Stock Car Racing Memories

"REMEMBER WHEN - THE EARLY YEARS OF STOCK CAR RACING IN SOUTHERN ONTARIO," THAT SOMEHOW, FOR WHATEVER REASON, I BECAME A SMALL PART

RICK SHARPLES BOOKS ON SOUTHERN ONTARIO RACING TOOK ME WAY, WAY BACK, TO THE DAYS OF "SMILIN' JACK GREEDY"

     How much are we influenced by our parents? I mean really? Fifty percent influence or five percent? Guess it depends on the quality of the relationship. Or maybe that isn't as important as wonderment, about what was going on at the time in respective lives and family experience. I wondered all the time, what was up with these people, who carted me all over God's half acre, to see things they wanted to experience; and I was given opportunity, even if it wasn't what I might have chosen if given the privilege.

     I wonder about this a lot, even with my own lads, thinking about what they have become, in terms of the music profession, and how poor a musician I was, even in the heyday of being in a school band. I even went on tour with them in England but, honestly, I wasn't very good.

     I understand the collecting part, because both Andrew and Robert were exposed to antiques, and collectible stuff very early in their lives. They attended antique shops, auctions, flea markets while in stuffed into snuggly bags suspended on our chests. In those early years of exposure, they heard the auction call of Art Campbell and later, Wayne Rutledge, former National Hockey League goaltender, who retired to Muskoka, as both a part time auctioneer and glazier. Point is, both lads are a couple of chips off old pop's (and mom's) collective block, so it partly explains, what I picked up from their grandfather Ed, my father. No, Ed wasn't a collector. What he did offer me however, was the strange, out of place opportunity, to attend motor racing events in Southern Ontario. I don't know why. It came from out of the blue, something my father was known for, because he liked surprising us with special activities. Like taking me to just about every major historic site and fort in Ontario, before I was eleven.

    The car racing thing was unusual, because I had never shown much interest this way, even when playing with my toy cars, on the livingroom floor. I don't know whether someone at work, gave him free tickets to one of the race tracks, and he decided, on the first outing, he rather enjoyed the brisk night air, and the smell of exhaust fumes. I know he would take me to Hamilton's Civic Stadium a couple of times each year, because he got free tickets through his lumber company. I hated the Tiger Cats but I loved when they played the Ottawa Rough Riders.

     Thinking about racing cars? I've still got a lot of nagging questions, but a lingering good feeling, that my dad and I had a few special moments together, when we may have actually, on a few occasions, been on the same wave length. This was a guy, by the way, who decided to participate in the hippy era, and grew his hair as long as mine, (past the shoulders) in a sort of elder solidarity with the lay-about youth, making love not war down on the shore of Bass Rock in Bracebridge. This was another one of his quirks because he had a serious concern about how he was viewed, and his reputation preceded him, wherever he went; except the part about getting into fistfights, at local taverns, a side-effect he once told me, of having been in the Royal Canadian Navy, requiring one to "have dukes at the ready," to settle disputes with ship mates. He told me about coming back to his ship, The Coaticook, in San Francisco, after one shore-leave, to find the coroner's crew removing the body of a deceased sailor, who had been playing in the poker game on board; the same one he had opted against joining in order to visit the taverns on shore. A bad hand, and money lost, had resulted in the shooting death of an alleged cheater, by a bad sport with a side-arm. My dad survived to give me life, instead of playing poker that day, because as God is my witness, Ed would have been in the middle of the frey. He once asked me how many times I thought his nose had been broken, by judging its bumps and bends. He claimed that he had known of five breaks, but six or seven were most likely. He played hockey and was known as a fighter. He just wasn't known as a guy who liked to sit on a cushion, on a cold night, to watch stock cars drive around and around an oval track with his son. But it wasn't a dream. It actually happened. Many times. This was my dad. A man of sudden contradictions, who seemed conservative one moment, and a wild radical the next, with a hint of hippy thrown in for spice. I was fond of him, but I never really understood him. Maybe, when thinking back, you have somewhat the same recollections of your parents. Nice folks, but a little nuts.

