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Nudging’s Nothing New: Before There
Was “The Intimidator” There Was “Pops”. By Michael Smith
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Dale Earnhardt’s recent resurgence brings to mind another
great driver who wasn’t afraid to bump and rub in order to win
races. While fans who are new to NASCAR racing might think Earnhardt
originated the notion of bumping, or even wrecking an opponent
on the way to the checkered flag, there are some who remember
the name of Curtis Turner. Turner wasn’t called “Pops” because
other drivers looked up to him as a father figure. Curtis Turner,
along with his party buddy Joe Weatherly, was called Pops because
of his trick of “popping” against the side of opponent’s cars
to nudge his way past.
Curtis Turner was born in Floyd, Virginia in 1924. His family
owned a lumber business and, by the time he was 20 he was making
his own way in the same arena, amassing the first of many fortunes
he would gain and lose during his lifetime. For whatever reason,
when he wasn’t shepherding his lumber business, Turner ran with
local moon shiners (a “shine clan,” as he called them). As entertainment,
the moon shiners would occasionally run auto races through the
backwoods and eventually Turner got around to entering a 1940
Ford in one of the events. In the race, Turner drove like a
madman, putting his car in places it shouldn’t have fit, eventually
crashing before the midway point. Nevertheless, the crowd cheered
his efforts and he left the event with a will to return and
win. And win he did. Turner repaired his damaged Ford and returned
the next week to win the event.
Turner went on to race modified stocks around the south, claiming
hundreds of victories before winning his first official NASCAR
event on the unusual circular track at Langhorne, Pennsylvania
in September 1949. The following year, Turner won three races
and claimed the pole for the inaugural running of the Southern
500 at Darlington. During the 1956 season, Turner claimed victory
in 22 out of 43 convertible races and he dominated the Southern
500 to claim one of his biggest victories.
As Turner’s driving talents grew, so did his reputation around
the garage. He continued to put his car places it wouldn’t fit,
bending sheet metal if necessary, to obtain the desired results.
During the 1958 Rebel 300 at Darlington, Turner and Joe Weatherly
traded paint in factory supplied Fords. Ford executives reportedly
fumed in the grandstand as the cars banged hard against one
another. Turner and Weatherly took to calling these door-to-door
altercations “pops” and one another “Pops” Weatherly and “Pops”
Turner, and eventually everyone in the garage became “pops.”
Curtis Turner and Joe Weatherly became best of friends and party
buddies.
Once, at a small track, a local citizen bet Turner $100 that
he couldn’t lead the first lap. Turner took the bet and, starting
near the sixth spot, he plowed his way through the competitors
to cross the start-finish line first on the opening lap. According
to the story, that was all Turner led that day, because the
car was too torn up to be a contender. Turner collected his
$100 from the dumbfounded spectator and that was all that mattered.
At a race in Darlington Joe Weatherly passed Turner for the
lead and, fuming, Turner beat the daylights out of both cars
in order to get past to regain the lead. (Remember that the
two were teammates.) An angry Ralph Moody warned Turner that
if he beat and banged on Weatherly again, the pit crew wouldn’t
work on the car during the next pit stop. Well, Turner continued
to bash into Weatherly and, sure enough on the next pit stop,
the crew sat down and didn’t lift a finger to work on Turner’s
Ford. Furious, Turner returned to the track and bounced the
car right into a cement wall, fairly well demolishing it in
the process. But that wasn’t to be the end of Turner’s retaliation.
The following day Turner showed up at the Holman-Moody shop
in a new Cadillac and rammed the monstrous car though the rollup
garage doors, backed out and drove away.
Turner didn’t always come out on top in his scrapes with other
drivers. Once, after putting rival Lee Petty into the wall,
Turner sat on a fence drinking liquor from a bottle after the
race. Lightly tapping a newspaper against his leg, Lee approached
Turner and said, “I want to talk to you.” Then, without further
niceties, Petty swung the newspaper and clobbered Turner upside
the head. The newspaper concealed a wrench and Lee Petty’s point
was made.
