34 replies to this topic

[Buford]

5 years ago upon requests at the time in a thread on your racing memories I told the story of my Sprint Car debut in 1979. At that time I stated I had photos to prove what I was relating (always worried about the lemmings and McGuire types) and would scan and post some day. Well it has taken 5 years to do it but here they are. Because the story is long (fair warning) and took numerous boxes at the time spread over 2 or 3 forum pages, I will put it all together here in a repost.



Well I don't know if this qualifies as a "priceless moment". It was rather pricey actually. But Ray Bell has been bugging me to tell my fireball story. I wanted to race anything and everything. My ultimate goal was to race at Indy, but in the 1970s it wasn't like today when they want inexperienced young wild men who go very fast. If they wad up some cars, so what? It's safe now. They won't get hurt probably. Eventually the good ones will calm down and go fast without hitting stuff.

But in my day, you were not supposed to hit stuff, and you couldn't get an Indy Car ride on merit unless you had several years of experience. They didn't want young wild men. I was that for awhile. But I went fast and didn't hit stuff. Didn't help. I did get rides and I was one of the few drivers in the 1970s who raced both ovals and road courses, short of the top rank. But my experience was 90% road racing. It was hard to get rides in oval racing because I didn't have many contacts there, and most of the owners thought road racers were hand kissing, pretty boy, homos. Not real racers at all. In fact, not even real men.

But anyway, I did race some USAC Midgets and some stock cars. In 1979 I got a Sprint Car ride. It was my 9th year of racing and I was semi well known among the car owners in both oval and road racing. I had a piece of crap car, a cross spring front about 10 year old chassis. This was long after they all had gone to 4 bars. But it did have a killer engine. Damn near as good as even the very best guys. When I could get it straight, it pulled nearly everybody. But it wouldn't turn.

[scags]

Buford, did you swipe those rear tires off a tractor/ trailer?

[Buford]

So my first time out was at a primarily horse race track at a fairgrounds. It had wooden inside guard rails, a single level Armco on the outside. Really hillbilly. My car owner told me to just ride around behind the field and get used to the car. We did not have to make the feature or anything. This was a shake down run and the car was just finished being put together a few hours before. I only had 3 or 4 hot laps plus my 2 qualifying laps, so when my heat race came up, the first lap was going to be my 5th or 6th lap I ever had in a Sprint Car at speed. I had no idea what I was doing or anything and qualified slowest. I could have been on the pole but requested to start at the rear because I was supposed to just toodle around. Unfortunately, when I clicked down the shield an unexplained force always drove the cars and I never really had any control over it. Whatever happened though, I didn't know how to toodle. I really only had one speed, flat out.



So I was under orders just to drive around and get the feel of the car and not try to pass anybody and definitely not hit anything. My car owner was aware the first time I drove a Midget, I passed about 15 cars down the inside on the first lap, including a lot of well known experienced drivers, and then hit the wall big time coming out of 4 on the first lap. Mel Kenyon told my dad, "When he blew by me I said to myself, that kid is never going to make that turn. What surprised me was he almost did!" So anyway, theoretically I had learned from that, my only crash in 8 years of racing. So this time I was determined to do what I was told and I was smart enough not to try to actually race the most dangerous of all race cars, after 5 or 6 laps experience. I was going to be good. Until I clicked down the shield and the push truck sent me off.

[Buford]

So there were 9 cars starting the heat race on a half mile dirt oval. I was 9th. We got the green and drove a lap and I was being good, but the guy in front of me wasn't. He was all over the track. An accident ready to happen and it was going to take me with him. I was running low, everybody else was running high, up on the cushion. I was afraid to go up there yet, but my low line was hooked up. This was a non-wing race. Everybody was sliding around trying to find traction. I had good traction and a great engine and I was having to back off to keep from passing this nut in front. So I passed him, I had to. Another lap and the next guy wasn't much less squirrelly that the first one so I had to pass him too. Well that continued lap after lap until I had passed 7 of them. I couldn't help it. They were all too slow. Plus I was an experienced Sprint Car driver by this point. I had 13 or 14 laps in now!