     I was browsing through some second hand books, at the annual Gravenhurst Public Library Book Sale, last summer, and came upon a newer, privately published text that, by cover alone, took me back to my childhood. The part of my youth I didn't understand. I still don't, but it happened anyway. I loved my father but I never really understood him, but I'm sure everyone reading this may have had something similar, get in the way of a full and meaningful relationship with a parental figure. Ed meant well, most of the time, but he would get something in his head, that led him on jags into areas of interest, not fitting his character, or what I knew of his background. Auto racing comes to mind. The book that inspired me to think back to those days, when Ed and I used to attend car races in the Hamilton and Toronto areas, in the early 1960's, to about 1966, when we pulled up stakes in Southern Ontario and moved north to Muskoka. The book, volume one, was written by Rick Sharples, earlier this new century, and is entitled "Remember When - The Early Years of Stock Car Racing in Southern Ontario." By coincidence, which happens a lot with me, I flipped it open to page 124, where I saw the familiar image of my favorite race car driver from those years, John Henry (Jack) Greedy, or as he was known to his friends, "Smilin' Jack). I couldn't believe it. And of all places, finding it at the second hand book sale in Gravenhurst. Here's the rest of the story. It has some twists and turns that will surprise you. Again, possibly you can relate, from experiences with your own family, and what they did for you, thinking it was the best thing ever; except they forgot to ask your opinion in advance.

     One Friday evening (but it could have been a Saturday), Ed came home after work, carrying two seat cushions; the ones you take to football games, or to lessen the ass pain from sitting on picnic benches. He handed one to me, before dinner that night, and told me we were going to see some car races. Best part, it was going to be that very night. Out of the blue, my dad, who really had no serious interest in cars or racing, (and only slightly understood the mechanics of an engine) decided he and I were going to buddy-up at one of the regional race car tracks, in vicinity of Hamilton or Toronto. I'm pretty sure the first race we went to, was at Flamboro, but there was another track I haven't yet identified, re-reading Rick Sharples' interesting book. I think it was probably "Pinecrest." He had forewarned my mother Merle, that this is what he intended to do, with his seven year old son for sporting recreation. To that point, I think the only time I'd had anything to do with auto racing, had been, typically from home-viewing; what I had been watching on Saturday and Sunday sports coverage on the old flickering black and white television. So I certainly wouldn't have considered myself a race car enthusiast. I think my dad liked the idea of being spontaneous, and in fifty percent of the cases, it was an admirable quality. The other fifty percent, not so much. My mother wasn't into anything that wasn't proportional to our interests, and cash availability. I take after my father. When Suzanne and I were dating, we would start off taking a drive to Orillia, for dinner, and then wind-up in Toronto, dining instead at the Spaghetti Factory. She could write a book on my spontaneous adventures, and it's clear to me now, that my father and I weren't as far apart in philosophy, as I thought, for most of our days together.

     Over about five years, Ed and I became track regulars, at Flamboro, and another one which I now believe was Pinecrest on Highway 7. The chair pads came in handy, as the bleacher experience was bad enough on the bare hands, let alone a behind without cushioning. I always came home with slivers and a sore tongue. The tongue issue came from the fact, that Ed insisted, I drink a scalding hot coffee or chicken soup, I think it was, to stay warm. For every single race I went to, in those few years, I always came home with a blistered tongue; I hated that part, because it would last for at least two days, and hurt every time I drank or tried to eat something. Ed would get us hot dogs to go with our steaming beverages. It was a nice effort on his part, and I did enjoy spending time with him, because he was a traveling salesman for Weldwood Lumber, and he was on the road, sometimes six days a week. I just never really understood why car racing became the focal point of our bonding time.

     The noise of the cars was deafening, and the cold night air, made it a little uncomfortable; but there was no doubt these evening races were exciting. I saw some incredible crashes, where drivers were injured. I din't like that part at all! Ed always bought me a program that Merle used to throw away after about a week of finding it lodged somewhere in the living room, which was off-limits for any of my toys or collectables. I'd love to have a few of those back now, as further remembrance of those cold evenings, hot drink in hand, watching drivers like Smilin's Jack Greedy taking the checkered-flag with his modified car, which had a stabilizing wing on the back. They were neat and fast around those ovals. My favorite part was watching Jack take the checkered flag from the race official, at the finish line, and fly it out the window of his modified racer, around the track, as a victory lap, to the ovation of his many fans huddled in the bleachers; trying to stay warm with the kind of hot beverage that burns the tongue.

