Showing posts with label Buddy Baker. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Buddy Baker. Show all posts

Sunday, October 6, 2024

A BARREL OF LAUGHS

ONE OR TWO OF THESE STORIES ARE IN THIS BOOK

(NOTE: I wrote a version of this story for Winston Cup Scene in the 1990s)

A BARREL OF LAUGHS

By TOM GILLISPIE

Benny Parsons grins sheepishly and squirms when he tells this story from 1972, so it must be true.

Parsons, who would become the Winston Cup champion the very next year, was pitting at Texas World Speedway in College Station. That's the home of the Texas A&M Aggies, of course, and he could have used their help.

It was 105 degrees or so, and the crew handed Benny a water hose that was attached to a 55-gallon barrel. The water, under pressure so it could cool a radiator, served the same purpose for the over-hot Parsons. He wet down his suit so that, when he got up to speed, the wind would cool him until his uniform dried.

“Suddenly, the car caught fire, or so I thought,” Parsons said, “and they were yelling for me to go, take off!” Benny threw out the water hose and went busting down pit road -- no pit-road speed then -- and a tiny NASCAR official at the end of the pits dubbed Short Arms waved his, well, short arms to put a halt to Parsons' flight. Benny, thinking Short Arms was indicating the fire, charged up on the banking; the speed, he thought, would kill the flames.

Over the roar of the engine, he heard it.

Boom! Thump! Boom! Thump!

Crash! Bump!

In the banking, he looked back and saw no fire. When he threw the water hose out the window, he realized, it caught on the window net. The net was intact, although mashed down, but that royal-blue, 55-gallon water tank was banging around back there.

Boom! Crash! Boom! Thump!

Fortunately for the abashed Benny, Texas World had fewer than 30,000 fans, and NASCAR had no TV contract. He thumped, er, drove around the track and back down pit road, then ditched the tank.

Parsons was serious as he talked about that tank swinging back and forth on the water hose.

“That's why people shouldn't stand in the pits,” he said.

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You find racing humor in the strangest places, even from a somber young man in a black cap.

About a month before his death in 1993, a serious Davey Allison sat in the media center at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway. He seriously described an incident at Charlotte Motor Speedway involving a Dale Earnhardt fan up on a fence.

“How could you tell it was an Earnhardt fan?” he was asked. “He was wearing an Earnhardt T-shirt.” “You're racing down the backstretch at nearly 200 mph and you could see a T-shirt?” “Sure,” he replied. “You don't wait until you get to it. It'd be a blur. You look ahead of you.”

Lap after lap, Allison flew around the track; lap after lap, the fan threw Davey the finger.

Allison finally got tired of the indignity, so on about the 20th trip down the backstretch Davey threw HIM the finger.

The fan fell off the fence. And Allison, sitting in the Talladega media center, finally smiled as he finished the story.

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Buddy Baker, a Hall of Fame driver and talker, says the funniest thing he ever saw in a race happened at 11 p.m., when he was running the 24-hour race at Daytona. And his story, like Allison’s, involved someone throwing a bird.

Baker and the guy in front of him were driving powerful Porsches. As the lead Porsche cut through the infield road course, a tiny car got over into him, tearing up the side of the big Porsche.

The Porsche driver, going 70 to 80 miles an hour faster than his assailant, slammed his brakes as Baker's lights lit the scene.

“This guy driving the Porsche rolls the window down, wearing dayglo driving gloves, and he shoots the bird at this guy!” said Baker, nearly rolling off his chair. “He slowed up to give him the bird, to make sure he could see it.

“He gave this guy the bird and then vanished off into the dark. I almost wrecked laughing. It was too funny to put to words. I saw that big driving glove come out, and the bird come up, boop! (Baker roars again) With that dayglo driving glove, that hand looked six-foot tall when he stuck it out there.”

Baker also recalls a post-race incident as the 6-foot-4, 250-plus-pound Tiny Lund was raising dust as he stalked toward Buddy. The men had just bumped fenders on the track, and DeWayne Louis Lund wanted to dent Baker's nose.

This story, though, doesn’t have any fingers or birds.