So I am in 2nd and that makes the feature, and it was easy. The leader was a full straightaway ahead, I only need to get into the top 4 to make the feature, I was there. Time to just toodle around for the last 3 or so laps. But then the first guy I was worried about did hit something so we had a yellow for awhile. At the restart then I was right behind the leader who was pretty good I thought. I was happy to just follow him home and hope my car owner would not be too pissed off because I finished 2nd in my first race and made the feature, and passed guys when he told me not to. I would just explain I couldn't help it, they were too slow. Problem was now, the leader was too slow.

I was running all over him on the straights and in the corners he went high and I went low and I actually had to lift coming out to avoid passing him or running wheel to wheel down the straight. I was trying to be good. But lifting to keep from winning is something I could only do once. So we get the white flag, I follow him around the 1st corner, ran nearly side by side down the back straight, then lifted early going into 3 to let him ahead. But he thought we were racing (and I guess so did everybody else there but me) so he went in hard and slid high. I came out low and stood on it and we ran side by side to the line with him nipping me by about a foot at the line. So the race was over, I finished second in my first race. But the story hasn't even started yet. Unfortunately it is getting very long which is why I don't tell many stories. I can't do them short. Before I could get back to the pits, well that's the story, starring the fireball.

[Buford]

We crossed the line nearly dead even and then I backed off to about half throttle. The guy to my right moved ahead in his lane a couple car lengths and then unexpectedly cut left in front of me and backed off. Sprint Cars have no mirrors. I had three choices. Stand on the brakes, go left but there wasn't much room and he might pull more left, or go right. But if I go right, the whole track is open, and I can try the high line. Good idea. When you have only had 18 laps in a Sprint Car, 9 miles total, one more corner is a sizeable increase in your knowledge base.

So I went into turn one hot up high for the first time. But I had backed off on the straight so I wasn't going as fast as I would have been normally. I thought I had a big margin for error. I cocked it sideways and blipped the throttle and it began to slide up toward the cushion. I did some steering and throttle stuff and nothing really happened. It kept on sliding. OK no problem, when I hit the cushion I will skillfully nail the throttle and stabilize the slide, just like the real Sprint Car drivers do. But I went right over the cushion into the loose dirt and despite trying everything I had to try twice, it kept right on sliding toward the single row Armco.

Now I am just looking at the photos I have of this. Behind this very low guardrail is a white picket fence and behind that is a row of pickup trucks with people sitting all over them. No cable enforced crash fencing, no nothing. There is nothing to keep some maniac Sprint Car driver from hitting that rail, flipping over or through the horseshit picket fence, and slaughtering 20 or more people. Looking at this photo, well this is madness. And then I hit the wall. And it got worse.

I didn't hit hard but the right rear wheel climbed up the barrier and lifted the rear of the car. The engine reved and I backed off and it died and it went all silent. My brain had never had this experience before so it had no opinion on what was happening. I did notice however white, black, white, black, white black, in my vision just before KERRRR-BANG and it hit fully upside down on the roll cage and a sharp pain went through both my shoulders. And what I didn't know was there was fuel spewing out all behind which ignited into a 10 yard holocaust of burning fuel all down the track and enveloping the back of the car. I was too busy wondering if I had broken my shoulders when the white, black stuff started again and then KERRR-BANG I landed real hard on the right side and slammed my left knee into the steering column and it hurt. And all down the track and behind the car, but not up to the cockpit yet, was a major race car fire. I was the only one there who was missing the show.



[PHOTO NOTE] In the black and white photo you can't see the huge fire very well, but if you look below the roll cage and the area extending back from there you can see some of the flames.

Next time, unless you tell me to shut up. The hillbilly "rescue" or how not to handle a major race car fire and a "trapped" driver.

