4. “Holman-Moody: The Legendary Race Team” By Tom Cotter and Al Pearce - With The NASCAR Hall of Fame finding a permanent home in Charlotte, North Carolina recently, it seems appropriate that I should review a book about one of the legendary shrines to auto racing in the Charlotte area that predated NASCAR’s Hall by almost 50 years. “Holman-Moody: The Legendary Race Team” is a 240 page time capsule…chock full of photographs, anecdotes, quotes and statistics about the legendary men and machines wearing the famous flying eagle…intertwined lower case “h” and “m,”…Competition Proven…decals… that did battle on racetracks around the world.

“Humpy” Wheeler in his Foreword writes, “Holman-Moody was to motorsports what the Packers are to the NFL, the Brooklyn Dodgers to baseball, and the Celtics to basketball. Whether it was the Mulsanne Straight at Le Mans, or the red clay corners of the Spartanburg Fairgrounds, they proved they could make anything on wheels move very fast.”

Who were John Holman and Ralph Moody? They certainly looked like an “Odd Couple.” (Laurel and Hardy or perhaps Drew Carey and Jim Carrey?) They could be “Jekyll and Hyde.” Tom Cotter does not write about the duo’s numerous battles. “Holman was an organizational genius and relentless taskmaster; Moody was a mechanic who knew how to get every last ounce of speed out of a car.”

Holman-Moody fielded cars for a who’s who of some of racing’s greatest drivers: Marvin Panch, (17 wins), Curtis Turner, (17), Dick Hutcherson, (14), Junior Johnson, (50), Cale Yarborough, (83), Fred Lorenzen, (26), Ned Jarrett, (50), and A.J. Foyt, (7). Those were just the 1965 drivers! They represent 264 NASCAR Cup victories between them. Mario Andretti won the 1967 Daytona 500 for Holman-Moody. Dan Gurney, Parnelli Jones, Johnny Rutherford, Bobby Unser and Jimmy Clark drove their stock cars. So did Bobby and Donnie Allison and Tiny Lund. Swede Savage and Dave MacDonald wheeled the “Competition Proven” stout stock cars…and died at Indy in much more fragile open-wheelers for other teams. David Pearson won two NASCAR Cup Championships for John and Ralph in 1968 and 1969. 1971 was Holman-Moody’s last full season in NASCAR.
Holman and Moody was so much more than just a great stock car team. They were a race car factory. They were Hendrick and Roush before there was a Hendrick and Roush. And they were so much more than just a NASCAR team. They excelled in drag racing… endurance racing at such revered venues as Le Mans and Sebring… offshore powerboating… and “dabbled with Indy racing and even sports car manufacturing.”

Tom Cotter spent 15 years researching this book, along with Al Pearce. Don Hunter supplied many of the superb photographs. Together they have left behind a legacy that belongs in every devoted racing fan’s library. The Holman-Moody shop has been leveled…crumbled back into history. Thank goodness this book remains. I give it four lug nuts out of five.