Gold Thunder by Rex White

Author:Rex White
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Published: 2017-07-07T00:00:00+00:00

J.B. Day, shown above, in 2003. “As a child, J.B. Day reached Lakewood Speedway by bike. Consumed by a love for racing, he’d leave Easley, South Carolina, and pedal for days, sleeping in the woods at night.” (Courtesy the Eddie Samples Photo Collection.)

The racetrack had an odd groove, which I found right away, and there was a bar outside the track, with the best draft beer in the world. The track was also popular with drivers because of its good hot dogs. You always remember the bars, and good places to eat. Daytona was famous for its frog legs, California for Mexican food, and Boston for prime rib and lobster. Near Atlanta, we ate at Thomas’s family restaurant in the Farmer’s Market, and Bristol, Tennessee, had a steakhouse that was unreal.

I sat on the pole and was leading the Nashville race, when a right front wheel broke and I hit the wall. I wasn’t hurt, but the car was heavily damaged. The impact bent the frame and tore loose the A-frame. The race was won by convertibles, which placed in the first four spots.

Later, whenever I raced at Nashville, I always sat on the pole, always able to find that same winning groove.

After the race, I took my wrecked car to Cotton Owens’s garage in Spartanburg, where Louie Clements was working, but there was so much damage that I headed back to Silver Spring.

The car was in such bad shape, I never rebuilt it, running Dave White’s in the Southern 500, and two other races. The last Grand National of the ’58 circuit was held at Lakewood Speedway in Atlanta and, without a ride, I drove as Joe Eubanks’s relief driver in a Pontiac.

In the ’30s, ’40s, and ’50s, Lakewood was one of racing’s most popular tracks. It was also one of the most dangerous. A one-mile flat dirt oval, it surrounded a scenic lake, its quiet setting the opposite of its reputation. At least a dozen drivers died there during its heyday and it was known throughout the Southeast.

As a child, J.B. Day reached Lakewood by bike. Consumed by a love for racing at an early age, he’d leave Easley, South Carolina, and pedal for days, sleeping in the woods at night. He’d get there late Saturday and camp in the water-truck by the lake, where he’d fight off mosquitoes. The hardest part was getting his bike over the eight-foot fence. He was thrilled when he found a drainpipe under the third turn and could ride right in. It was only a one-way ordeal, as he could always find a way to bum a ride home.

Day later became one of the region’s most famous car owners, and is renowned for his annual “Raymond Parks’s Birthday” parties which hundreds of people attend today.

Local people usually rode to Lakewood by streetcar. To avoid the ticket fee, they would go to the hill across the road at South Bend Pool. If the wind was blowing right, they got covered in Georgia red clay.

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