“I looked up and said, Oh, lord,' ” Baker said with a laugh. “Tiny was racing me, and I was racing to win. I tried to get around him four or five times, so I just moved him. It kinda made him mad.”

Naturally. So how did Baker handle the aroused and not-so-tiny DeWayne Lund?

“I was a good salesman, and I had a boost of adrenaline,” Baker said, laughing. “I said, `You, of all people, are upset at me? You hit me four or five times in one corner!' He turned around laughing and walked off. I thought, 'Are you kidding me?' ”

Were you happy he left, Buddy?

“You tell me, if you were in a river and a bear got in, would you be happy when it went away?"

Absolutely. Even a Tiny bear.


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EMAIL: tgilli52@gmail.com   BLUESKY: PROFILE

More entries from TARJ
(a book of great stories about the Intimidator)
(the book of great NASCAR stories)

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Sunday, August 6, 2017

Being recognized

MARK MARTIN
When I covered Winston Cup racing in the 1990s and beyond, pretty much all of the Cup drivers knew that I was the big guy with a beard and glasses from Charleston, S.C.

 Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt and Bill Elliott didn't know my name, but they knew I was from Charleston. RP, Earnhardt and Elliott never called me anything during an interview. 

 Buddy Baker called me Pardner to my face and on the phone. I guess he called people that if he didn't know their names. But Buddy knew who I was.

 I don't know if Jeff Gordon knew my name; he always called me Sir.

 Mark Martin knew my name, as did the Bodines, the Labontes and Davey Allison. I was going to explain to Mark who I was during a phone interview, but he said, "I know who you are." He called me Tom when we were about to hang up.

 Benny Parsons knew my name, and he normally called me Tom. If he got in a playful mood, he'd call me Tommy. I didn't mind; he was Benny, and I was Tommy.

 I once tried to call Kyle Petty, and a guy at the shop told me to call back at 2 and ask for someone. I called back at 2 and asked if this guy was there, and the voice on the phone said, "Is Tom Gillespie there?" It was Kyle.

 (By the way, my name's Gillispie, but a lot of people say Gillespie. They expect Gillispies to be named Gillespie.)

 What's the big deal about someone knowing your name or recognizing you? It's easier to strike up a conversation or get an interview if they know your name. In a couple of cases, I even struck up a friendship.

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EMAIL: tgilli52@gmail.com   BLUESKY: PROFILE

More entries from TARJ
(a book of great stories about the Intimidator)
(the book of great NASCAR stories)

EDITOR@WORK blog entries 

Entries from The Dog Blog

More blog entries by Tom Gillispie

Anecdotes by Tom Gillispie
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Friday, September 26, 2014

Buddy Baker feature


(NOTE: This story appeared in the Hickory Daily Record in 2013.)
Baker can cook up some wild tales
By Tom Gillispie
Buddy Baker always said he never let the truth get in the way of a good story.
BUDDY BAKER WAS STUCK IN THE MUD
AT HICKORY. (SMYLE MEDIA PHOTO)
His quips and tall tales have carried him through long careers in racing and broadcasting. In fact, he’s probably better known for his stories than his racing.
Humpy Wheeler, the former presi-dent of Charlotte Motor Speedway, once said, “Buddy Baker’s got the best one-liners of any driver I knew.”
Someone else asked Baker, “Was Richard (Petty) really that good?” Buddy’s answer, “Hell no. He just got lucky 200 times.”
And after one Dale Earnhardt-inflic-ted wreck in a non-points race at Daytona, Baker declared, “Earnhardt would give an aspirin a headache.”

Funny, but you never hear any Buddy Baker stories about Hickory Motor Speedway, probably because he had good results there.

Baker won twice at Hickory, both coming in 1973 in Grand National East races. In eight Grand National (now Sprint Cup) starts at Hickory, Baker posted three top-five finishes and did not finish three times. He was third at Hickory in 1968 and fifth in both 1964 and ’65.