     The extra part of odd, in my relationship with my father, as related to stock car racing, was when the Flamboro and Pinecrest experiences morphed into our yearly trips to Daytona Beach, Florida. Now get this! We would drive to Florida, having and enduring at least five major issues with car and tire repairs, always in the jaw of brutal weather traditional to February; being stuck in Ohio in snowstorms became a family tradition. Now you have to appreciate, if, that is, you know anything about Daytona Beach, that you don't go there during "Speed Week," if you're not prepared to spend a premium price for lodging, and a few other related situations, including higher than normal prices for even general merchandise. The Daytona Speedway is one of the most famous race tracks in North America, and the Daytona 500 is the culminating event for "Race Week." It's pretty much the case, that if you are coming to Daytona in February, you will undoubtedly have some interest in stock car racing, or racing in general, because there is at least a solid week of activities, in and around the landmark track. It's a pretty wild city when all the race fans converge. While we considered ourselves race fans, because of our Southern Ontario experiences with Flamboro and Pinecrest, and felt in the groove hitting Daytona, we were fence sitters when it came to actually attending Florida races. My parents would buy me the latest edition of the "Daytona 500" nylon windbreaker. I got a new one every other year. It had the whole outline of the track printed on the back of the jacket. Every year, my dad reminded me, before we left, Burlington, and later Bracebridge, that we were going to get tickets to "The 500," while in Daytona. It's kind of expected, you see, when you're plunked down in the middle of this racing hoopla, that in my day featured drivers like Richard Petty and Cale Yarborough.

     Every year, without fail, Ed would find a plethora of hard-to-argue-with excuses, for not going to the big race, or any of the lead-up events. We would go to shopping malls that had race exhibitions, and anywhere else that offered free exposure to the racers and their cars, as part of a public relations initiative. I even collected all the Daytona newspapers, that featured the lead-up to the Sunday race, which would be televised around the world. I don't know what happened to my father, when we got to Daytona, to change his mind about attending the race, but it never changed in all the years I went with them to Florida. The closest I got to the Daytona Speedway, during the "Race Week," was to pass by, taking the road to a neat little par 3 golf course just up the road. Yup, I used to play double rounds on the eighteen hole course, close enough to hear the cars, racing the track a mile away. I don't know whether he was worried about the expense of tickets, which weren't too high back then, or he didn't want to be part of a large attendance, in those massive bleachers, we saw in photographs and film coverage, on the nightly news at our oceanfront cottage. It made the Flamboro and Pinecrest adventures, so much more curious and hard to explain, as far as my father's interest to immerse me in race culture. It did have an impact in so many ways, but it just seemed so incredibly odd, even for my father, to drive all the way to Daytona Beach, to coincide our vacation with "Race Week," and not actually attend a single event while there. I think it was possible, that I would have become addicted to the race scene, if we had followed through on our plans to attend; because I really liked Daytona and the race culture, that thrived there, and still does, for this winter classic. Funny how these things go, and how collecting interests change, for the strangest reasons. You have to admit, this was pretty strange. If he had truly wanted to please his son, we would most definitely have gone to at least one of those "Daytona 500" races, or even a minor lead-up race, instead of whacking golf balls around a burnt grass, par 3 course. We even had the seat cushions in the back of our car, just in case, but wound up using them instead, when we had ocean side barbeques.

     At one point in my life, I possessed lots of race car memorabilia, but always reflective of either Daytona racing, or the two Southern Ontario speedways, Pinecrest and Flamoro. I could have fallen fully into this side of mobilia, if it hadn't been for the reluctance of my father, to finish off what he had begun. If there is one question I would liked to have asked my father, before he left this mortal coil, it would have been this; how come you wouldn't take me to the Daytona Speedway? I would have only hurt his feelings asking this, so I'm glad I never had the chance. Just the same, I had a great opportunity to meet with some of NASCAR's racing legends, and see their cars up close. Race Week was always good this way, because drivers and sponsors made sure the fans got to see what modern racing was all about; and that came in the form of public appearances all over Daytona for several weeks before the big race. I've never thought about this until now, but one of my mother's concerns about by father, taking me to the Ontario speedways, for those evening races, was the distinct possibility we could be killed before finishing our hot dogs in the bleachers. She had watched major races on television, when accidents between multiple race cars, sent debris hurtling into the stands, where fans were nearly cut in two by jagged metal. It's possible that Merle may have made a deal with Ed, to keep me out of the stands at Daytona, where admittedly the cars were traveling a much greater speed. Instead, I stood on the tees with a driver, occasionally chasing away snakes, that my have been trying to hatch my golf ball into snake-lets.

     I'm glad that I paid attention to these times with my father, and it did enhance my opinion of the effort my family went to, in order to give me something more than just a new toy, or a dinner treat at a restaurant. He put some real effort into pleasing me, and I appreciate that a lot. I hope my boys will feel somewhat the same, although I still expect them to agree, dad was a character with a lot of peculiarities. It's a family thing. Wouldn't change a think even if I could. Questioning it all, just muddies the water, and serves no real purpose. In the case of the Daytona 500, well, I had a hell of a vacation in Florida, even if I did get to see a race. I certainly don't feel hard-done-by.