WHETHER WE WANTED TO HEAR THEM OR NOT...
Foggy Goggles, the world's oldest acting race driver, has been sharing his stories and opinions with us for as long as we can remember, and he continues to share whether we want to hear him or not. Here's a collection of his ramblings, some old and some new, and all with at least a whiff of accuracy and insight. We'll start with the explanation that Mickey Thompson provides when he's asked how he and Foggy met....
There are a number of people who believe that Foggy Goggles and I are one and the same person. Nothing could be further from the truth, but perhaps it would be useful to tell you how Foggy and I met.
Many years ago I was out for a drive in my Corvette convertible and stopped for a traffic light in a Southern city that will remain nameless.
As I sat at the light, an ancient guy pulled up next to me on some sort of tiny Italian scooter that was just a wreck. It smoked, it rattled, and some unknown liquid was dripping from somewhere underneath the machine.
The old rider was almost as ragged as his scooter. He wore a leather football helmet and a satin jacket with “Altoona Track Champion-1923” stitched on the back. When he leaned over to say something to me just as the light changed, I thought that I would give him a thrill. I rocketed away from the light leaving him in the dust. Or so I thought.
Less than a block later the old man on the scooter went by me like he had been shot from a cannon! I was startled, but decided I wasn’t going to let him get the better of me.
I accelerated, hard, and quickly passed the scooter, but within seconds the scooter shot past me again, the rider holding on with grim determination as the scooter scattered various nuts and bolts in its path.
I pushed the throttle to the floor and again caught and passed the remarkable old man, only to have the scooter rider pass me yet again and now he had to be going well over 100 miles per hour.
I’d had enough. I slowed and brought the car to a stop. The old man on the scooter pulled up along side and with some effort peeled his fingers off the handlebars one by one. Breathing heavily, the old man leaned over to me and wiped some spittle from his cracked lips.
“Before you go to racin’ off again,” he said, “I’d sure appreciate it if you would let me get my suspenders unhooked from your mirror.”
That remarkable old man with the suspenders was none other than Foggy Goggles, and he and I have been the best of friends since that day. And that’s the absolute truth. ----December 2006
(Like the rest of us, the older FOGGY GOGGLES gets, the better he was, thanks to a less than perfect memory. But being in racing for over 80 years does give FOGGY the benefit of rare perspective.)
When we arrived at the office, FOGGY was busy writing something on a piece of notebook paper. We asked what he was doing.
“I’m making a list of all the ‘wussies’ in racing today as compared with those back in my prime. And you know what? I got zero names on the wussie list for 1920 to around 1955. But I’ve got over two hunnert’ names on the second list and that’s just for this season! The continued, relentless wussification of professional racing just makes me want to cry!
“To my way of thinkin’ there’s just three or four drivers today who still have some sand in their pants. ROBBY GORDON is one. He can drive the wheels off anything, he can win and has won in almost every series and he’s running his own Cup team. And he always has that look about him where you think that at any minute he’s goin’ to open a can of whoopass on somebody that got in his way. Course NASCAR is busy knocking the corners off him so pretty soon he might be plain vanilla like the rest of ‘em.
“Another driver with grit is PAUL TRACY over in Champ Cars. He’s so intense he could dent an anvil with a rubber mallet. You think that if his car breaks down he’s goin’ to get out and drag the dang thing across the finish line and then beat on it with a two-by-four for lettin’ him down. Now TRACY is thinking of getting involved with NASCAR so they’ll be doing their best to tame him.
“And of course there is good old A.J. FOYT, a man after my own heart. Up until A.J. got into a fist fight with ARIE LUYENDYK at the Texas IRL race back in June, 1997, I was the only man to ever get into a fight in Victory Lane. It was October 12, 1946, and we were racin’ champ cars at Strawberry Hill Speedway just outside Richmond, VA. It was so dusty you couldn’t see but a few feet in front of you. I passed a lot of cars and weren’t nobody passin’ me so when the checkered flag come out I knew I’d won. So I get to Victory Lane and there’s that dang TED HORN with his sneaky little moustache and all and HORN says ‘Too bad, FOGGY, but it looks like you done finished behind me…again.’ I was goin’ to let things ride what with him bein’ from Cincinnati and me bein’ from Dayton, right up until he throwed in that ‘again.’ It took pert near a dozen cops to get me off that guy.”
