PRESSLEY RECALLING PRESSLEY
By Tom Gillispie
Robert Pressley was around for all of Bob
Pressley’s career; he just wasn’t aware of some of it.
“I was a year old when he started,” said Robert
Pressley, a former Nationwide and Cup driver and now the promoter at Kingsport
(Tenn.) Speedway. “I was probably 10 years old before I understood what it was about.
I thought everybody's daddy made a living racing.”
The Pressley family raced regularly at Hickory
Motor Speedway and Asheville Speedway, and they’d visit Morganton, Metrolina
(Charlotte), Savannah and Augusta.
“We’d go every night if we could race,” said
Robert, whose dad died in 2004. “Daddy's home race tracks were Hickory and
Asheville.”
In 1962 Bob Pressley raced the Hobby division and soon moved
up to Late Model.
“He had a knack for it,” Robert said. “He was one
of the most competitive people I’ve seen in racing.”
And Robert Pressley has seen some competitive
drivers. Bob Pressley raced from 1962 to 1999, while Robert started in 1982 and
finished in 2005.
“(Bob) never did Grand National or Winston Cup,
although he did Late Model Sportsman,” Robert said, talking about the series
that’s now NASCAR’s Nationwide series. “He raced against (Dale) Earnhardt in the early
days, Ralph Earnhardt when (Bob) first started. Harry (Gant), Morgan (Shepherd),
Butch Lindley, Tommy Houston.”
Actually, Bob Pressley did run six races in what
is now the Nationwide Series. In 1982, the first year of the NASCAR Budweiser Late
Model Sportsman Series, Bob ran five races, then he ran another in 1986, when it was
called the NASCAR Busch Grand National Series. He won a total of $1,100.
He ran three of those races at Hickory, and finished 21st
and 23rd, respectively, in 1982 and 19th in ’86.
Bob Pressley reportedly won a bunch of Late
Model Sportsman races, but records weren’t well-kept for that series.
When Robert starts clicking off Bob Pressley’s
track championships, including seven at Ashville Speedway, it’s hard to keep
up. Bob won at Hickory, Tri-County and other tracks, with his Hickory titles
coming in 1972 and ’74. Bob Pressley was in good company, as Jack Ingram won
the Hickory track championship in ’71. Harry Gant won in ’73, and Tommy
Houston, another hall of famer, won it in ’75.
Robert is in the middle of three brothers and
sisters, and, naturally, they joined Bob at the races.
“My oldest brother (Charlie) was a crew chief
when he was 13; he turned wrenches then. He worked on the car, him and dad. My
brother started racing when he was 21 or 22, and my dad tried to talk him out
of it. He knew how expensive it was. Then my other brother started racing.
“(Bob) never helped us, never influenced us to
do it. I was the last of the brothers to race. I just took a liking to it.”
Finally, Bob Pressley saw the boys’ interest and
commitment to racing, and he began to help his sons with their careers.
Bob and Robert Pressley raced against each other
from 1982 to ’88.
“If I didn't outrun him, he wanted to know why,”
Robert said. “He’d say, ‘You need to be more aggressive.’ If I beat him, he’d
say, ‘Don't do that again; calm down.'
“He made me what am; he made me competitive.”
How good was Bob Pressley as a short-track
driver?
“You can ask Jack Ingram, Tommy Houston and
Harry Gant,” Robert said. “I raced with them in the '80s. They’ll all say that
he was the best when he got behind the wheel of a Late Model on a short track.
He was the best in my eyes.”
Robert says that his dad was “the closest thing
to Dale Earnhardt” on a racetrack, although Bob Pressley was established when
they raced each other. Earnhardt’s greatness showed through later when he was
in Winston Cup.
“Earnhardt was aggressive. People talk people
about Earnhardt, and I hear a lot of the same things about my dad. In the late
'60s, he probably won more Late Model races than anybody ever.”
Robert admits that he fared pretty well racing against
his dad.
“I ain’t saying I outdrove him,” Robert said. “I
had better equipment in those days, and I probably beat him more than he beat
me.”
So who was the better driver between Bob and
Robert Pressley?
“Oh, him, by far,” Robert said. “He could do
more with less than anybody else I’ve seen.”
EMAIL: tgilli52@gmail.com TWITTER: EDITORatWORK
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