clarence King in his airplane. The plane hit a mountainside
in Pennsylvania and both were killed. It was rumored that Curtis sometimes set
the controls on auto-pilot and caught a little nap while flying, but no one
will ever know exactly what happened that day because there was no one left to
tell of it.
In his
short but fun-filled life, Curtis Turner stacked up some very impressive
records and accomplishments:
The year
after his death, Curtis was voted into the National Motorsports Press
Association Hall of Fame. On that occasion, Big Bill France, who knew them all
and had seen them all race said, “Curtis Turner was the greatest racecar driver I have
ever seen.” Turner was
inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1992, and in 1998
was named as one of NASCAR’s fifty greatest drivers.
Curtis
Turner never won a NASCAR Championship, but he was a champion in every sense of
the word. He lived life to the fullest, every day that he lived. He drove hard,
he wheeled and dealt hard and most assuredly, he partied hard. No, Curtis would
not have made it in today’s Politically Correct version of NASCAR. We have seen
multi-thousand dollar fines dished out for a mere cuss word. Just try to imagine
Mike Helton dealing with Curtis. (There is your hilarious visual for the day!)
I don’t think they make fines that big!
I hope
you’ve enjoyed this stroll down Memory Lane with me, because it’s been a pure
joy for me. There are so many tales about the life and times of Curtis Turner
that in the interest of space (and keeping you reading) I have only touched on
the highlights here. Do yourself a favor and learn more about this giant among
men. It’s good reading!
Oh yes,
and do consider giving a Hall of Fame vote to the man Big Bill France said was
the best he'd ever seen... especially if you're on the election committee. It's
time that Curtis went into the NASCAR Hall of Fame along with all the others into
which he's already been inducted.
Time now
for our Classic Country Closeout and once again, we have a request, this time
for the beautiful mellow tones of Gentleman Jim Reeves, another of my
favorites. Who could listen to this man sing and not be soothed by that velvet
voice? First, please enjoy Jim doing a very old song and as he says, a favorite
of many... "Danny Boy."
In
conclusion, rather than play any one of the thousands of love songs Jim
recorded, I've chosen his version of a story of the old West originally done so
well by Rusty Draper. Either version made for great listening, as did a third
done by Walter Brennan. Please, sit back, close your eyes and listen to the
story of "The Shifting. Whispering Sands."
Be well
gentle readers, and remember to keep smiling. It looks so good on you!
~
PattyKay