L
LUKE'57
Guest
Race Card #94-The Banjo Man
After a driving career that started with the old A-model roadsters Banjo Matthews was running his last season as a full time owner-driver in '62. He then ran a few seasons as owner with cars built by Holman Moody and picked up a ride here and there but his star was about to really shine.
One of the premier stock car fabricators of the last half of the twentieth century, Banjo built everything from dirt cars to super speedway cars and even IROC cars. I spent some time in the shop one Sunday with Jody and the IROC fleet and even got to sit in Banjo's barber chair.
He was the one the Wood Brothers called on for Pearson's special chariots of fire and Junior Johnson knew that when he called his old car owner and told him he needed something done that all work in the shop would stop until he got whatever he needed done. Banjo was not a man to take friendships or a man's word lightly.
Here's my tribute to one of the four best Grand National stock car builders I ever had the privilege to meet. While I only got to meet Banjo once, it was very memorable. The look on his face when I answered his question about where and when the pictures of what he thought were his cars had been taken was priceless. And to make it even better a friend was there to get it on film. He thought that they were taken at Darlington many years ago but I had to tell him they were taken in my front yard the week before. If you've never seen the "what'chew talkin' 'bout" over the glasses look from Banjo then you've miss a treat. I still don't think I truly convinced him that they weren't thirty year old pics of his cars and that made me feel really good.
After a driving career that started with the old A-model roadsters Banjo Matthews was running his last season as a full time owner-driver in '62. He then ran a few seasons as owner with cars built by Holman Moody and picked up a ride here and there but his star was about to really shine.
One of the premier stock car fabricators of the last half of the twentieth century, Banjo built everything from dirt cars to super speedway cars and even IROC cars. I spent some time in the shop one Sunday with Jody and the IROC fleet and even got to sit in Banjo's barber chair.
He was the one the Wood Brothers called on for Pearson's special chariots of fire and Junior Johnson knew that when he called his old car owner and told him he needed something done that all work in the shop would stop until he got whatever he needed done. Banjo was not a man to take friendships or a man's word lightly.
Here's my tribute to one of the four best Grand National stock car builders I ever had the privilege to meet. While I only got to meet Banjo once, it was very memorable. The look on his face when I answered his question about where and when the pictures of what he thought were his cars had been taken was priceless. And to make it even better a friend was there to get it on film. He thought that they were taken at Darlington many years ago but I had to tell him they were taken in my front yard the week before. If you've never seen the "what'chew talkin' 'bout" over the glasses look from Banjo then you've miss a treat. I still don't think I truly convinced him that they weren't thirty year old pics of his cars and that made me feel really good.