Elzie Wylie Baker Jr. is on Hickory’s Wall of Fame along with his dad Buck (Elzie Wylie Baker Sr.), and both Bakers are in various halls of fame.
Buddy was the first man to break 200 mph in a closed course, driving Cotton Owens’ No. 88 Dodge Charger at Talladega in 1970. His win in late 1967 in Charlotte ended Richard Petty’s 10-race winning streak. And he posted 19 Cup victories in a whopping 700 starts, including one in the 1980 Daytona 500.
But Buddy’s stories have always stood out.
I once asked Buddy what he saw in the stands when he was racing, and he told this story:
“I noticed that the flagman was looking back, and it caught my eye,” Baker said of a 1970 race. “I came around again, and this guy with his shirt off was fighting a bunch of other guys. I came around time after time, and this guy was fighting everybody. He must have beat 25 guys in 25 laps. And I’m not exaggerating.”
Baker laughed, then added, “I wasn’t doing too well, obviously, or I wouldn’t have had time to be watching the crowd.”
Another story involves one of Baker’s best friends, the late Tiny Lund, a notorious practical joker.
The two were attending a pre-race party one night, and Lund, without Baker noticing, had slipped away early.
Buddy was tired when he returned to his hotel room later that evening, so he stripped down in the dark and crawled into bed.
He was dozing off when he thought he heard a growl. After another growl, Buddy reached over and flipped on the light. He found himself nose-to-nose with the mascot of one of the race sponsors, a living, growling cheetah.
Baker probably set a hotel speed record heading screaming down the hallway buck-naked. He didn’t know that the equally scared cheetah had departed in the other direction, also with great haste.
Baker and Lund met down the hallway, and Lund hurried into his room to avoid Baker.
Buddy ran that much faster.
Finally, he looked back and saw no cheetah. Baker rushed to his room, only to find the door had locked.
What to do? Buddy grabbed a wastepaper basket, busted the bottom out and wore it down to the front desk to get a passkey.
Then there’s the incident after Buddy won the 1980 Daytona 500. After a huge celebration, Baker was tired, and he told someone he was going to bed. “Bed? You just won the Daytona 500; no way you’ll sleep!”
He was right.
Instead, Baker headed home in his car. He was busting along, and suddenly his “fuzzbuster” warned him. He looked to the left and saw a police car hiding in the brush. Resignedly, Buddy pulled over.
A policeman walked over, recognized him and exclaimed,”Buddy Baker! Buddy Baker! Wow!” Thinking he’d get off, Buddy sighed in relief and said, “Yeah, it’s me!”
 “Man, congrats on the win,” the policeman said. “I always root for you. Sometimes you just have bad luck ... just like right now.”
Sigh….
Let’s finish this with the classic stretcher story.
In June of 1967, Baker appeared at the Smokey Mountain Raceway dirt track in Maryville, Tenn. During the race, Buddy crashed and demolished his car. He had injured ribs, so the ambulance crew — he still calls them “Bubba and Barney Fife” — hustled around, got him strapped to the stretcher and loaded him in the ambulance. The ambulance driver jumped in and hurried off.
Then Baker realized that Bubba and Barney had forgotten to lock the wheels of the stretcher or latch the back door. The stretcher, with the 6-foot-6 Buddy still strapped down tight, left the ambulance and boogied down the backstretch.
To make matters worse, a dozen racers came around the turn under caution.
“I’m on the gurney with my arms and legs strapped down, and these cars are coming at me,” he said. “I got one arm out and started waving my hand at them a little.”
The stretcher reached the inside of the track, dug into the mud and flipped over. Baker came down face-first in the muck!
“One of the guys from the ambulance jumped out, grabbed me and rolled me over,” Buddy continued. “He said, ‘Are you OK?’
“I said, ‘If I ever get off this thing, I am going to kill you.’ ”
Never the end.


Contact: Email me at tgilli52@gmail.com or nc3022@yahoo.com. Also, my Twitter handle is EDITORatWORK.

More entries from TARJ
(a book of great stories about the Intimidator)
(the book of great NASCAR stories)

EDITOR@WORK blog entries 

Entries from The Dog Blog
More blog entries by Tom Gillispie

Anecdotes by Tom Gillispie
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