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SPEEDtv.com Book Review - ”FULL THROTTLE: The Life and Fast Times of NASCAR Legend Curtis Turner
Written by: Gregg Leary Charlotte, NC – 2/7/2006
Category:NASCAR -> Sprint Cup
”FULL THROTTLE: The Life and Fast Times of NASCAR Legend Curtis Turner is available in the SPEED Book Store.
”FULL THROTTLE: The Life and Fast Times of NASCAR Legend Curtis Turner
By Robert Edelstein
Review: By Gregg Leary
Curtis Turner and James Dean both epitomized the adage, “Live fast and die young.” Dean drove into immortality in a Porsche Spyder on his way to a race. Turner slammed into a Pennsylvania hillside in his Aero Commander, after a lifetime of racing.
Was it only one lifetime?
Cale Yarborough said, “Turner left this world with nothing undone. He lived two of any man’s lives and started on a third. His parties—there’s nothing about them that could be printed—and on the track, he was the hardest man I ever tried to pass.”
Turner was NASCAR’s first Superstar. He drove in NASCAR’s first “Strictly Stock” race in 1949. Fans voted him “Most Popular Driver” and “Best Modified Driver” that year. He was the first NASCAR driver to grace the cover of “Sports Illustrated.” He was, “The Babe Ruth of Stock Car Racing.”
Benny Parsons says, “Ask any racing fan under fifty, ‘Who’s the greatest driver you ever saw,’ and it’s Dale Earnhardt. Ask anybody over fifty-and the answer’s Curtis Turner. He was the man.” Smokey Yunick noted, “There never would have been a Dale Earnhardt without Curtis Turner.”
Robert Edelstein documents “the man” with over 300 pages of text and 34 photographs. It is meticulously researched but extremely enjoyable reading.
The book begins with an aviation incident that almost defies belief. Curtis Turner is about to perform “an emergency landing … he and his three passengers are dangerously low on whiskey,” and Turner has decided to land his twin-engine aircraft in the middle of Easley, South Carolina to replenish their liquor supply. Problem is Easley has no airport.
Turner lands between two churches, leapfrogs cars on the roadway…decides a pit stop for alcohol is out of the question … full throttle … clears a traffic light by inches, but pulls down some telephone lines. The FAA was not amused. Turner loses his license for two years.
Like father, like son. Curtis learned the timber and moonshine business from his father. Curtis ran his first load of moonshine at age nine. On the back roads of the Blue Ridge Mountains, Turner honed his skills. He perfected the “bootleg turn,” where he’d snap a car around 180 degrees between the borders of the ditches. It was a skill that helped him evade the revenuers and a technique he’d teach years later in his Safe High Performance Driving School at his beloved Charlotte Motor Speedway. Turner eloped and was married in Bristol, Tennessee at age 22. One week later, he decided to try his hand at stock car racing at a half mile dirt track in Mt. Airy, North Carolina (Andy Griffith’s fictional “Mayberry”).
A persistent rain washed out the races, but Turner, ever the showman, did not want the crowd to be disappointed. He drove onto the saturated track and put on such a display of mud-slinging rooster tailing car control … including his “bootleg turns” that the crowd showered him with applause and $22 they had collected by passing the hat to reward him for the show.
It was the first of many shows. His cohort in crime was Joe Weatherly. They became racing’s “Odd Couple,” the Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis of the convertible circuit. Their on track antics were memorable, their off-track antics at the “Party Pad” unprintable. They slalomed telephone poles, did demolition derbies and raced their rental cars … and plunked them into motel pools. They flew formation in their airplanes … and tried to knock each other’s wingtip position lights off.
Turner and “Big Bill” France were great friends. They co-promoted races together. They co-drove the 1950 Mexican Road Race. Turner was proud of his friend’s racing masterpiece, the Daytona International Speedway, and wanted to build a similar track himself.
“One day I was driving down the road and just decided to build a race track.” Turner combined forces with Bruton Smith to build Charlotte Motor Speedway … and lose it when a last ditch effort to unionize NASCAR drivers in exchange for a loan from the Teamsters that could have saved the race track caused him to be banned for life from NASCAR by his “friend” Bill France.
Turner, like Ted Williams, lost several of the best years of his career. (Although Williams did it willingly as a fighter pilot in World War II and Korea.) What stats could he have put up without the ban? Turner did not quit racing. He won Pikes Peak in 1962. He won USAC stock car races and an ARCA race at Charlotte. He crashed Smokey Yunick’s “Python” trying to qualify it for the Indy 500.
He came up with plans to launch private communications satellites and to advertise on the “white space” of United States currency. His timber deals kept him busy, but he wanted to race in NASCAR.
After the deaths of superstars Joe Weatherly and Fireball Roberts and Chrysler’s boycott, fans stayed away from NASCAR in droves, boycotting and girlcotting the tracks. Something had to be done to return the magic. France reinstated Turner in 1965 to put more butts in the seats.
“I feel like a fellow who just got out of jail after a four-year term. I’m plenty thirsty for racing and it’s been a long time between drinks.” Turner’s remarkable win at Rockingham at age 41—with a broken rib—solidified his legendary status. When he was pulled over on the old beach/road course at Daytona in his passenger car, after kicking up roostertails of sand, the police officer asked, “Who do you think you are, Curtis Turner?”
I give “Full Throttle” four lug nuts out of five. Block off an evening, unplug the phone and television, I predict you read it in one sitting. It’s THAT good.
”Full Throttle: The Life and Fast Times of NASCAR Legend Curtis Turner is available in the SPEED Book Store.
Gregg Leary, a researcher/writer for “Wind Tunnel with Dave Despain” and
Book critic for SPEEDTV.com, was the track announcer for Hooter’s IHRA Drag Racing at National Events in the USA and Canada and entertained event crowds during “down time” by conducting “crowd participation” and product giveaways with the Hooter’s Girls.
He also was Marketing/PR Director and track announcer at Lake Erie Speedway.
As photo editor, feature writer, columnist and swimsuit calendar chief photographer for “Sports Jam Magazine,” Leary covered Auto Racing, Major League Baseball, the National Football League, and the National Basketball Association. He has photographed dozens of celebrities from A-Z, including Mario Andretti, Jim Brown, AJ Foyt, Ken Griffey Jr., Michael Jordan, Jay Leno, David Letterman, Mark McGwire, Paul Newman, Walter Payton, Alex Zanardi and Presidents Gerald Ford, George Bush and Bill Clinton.
Gregg’s wife, Lynn, and daughter, Caitlynn, live in Jefferson, Ohio. His son, Sean is a student at Appalachian State University in Boone, NC.
Leary has conducted motivational seminars and performed stand-up comedy around the country. He is a graduate of Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio and Exeter University in England. Gregg has hitchhiked 40,000 miles through 36 states and 10 European countries and is a licensed pilot and skydiver. Leary is available for motor sports consulting on a limited basis.
Contact him via email at gleary@speedtv.com .