A DRIVER, CALLED "POPS"

By Gerald Hodges/the Racing Reporter  

   Curtis Turner was one of racing’s earliest stars and perhaps its most controversial driver. He won 17 NASCAR races and 17 poles in a career that started in 1949 and ended in 1968.

   Perhaps Turner is most remembered because of his suspension from NASCAR competition by Bill France Sr. from 1960 until 1965, after he tried to organize the drivers for the Teamsters Union.

   In a storybook comeback in 1965, Turner won a 500-mile race at North Carolina Motor Speedway on October 31.

   But what makes him stand out is the way he lived out his life.

   He was a racer, party-thrower, moonshine hauler, pilot and timber baron.

   He threw parties that lasted all night and sometimes several days. A small party would consist of 250-300 people. Some came for the whiskey, while others came for the dancing, lie swapping and music.

   “He could really throw them,” said Bobby Allison. “I was just a young hot shot driver at the time, but he could put on some big shindigs. I remember one time the police coming in about daylight and asking him if he didn’t think it was too late to party.

   “It didn’t bother him, I think he just said something like, ‘hell no, it’s just beginning.’”

   Curtis Morton Turner was born in 1924 on a small farm in Floyd County, Virginia. Like most early racers, Turner’s heritage included moonshine running.

   In the late 1940s it was not uncommon for many moonshine runners to wind up in Atlanta, or other large cities in Georgia and the Carolinas.  They might race on Saturday or Sunday in some cow pasture, and then head back home with a load of sugar for the still.

   Turner says he was 10, and had just learned to drive when he made his first run. He was driving along a dirt road with about 100 gallons of whiskey when he came up on a mail truck.

   He forgot which side he was supposed to pass on and went around on the right side and wound up against a fence.

   After dropping out of school at the age of 14, he went to work in his father’s sawmill. To supplement his salary of 10-cents an hour he got into the transporting business. By the time he was 18, he owned three sawmills.

   While most sawmill operators sold their timber to the first buyer, Turner waited for his price. Quite often wood stacked up outside his mills and in order to make his weekly payroll he ran whiskey at night.

   During World War II he served in the U. S. Navy. After the war he went back to running moonshine but now he was getting pursued. After one run he found three bullets embedded in the rear of his 1942 Ford coupe.

   A few years after the war ended Turner went into the timber business. In a 1968 Sports Illustrated interview Turner said he had sold two million acres of North Carolina timberland during his lifetime.

   Turner was always restless. He threatened to retire from racing after every big timber deal, but he usually wound up broke. This happened several times.

   The years in which he started building the Charlotte Motor Speedway were the most tumultous of his life. The bitter struggle with finances caused him many problems.

   The financing of the speedway by Turner and his group of backers was very marginal to begin with. They started out with 2.3 million, but construction costs soared and Turner scratched, begged and borrowed from everyone.

   He even bought a small bank. It was so small that the maximum it could loan was $12,000. But Turner gave himself a loan of $75,000, which wasn’t discovered for nearly two years.

   Two days before the 1960 World 600, the paving contractors demanded their $75,000 immediately. To back up their demands they moved all their heavy equipment on the track in front of the paving machine, which still had about 100 yards to go to finish the track.

   Turner and one or two other directors, took shotguns and pistols in hand and backed the operators against the wall, while Turner’s own men completed the job.

   Three races were run and each one was a financial success, but the money drain had been too much for speedway directors and in order to get the track on a sound financial footing, Turner went to the Teamsters Union for a loan of $850,000.

   Turner did not know it at the time, but the Teamsters Union could not have loaned him the money.

   Turner, along with Tim Flock was barred from NASCAR. Meanwhile, the board of directors ousted him from control of the speedway.

   France ended the suspension on Sept. 30, 1965, and Turner quickly showed that four years on the sidelines hadn’t diminished his skills. In his first race, the National 500, he finished third. Two weeks later, he won the inaugural race at North Carolina Motor Speedway.

   “Turner was one of my early heroes,’ said Allison. “But the thing about the man is he could do so much. He could have made it in practically anything he chose. That’s how smart he was.

   “He had that sixth sense that just told him where he needed to be on the track. That sometimes means more than horsepower or handling. He just had it. That’s all I can say.”

   Turner died in a 1970 plane crash at the age of 46.