[Buford]

So I came to rest on my right side with the tail downhill toward the infield and the roll cage toward traffic. There is supposed to be a big ball bearing in a shaft that goes in the fuel filler area so if the car turns over the bearing rolls down and shuts off the opening to keep fuel from running out. But we didn’t have that. The car was old but had just been totally rebuilt, just finished earlier that day. That part was ordered but had not come in. I had been driving like a road racer, not a Sprint Car driver (which had worked because the low groove was giving more traction than the cushion and nobody else was trying it). But my brake disks were glowing red hot and when it turned over, the fuel ran out and hit the disks and it blew up. You can’t see a methanol fire in the daytime, but at night, it makes a very pretty fire. Fine and all unless you are in it.

But I wasn’t and didn’t even know it was on fire. But from the infield and grandstand, it looked like the whole track around the car, and the whole car was enveloped in this huge fire. The grandstand was screaming (they tell me) “Get him out!!!” “Get him out” and the announcer said, “Say a prayer.” But inside the car I was going though a multiple of thoughts all at the same time. One brain track (the loudest one) was screaming at me and calling me every name in the book and new ones. I was soooooo pissed off. Another brain track was trying to remember what had happened during the crash. Another was analyzing what had caused it. Why did it never take a set and just kept sliding? Another was already trying to think of an excuse. Another was wishing I really WAS dead. Another was trying to determine if I was hurt and decided no because everything wiggled. But then I had to decide what to do now. If I had known there was a good possibility of burning up I might have said, “OK what the hell. It’s better than facing my car owner and everybody else after this fiasco.” Hero to zero in seconds and I still wasn’t sure why.

But my brain flashed on what had happened to Jan Opperman a couple weeks before. He had flipped with the cage pointing to traffic. He had started to get out, and somebody hit him right in the cage. He suffered major brain injuries and never recovered. Was a virtual child needing full time care the rest of his life. So I decided to stay in the car until the 5 or 6 cars behind went by. I was hearing the engines go by on both sides hoping they were all slowed down enough to miss me. The race was over after all. Not everybody crashes on the cool off lap. Only me! But I didn’t know about the fire, and what it looked like to everybody else. People were running across the infield to the scene, but there was no crash truck, no fire extinguishers, no nothing. If there was going to be a rescue, it was going to take a hero. Somebody who just said the hell with it, I’m going in.” And in the racing world, there is always a hero around when you need one. In this case I didn’t, but I was the only one there who didn’t think so.

I can’t do this short. Next installment… the arrival of the hero, and the Keystone Cops fire brigade.

[Buford]

So I heard the cars go by and it was time to get out. I didn’t know there was a fire. It was all behind and below but it was moving my way. A guy in street clothes arrived at the rail and waited for the cars to pass. Seeing there was nobody else, he decided it was going to have to be him. So he jumped the wooden inside rail and ran through or around the flames and up to the cockpit. Inside the car I had just popped my belts and reached up to the cage to pull myself out when I felt hands grab me under both arms and starting to drag me out of the car. It banged and tangled my knees and feet but he just yanked and dragged me along the ground what seemed like a long way. I was totally pissed off already and this now was the ultimate indignity. I was furious.

He stopped dragging and I sat up but he tried to push me down saying “Stay down.” But I was having none of that so I stood up. But my shield was totally covered with mud and I couldn’t see a thing. I reached up with both hands to pop my shield, but it was brand new and wouldn’t pop. It was stuck, and I had triple layer fireproof gloves that were too thick to get under the corners enough to get the shield to release. So I was bending over at the waist trying to pop the damn shield and people were arriving and everybody was asking if I was all right, and telling me to lay down. So I am fighting them off and I really was pissed off about all of this and I finally got the shield open and I stood up and looked back at my car. It was a total shock. There was a big fire on the track where the fuel was running down, and the entire back of the car, and now the cockpit area was enveloped in the fireball. The guy had drug me out at the last possible instant, though I could have done it myself with no help.