Turner and Weatherly were so hard on rental cars, often racing
them against each other, that some rental agencies refused to
rent cars to the pair. It wasn’t uncommon for a rental car to
end up in the swimming pool during a Curtis Turner shindig and
at Daytona Weatherly and Turner maintained a “party pad” for
entertaining friends during speed weeks. Another story involves
a late night contest in a motel parking lot in which the contestants
were to see who could drive the fastest in reverse. Someone
secretly painted black a line of telephone pole-sized parking
posts along one edge of the lot and, in the dark, it wasn’t
long before the contest ended with a crash and the sound of
broken glass and bent chrome as someone backed in to the camouflaged
posts at high speed.
Despite his recklessness on the ground, Turner also managed
to acquire a license to pilot airplanes and, by most accounts
he was an accomplished (if overly daring) pilot. There are a
number of legends and folktales surrounding Turner’s exploits
as a pilot. During one flight, he landed on the main street
of a small southern town to purchase adult beverages and, in
the process of taking off, he tore out power lines or traffic
lights (depending on the version you choose to believe). At
any rate, a very real FAA representative was standing by at
Charlotte to confiscate Turner’s pilot’s license at the terminus
of his journey.
During another flight, Turner had teammate and drinking buddy
Joe Weatherly and a journalist on board. With Weatherly in the
backseat, Turner leaned over to the journalist and whispered,
“Watch me scare the….out of Joe.” With that, Turner cut the
power to one engine and feathered the propeller. An excited
Little Joe brought the problem to Turner’s attention, to which
Turner replied by secretly cutting the power to the other engine.
Weatherly became more and more agitated as the plane spiraled
down in a shallow glide until Turner restored power to the engines,
all the while forgetting that he was also scaring the daylights
out of the poor journalist.
Curtis Turner seemed to operate just inside the law, living
for the day and letting the chips fall wherever they might and
his recklessness eventually ran him afoul of NASCAR founder
Big Bill France. Turner the businessman envisioned a Daytona-like
super speedway in North Carolina and, in 1959 broke ground on
what would become Charlotte (Lowe’s) Motor Speedway. A myriad
of construction overruns, including the fact that the speedway
was situated over solid rock that had to be blasted out, resulted
in the project going deeply into debt. Desperate, Turner approached
Teamster’s Union boss Jimmy Hoffa for a loan. The $800,000 load
came with strings attached: in exchange for the loan, Turner
had to organize NASCAR drivers into a union.
The unionizing effort was a success initially as Turner and
fellow driver Tim Flock teamed up to sign a number of NASCAR’s
top drivers, however Big Bill did not sit idly by while the
drivers organized and, armed with a pistol at one point, Big
Bill declared that no union driver would ever race on a NASCAR-sanctioned
track. The unionizing effort folded like a cheap suit and both
Curtis Turner and Tim Flock received lifetime banishment from
NASCAR.
The punishment was devastating for Turner, who had been driving
for the legendary factory backed team of Holman-Moody. Ford
Motor Company found Turner work in other racing series including
USAC. Ironically, when Ford began its own boycott of NASCAR
in 1966, Big Bill France lifted the ban on Turner and Flock
in an effort to bring back big name drivers to his sport. Turner
came back while Flock flatly refused.
Curtis Turner went on to win a few more races following his
return to the NASCAR fold, but he never fully recaptured his
pre-ban glory. Turner scored 17 wins in his career but one has
to ask how many more victories he might have scored were it
not for the banishment.
Curtis Turner’s untimely death is somewhat fitting, given the
way he lived. On October 4, 1970, Turner’s plane, with he and
professional golfer Clarence King on board, plowed into a mountainside
near Punxsutawny, Pennsylvania. One theory behind the accident
is that Turner, as was his habit, had set the autopilot and
was catching forty winks when the plane augured in.
In the end, when it comes to the cause of his death, we’ll never
really know for sure, but we do know that Curtis Turner set
the standard when it comes to trading paint and bending sheet
metal. So, when you see “The Intimidator” nudging, or being
nudged, remember that like it or not, nudging’s nothing new
and spare a thought for “Pops” Turner.
Copyright 2000. Michael Smith |
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NASCAR
RACING DEPARTMENTS
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NASCAR
AUCTIONS
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NASCAR
RACING WEB SITES
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