When we reminded FOGGY that A.J. was retired he just laughed. “A.J. ain’t retired,” he said with the same tone of voice you’d use talking to a complete moron. “You don’t really think a guy like A.J. ever retires, do you? He ain’t retired and he ain’t quit. He’s just takin’ a breather, waitin’ for his chance. And don’t you know that those fools in the NASCAR front office are bringin’ it right to him with that Car of Tomorrow deal. They start using a nice big car like that, a car that a big husky fella’ like FOYT can climb into, and before you know it they’ll be scraping those kids like KEVIN HARVICK and the BUSCH Brothers off A.J.’s grill.
“And when that happens I just might have to get myself one of them Cars of Tomorrow. Who knows? Maybe before long A.J. and me will be tradin’ punches in some Victory Lane somewhere under a big sign that says ‘No Wussies Allowed!’”
---April 20, 2006
(Lately FOGGY GOGGLES has been ranting and raving about what he calls the ‘wussification’ of professional stock car racing under the NASCAR banner. He has not been happy but two days after the Nextel Cup race at Texas he was once again laughing.)
“I just cannot believe it!” he told us. “Them FRANCEs (there’s about a hunnert’ of them) and their hired gun MIKE HELTON is doing everything they can to squeeze every little bit of passion and spontaneity out of racin’. It’s getting’ so dang antiseptic that I don’t hardly recognize it anymore.
“And now this,” he said, showing us the sports section from the local paper. “You know how at Texas that boy KURT BUSCH run into GREG BIFFLE like he always does? Well then GREG’s girlfriend NICOLE LUNDERS pitched a hissy fit and throwed a water bottle down on the ground. Then she marched right smartly down to the KURT BUSCH pit and waggled her finger at KURT’s girlfriend EVA BRYANT. Reckon’ she probably throwed in a few naughty words, too. Anyway, NASCAR says that they are gonna’ reprimand NICOLE! They say that they don’t want anything to get out of control. Heck, that’s all they got now in NASCAR is control.
“In my day they didn’t allow no women in the pits. They had to have their fist fights up in the stands just like the rest of the payin’ spectators. I remember once at Milwaukee the race was over, but me and the rest of the boys were afraid to leave the pits until the gals stopped their fightin’ in the stands. We allowed as to how it might be good to let them get it out of their systems before we all piled back in the cars and headed to the next race.
“Poor NICOLE. I reckon’ that HELTON is gonna’ fine her 25 girlfriend points and she’ll be on probation until she and GREG break up or get married. And she’s probably going to have to sit on that little table outside the NASCAR table with all the illegal and confiscated parts as a warning to all the rest of the gals.
“The only smart thing HELTON done was stop short of penalizing GREG or holdin’ him responsible for NICOLE’s finger wagglin.’ He knows the man who can control his wife or girlfriend ain’t never been born. And speakin’ as someone who has been married twelve times to eleven different women, I say ‘amen’ to that brother!”
---May 15, 2006
(FOGGY GOGGLES, ancient veteran of a thousand races including more than a few on the board tracks, has never had much luck with the ladies.)
We couldn’t help but notice that FOGGY had dowsed himself with Old Spice and his striped shirt looked like it had been washed (finally) in the sink in the men’s room. We asked FOGGY what was going on.
“In order to score with the ladies you got to be smooth and up until this morning it’d been pert near 35 years since I showered and cleaned up. Course that’s not as bad as it sounds cause I been caught out in the rain lots of times and that’s kinda’ like showerin’. And if it’s a real hard rain that pretty much qualifies as doin’ the laundry, too.”