So I stopped being pissed at the hero now that I understood the magnitude of the situation, but now I start freaking out because there are no fire extinguishers or crash crews. Everybody out there were infield spectators and a couple guys were trying to throw dirt on the fire. Oh this is just great! So I am trying to break free from the people asking if I am OK and where does it hurt and all that and go throw dirt on the fire. But they are grabbing me and trying to push me down. And then I look to my left to the infield and here comes two big fat firemen in regular rain coats and firemen hats. They both have big fat bellies and one has a cigar in his mouth. They are lugging fire bottles but not moving very fast. When they arrive at the infield wooden 4 foot or so fence, well it might as well have been the Great Wall Of China. No way these fat guys were going to get those bellies and the heavy fire bottles over that fence anytime soon.

Next time…. Fat guys with fire bottles.

[Buford]

So the fat firemen set out to scale the fence. Both put down the fire bottles and kind of slithered on their bellies like reptiles until they both arrived on the top of the fence and kind of got stuck there for what seemed like a long time (when your race car is burning and these are the saviors!). It was like two beached whales with their arms and legs waggling about but no movement of their bodies. I was going nuts and all these people were surrounding me and bothering me. Finally they get to the other side and drag the bottles over. They waddle a few steps toward the fire below the car, but a full lane away, and start messing with trying to pull the pins. But they can't. So they are struggling and finally the guy with the cigar gets his pin pulled but instead of then approaching the fire, he points it and pulls the trigger from about two full counties away! And the bottle goes pfffft with a little white spurt that goes two feet and that's it.

With half the fire fighting effort now over, and the other guy still trying to pull the pin, the hero guy, the same one who pulled me out of the car, runs over there, grabs the extinguisher from the fat guy, there is a short struggle, the hero wins, turns toward the car and ran right up to it and rather quickly put it out.

I finally got away from my rescuers and we turned the car up on its wheels. It didn't seem damaged at all. It was black and was covered with white powder. The paint on the tail and the leather upholstery was somewhat singed, but not anywhere near what it appeared it would be. The flames had been burning up above the bodywork kind of like lighter fluid on your finger. It didn’t burn the car much at all.



[PHOTO NOTE] Well I see there were 3 of them not two but I only recalled two. One must have shown up after the original two. Note the cigar in the mouth of the guy on the far left. Also note where the fuel that fed the fire had run down on the tire.

[Buford]

Well I walked back and my car owner asked if I was OK. I said yes. Then he started excitedly saying stuff like “Boy you were really going!!! You were blowing them off. Did you win it? I couldn’t see." I said no. Then his face changed and he seemed to remember what happened after that and he said “What the hell happened?” I told him what I knew. Then the car arrived on the tow truck and we all started looking it over. A big crowd formed of course and everybody was telling me what they saw and how scary it was. This is when I really began to piece together what had happened. I didn’t know. I kind of missed the whole thing. It seemed to have been a bigger deal to everybody else than it was to me.

After awhile my car owner said, “I don’t think it’s hurt. Do you want to put it on the trailer or run it in the feature?" I jumped at the chance to redeem myself and said I wanted to run it. But people all around were just shaking their heads and acting incredulous I would go back out there. Tonight anyway. But ultimately we decided not to run because the fire powder probably got in the injectors and we didn’t want to blow it up. And it did have suspension damage we found later so we couldn't have run it anyway.

Well we put it back together and raced it again several times. But it never handled after that first time. And my car owner kind of hurt my confidence. Apparently, after reflection, I should not have said I wanted to go back out right after the flip. A lot of people began to say I was “Too brave for his own good.” And every time my car owner strapped me in, his hands were shaking so much he could hardly do it. Eventually he succeeded in making me nervous.

[Buford]

Originally posted by scags
Buford, did you swipe those rear tires off a tractor/ trailer?

Dang gum it that there's stagger ...boy.

[JB Miltonian]

Great story, glad you got out OK.

