Road Atlanta | Thunderin’ Through The Foothills

I was introduced to auto racing at a very young age.  My father raced on the old dirt tracks of the South in the late Forties and early Fifties.  I remember him listening to the stock car races on his transistor radio while flying his model airplanes in the early Sixties.  He and my uncle used to take my cousin and I to the races at the old Peach Bowl racetrack in Atlanta.  But I really was introduced to racing when I was sixteen years old, thanks to a gentleman named Bob Buchler.  Bob was an art teacher at Walker High School.  He was also the sponsor for Jr. Civitan, coach of the swim team and in charge of The Bookroom.  The Bookroom is capitalized because it was one of, if not the, coolest (and I don’t mean temperature wise) places in all of Walker.  If you were lucky enough to land a job in The Bookroom, you really only had to work twice a year.  Once at the beginning of the school year, distributing books to classes and again at the end of the year, collecting and inventorying books.  The rest of the year we basically loafed.  We sat around listening to music on the school’s record players, read magazines, played Ping Pong on the table which was set up in the room, ate lunch from McDonald’s and created artwork containing announcements, proverbs and philosophy which was posted on the wall outside The Bookroom.  And we would talk racing with Mr. Buchler.  Most of us called him Bob.  Or, Buchler.  Or, Buckley Duckley.  Very few, if any, of us called him Mr. Buchler.  He was really more of a friend than a teacher.  He also owned and raced a Formula Vee car and introduced many of us to sports cars and road racing, a passion which many of his charges still hold to today.

My buddy Chip and I worked in The Bookroom and made our first trip to Road Atlanta in the fall of ’71.  We drove up there in my father’s Chevrolet Apache pickup truck, taking two sleeping bags, a pop tent, two packs of bologna, a giant loaf of Colonial bread, a jar of mayonnaise, a container of mustard, a case of Schlitz and a pint of Mogen David 20/20.  For a pair of sixteen year olds, we were well prepared.  We camped along the fence between Turns 4 and 5.  After that race we were hooked, and didn’t miss another race for years.  We began to bring friends, neighbors and acquaintances, and over the years our accommodations upgraded significantly.  We began to bring pop up campers and grills, burgers and hot dogs, steaks and potatoes, guitars and transistor radios.  Our camping locations changed over the years as well.  Chip and I moved from Turn 4 to the top of the hill at Turn 5.  Camping was eventually prohibited there because of the fact that the hill was the track’s prime spectator point.  We then moved across the track to the fence along the back straight for a couple of years.  The picture shown below of myself, Chip and Jeff Landers photo bombing us is from that era.  The top picture is from sometime in the Eighties, taken at the straight away coming out of the Turn 7 hairpin.  As you can see, my beverage of choice had upgraded from Schlitz.  There wasn’t a bottle of Mad Dog in sight.

We used to get paddock passes and go down to watch the crews working on the cars.  You could walk right up to the cars.  The drivers were often in the paddock areas and were generally always friendly and accessible.  Paul Newman raced at Road Atlanta a lot, and we would always hope to catch a glimpse of him in the paddock, but never did.  The man who started it all for us, Bob Buchler, moved from Formula Vees to the Trans Am series, driving a Chevrolet Nova sponsored by EZ Wider (yes, those EZ Widers) and a Dino Ferrari.  It was really cool partying with someone you knew at the track and then seeing them drive by in a race.

The crowds at Road Atlanta were always generally very laid back, although there were moments.  One year a group of hillbillies camped behind us.  Their tent was along the dirt road that ran around the perimeter of the camping area.  I don’t think any of these guys ever walked over to the fence or saw one race car.  All they wanted to do was drink and fight.  With each other, thank goodness, although we did our best to avoid them.  One of them was a big red headed guy named Abner.  He was the only one that we ever heard called by name but, as I said, we didn’t exactly go over and socialize with them around the campfire.  On one occasion Abner and one of his buddies were outside of their tent.  Abner pushed his buddy by the shoulder.  His buddy pushed Abner back.  Abner then shoved his buddy and his buddy shoved him back.  The fists started flying, and the two of them wound up on the ground, rolling, kicking and punching.  About that time a pickup truck pulled up next to them on the road.  The driver obviously knew Abner.  He was wearing a cowboy hat and smiled revealing a missing front tooth.  “Are you ready to raise some hell, Abner?” he said in a drawl that would make Bill Elliott sound cosmopolitan.  Abner jumped up, yelled “BLANK YOU!!!” and gave the driver the finger.  “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh”, grinned the driver, returning Abner’s one finger salute before driving off slowly.  Abner chased after him and kicked the truck’s rear quarter panel with his bare foot.  “Are you ready to raise some hell, Abner?” became a catchphrase in our group of friends for years afterwards.  Later on, from inside of their tent we heard Abner’s buddy exclaim, “ABNER!  AH’M GITTIN’ TARRED O’ YOU SMOKIN’ ALL MAH BLANKITY BLANK CIGARETTES!!”  “AH AIN’T SMOKED BUT TWO!” said Abner, to which his buddy retorted, “THAT’S A BLANKITY BLANK LIE!!”  Then there was a loud smack, which presumably was Abner putting his fist in his buddy’s eye.  The tent started rolling and jumping, the two of them settling their argument in the only way they knew how.

We managed to avoid Abner and his pals that weekend, and that was the only time I ever saw such behavior at Road Atlanta.  I went to the Atlanta 500 once and camped in the infield.  Notice I said once.  That was enough.  The infield at a NASCAR race back then made Road Atlanta look like a spiritual retreat.  In all of the years I went there, the only fights I ever saw at Road Atlanta were between Abner and his pals.  We pretty much always got to know the people camping around us and would see them again at subsequent races.  However, Road Atlanta could get really wild and crazy as well.  I saw guys dancing in exploding packs of firecrackers and young ladies exhibiting bare parts of their upper bodies.  Once a State Patrol trooper rode through and we all piled onto the hood and trunk of the prowler and rode around the camping area.  The troopers didn’t mind.  When we jumped off the car, we shook the trooper’s hand and thanked him for the ride.  He just smiled and told us to be careful.  One Sunday morning, I woke up halfway out of the tent with my head in an open and scattered pack of Oreo cookies.  I felt like I had been run over by a Can-Am car, and that’s all I’m going to say about that.

The stories about Road Atlanta are manifold, far too many to cover in this space.  There’s lots of pictures as well.  A lot of them I would never share.  Too incriminating, and not just to me.  The last time I was at Road Atlanta was in the fall of 2009.  I was invited to exhibit my car art in the Vendor Village at the Petit LeMans race.  Things had certainly changed.  We camped along the back straight.  A friend had brought his camper trailer and we stayed there with him and his two sons.  Plugged into electricity.  Running water.  A bed.  A bathroom.  A kitchen.  A television.  A golf cart.  All the luxuries of home and a lifetime away from a pop tent, a loaf of bread and a pack of bologna.  We rode up to our old camping area at the hairpin.  There is a skid pad there now and a racing skills school.  That weekend all of the high dollar motor homes were parked there.  Some things never change, however.  On Friday night we almost got arrested for driving the golf cart on the track… Still Cruisin’!  –J.