L
LUKE'57
Guest
When Nelson Stacy showed up for practice for the '61 Southern 500 in his new Ford Starliner all the regulars started "tripping" on him. "You got a relief driver lined up?" "You got power steering on that Ford?" "You ain't never driven 500 miles at Darlington in the Labor Day heat, have ye boy?"
What they hadn't taken into consideration was that this wasn't the first racing Nelson had done. And it wasn't the first ride he ever had that may be a little uncomfortable. See, Stacy had come over from the old MARC circuit that ran a lot of dirt races. And sometime before that he had seen a little seat time as one of Patton's tank drivers so he was a long way from being "cherry"!
When that 364th lap rolled around it found some of the drivers that were ragging on him out of the race in the pits and at least one with a relief driver in his car and him in the pits gettin' oxygen. And where was our "rookie" Stacy?
Well, after a stirring late race duel with veteran Marvin Panch driving relief for Fireball Roberts, who himself was in the pits gettin' oxygen, he was rolling into Victory Lane in his yellow Ford. So much for the "experts", huh?
What they hadn't taken into consideration was that this wasn't the first racing Nelson had done. And it wasn't the first ride he ever had that may be a little uncomfortable. See, Stacy had come over from the old MARC circuit that ran a lot of dirt races. And sometime before that he had seen a little seat time as one of Patton's tank drivers so he was a long way from being "cherry"!
When that 364th lap rolled around it found some of the drivers that were ragging on him out of the race in the pits and at least one with a relief driver in his car and him in the pits gettin' oxygen. And where was our "rookie" Stacy?
Well, after a stirring late race duel with veteran Marvin Panch driving relief for Fireball Roberts, who himself was in the pits gettin' oxygen, he was rolling into Victory Lane in his yellow Ford. So much for the "experts", huh?