Is there another installment coming? I want to know more about the hero. Did you get to talk with him, find out who he was?

[Buford]

No that's it. I have other photos to illustrate other stories I told on that thread if there is any interest. Actually no I never talked to the hero. At the time I was more worried about facing my car owner and whether I would ever get a chance to race again. I guess I missed my chance to thank him but I had a lot on my mind.

[David M. Kane]

Great stuff Buford!

Terrifying fire fighting, was this at the Fairgrounds in Indy? The Hoosier 100, perhaps a support race, that's horse track.

[Peter Leversedge]

Buford - A wild ride

Scags - The rear tires are not stolen from a farmers tractor but I would say from a drag racer and hand groved [ note the wrinkles in the side walls ].Thats what we used use at that time [ the late '70s ] We used to call them "humpers", the faster you went the bigger they got and they would bounce you all over the place, took a bit of getting use to but gave you unreal grip, better than any other tire at the time.

[Buford]

I might also note I am not the only driver in history to flip after the race was over. The Indy 500 winner did it this year too later in the season.

[Ray Bell]

Does this mean you got your pictures back, Buford?

You'll have to post more... for sure!

[Buford]

No he didn't take photos if my racing career for the Motorsports research Museum. Only people who were worthy.

[HDonaldCapps]

Even as good as Buford has written it, this is a better story in person....

[Lotus23]

Buford, I well remember your original (non-illustrated) telling of this story 5 years ago. You certainly haven't lost your raconteur touch, buddy. Terrific stuff!

fwiw, I too had an Indy Dream in the mid-sixties Lotus days, and I even ran against a few guys who eventually got there. You got a lot closer to achieving that dream than I ever did. I harbored no illusions of winning, but just wanted to qualify and take the green flag from Pat Vidan.

About 5 years ago, I informed my long-suffering wife that I felt it was time to put the Indy Dream on the back shelf. She replied that anyone with a lick of sense would've given it up around the time we got married 40 years ago!

[Buford]

Originally posted by HDonaldCapps
Even as good as Buford has written it, this is a better story in person....

More hand gestures? Actually Lotus is was a complete cut and paste from the original telling.

[Buford]

Originally posted by David M. Kane
Great stuff Buford!

Terrifying fire fighting, was this at the Fairgrounds in Indy? The Hoosier 100, perhaps a support race, that's horse track.

No it was the Knox County Fairgrounds in Illinois.

[Rob G]

Originally posted by Buford
I have other photos to illustrate other stories I told on that thread if there is any interest.

There's interest! I've never had the chance to hear these stories, so I'd love to read more.

[Bruce302]

quote:

There's interest! I've never had the chance to hear these stories, so I'd love to read more.

Buford, fantastic writing and memories. The continuation should be compulsory, and if not here, just let me know where.

Bruce.

[Buford]

My brother (left) and me on my dad's stock car in 1954. This car spawned a major riot in the pits started by some crazy woman who well... I was pretty young... but looked a lot like my mother. All over a small matter of trying to bribe people with a hundred dollar bill to wreck it when the wrong hillbillies seized control and... well anyway growing up in the American Midwest racing world of the 1950s wasn't a conventional upbringing. Even got my parents hauled up in front of school authorities at one point charged with child abuse for putting their kids in racing cars at the age of 7 and 3. I was about 9 before I realized not everybody's parents ran a factory backed racing team. When all your role models are crazy, what chance have you got?

[Ray Bell]

If you know the key words, you can easily find Buford's better stories...

Originally posted by Buford
My first race was at age 11 days at the International Amphitheater in Chicago. Indoor AAA midget races in January 1948. But my parents rolled me up in a blanket and stuffed me under the seats with the discarded popcorn boxes so I couldn't see anything. I don't have an earliest recollection because my earliest races were all before memory starts and when memory does start, we were at races every weekend.

One of my earliest recollections was about 1952 or 1953. They were going to have a "New Car" stock car race, meaning showroom cars right out of the dealer. We got a new Hudson Hornet. Beautiful red with big white 22 number painted on the side. It was so new it needed to be broken in so my mother put me in the seat and my infant brother between us, and drove it over to the Mississippi River, about a 4 hour drive each way and it was the first time I ever crossed a big bridge and saw a river. I was scared. They put big pieces of paper over the numbers.

So came the big season ending race weekend and the hillbillies my dad had running the car got into a family fight. One faction owned the engine and one owned the car. We were the sponsors so we didn't actually own anything. Well our driver was in the losing faction of the family fight and we got to the track and found out our pretty good hillbilly driver (when he wasn't drunk) had been replaced with some other hillbilly in "our car". So my dad came back from the pits having demanded the company name be removed from the car but it wasn't and it was a big hassle. The cars came out on the track and were lining up and stopping on the main straight for the introductions.

At that point my mother grabbed me by the hand and charged down the steps, my little legs missing about half of them, being suspended in space and drug along. She started going up to the fence and yelling at the drivers in their cars that were lined up. She was waving a $100 bill (big money in those days) and yelling "$100 to wreck the 22 car." I remember she went up to a young Tom Bigelow (years later an Indy 500 driver) waving the money. He looked at her like she was from the moon and said, "Isn't the 22 car your car?" "She yelled back, "Not anymore, $100 to wreck it."

So anyway the big 100 lapper went off and nobody wrecked the car but the driver sucked and finished way back. So afterward off we went to the pits. This is where my recollection is a bit fuzzy but some woman smacked a guy up side the head with her purse and a big riot broke out. I'm pretty sure it was my mom who started it. Anyway, there were about 100 people, men and women alike all fighting and scuffling and I was about knee high to all of them and couldn't help but notice nobody was taking care of me and it seemed kind of dangerous with all these adults fighting all around me. So I decided to bail and ran a zig zag course through the fighting adults and bodies rolling around on the ground until I reached the perimeter of the riot. So I stood there in amazement for awhile watching this and more and more people were pouring down from the stands and joining in and now there were 200 or 300 people fighting all over the place.

So at that point I saw a kid about my age who had also been abandoned standing over to the side so I went over there and sucker punched him and he started crying. I was about 5 years old and was already a racer!

Some role models!

[Ray Bell]

And here's another one:

Originally posted by Buford
Well in the 1950s one year the track paid 3 brothers to wreck our cars. We had two. So we knew what was going to happen. One of the brothers got our 2nd car pinned against the wall and the other two brothers were after our #1 car. The welding truck driver got so p1ssed off he came out on the track in his truck and took out one of the two who was after our number one car. That guy got a lifetime ban from the track but I don't think the track owner banned himself for trying to wreck our cars. It was a tough sport in the 1950s.....

[Buford]

Yeah after finding the photo I discovered it was 1954 so I was a little older than I remembered when I first told the story (6 instead of 5) and my brother was a little beyond infant. McGuire will be here in a minute to say it was all a lie because my 50 year old recollection wasn't 100% accurate.

[Lotus23]

Buford, don't concern yourself with nitpickers...by all means, more reminiscences of your misspent youth!

[D-Type]

I believe it iwould be topical to describe the first of Buford's posts I read as 'a sublime moment in my introduction to TNF'

Keep em coming! Please!

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by D-Type
I believe it would be topical to describe the first of Buford's posts I read as 'a sublime moment in my introduction to TNF'

That would have been on the 'Charmers' thread, right?

[Buford]

I don't get it?

[JacnGille]

Nuthin like a great Buford story. Please keep um comin.

[HistoricMustang]

Time for a book! "Fast-Un Racing and Other Oddities"

Henry

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by Buford
I don't get it?

Charmers...

And the infamous:

Did Jim Clark meet the Beatles?

I just can't find where you first posted about your father looking for a job!

[Jim Thurman]

Buford, thanks for posting the story

Those first two photos, dammit, that's a racer.

Peter beat me to explaining "humpers".