Was it possible that FOGGY had a date? That seemed so unlikely that we couldn’t help but ask.
“There’s a gal that is sweet on old FOGGY, and she’s younger than me,” FOGGY told us with just a touch of pride. When we pointed out that since he was over 100 years old it was almost impossible for his gal to be the same age or older, FOGGY just snorted.
“I’m detectin’ a big old shovel full of jealousy,” he said. “Sorry boys, but you all can’t expect to have the personality and charisma of the FOG. I’m like a babe magnet and I always have been.
“Now speakin’ as a man who’s been married twelve times to eleven different women I’ll admit that the highway of love sometimes has big old potholes, and sometimes a bridge is out, and sometimes the dang road is completely closed… well you get the idea.
“Things sure didn’t go smooth with my last sweetie,” he said. We asked about the identity of his last sweetie. “SARAH FISHER,” he said, and sadness seemed to creep across his face. “I thought she was goin’ to be lucky 13 for me… .”
We told FOGGY that it was hard to believe that SARAH even knew who FOGGY was. “She knowed,” he said confidently. “In all them interviews on TV and in the papers, she was just callin’ out to FOGGY. Course you had to read between the lines. She didn’t come right out and say it; she sorta’ said it in code. I’ll never forget the look on her face when we finally met at the Phoenix International Raceway. First she played sorta’ coy. She said ‘Who the heck are you?’ and ‘Please leave me alone.’ But I knowed she was just playin’. So I grabbed her in my arms and said ‘Come here, Sweetie, and FOGGY will take you off to eternal happiness!”
FOGGY paused, and a tear fell from his good eye. We asked FOGGY what happened next.
“That gal has a punch like the best middleweight fighter I ever had to face in the service! She hit me just one time, right in the gut, but I couldn’t straighten up for two weeks. I believe I would have got a punch in myself, but bent over like that I couldn’t even see her. That was pretty much the end of our relationship; I haven’t seen her since.”
And his new gal? “I don’t want to tell you her name just yet,” Foggy said. “But I will tell you her initials is ‘DP.’” We begged FOGGY to tell us that ‘DP’ was not DANICA PATRICK.
“You guessed it,” he said laughing. “And I reckon you seen the way she looks at me in them TV commercials. Yep, she’s in love with the FOG.” Though very nearly speechless, we were able to protest. We told FOGGY that those TV commercials were filmed and she was looking at the camera, not at particular individuals. He laughed us off. “Oh yeah, I’m sure you’re right,” he said sarcastically. “How can you watch that Peak Antifreeze commercial and really believe that?” We sputtered something about her being married to boot. “Sure is pitiful what that little gal will do to try to deny her feelings for FOGGY. Boys, the sweet nectar of a love affair is stronger than any whiskey,” FOGGY said, and added ruefully, “But marriage is the hangover.”
---June 9, 2006
(Since he returned from his 35 year long search for the legendary “muffler bearing” FOGGY has been staying in the office around the clock, trying desperately to catch up on all the racing that’s taken place while he’s been away.)
It was only a little past 7 in the morning but FOGGY was already hard at work trying to wade through stacks of Circle Track, Stock Car Racing, National Speed Sport News and all the other publications that have piled up at his desk over the years. He’d gotten breakfast again from the vending machine: a Baby Ruth candy bar and a Dr. Pepper.
“I can’t help but notice that somethin’s changed about that boy KURT BUSCH since he started in with NASCAR,” FOGGY told us. We explained that KURT had surgery on his ears awhile back and that’s what FOGGY must have noticed. “That must have been some dang wreck if his ears done got hurt! Most of them boys is wearin’ helmets and such now…” We explained to FOGGY that there was no wreck; BUSCH had elective surgery to pin back his ears.
“Why’d he go and do that?” FOGGY asked. We told FOGGY that some of the other drivers were making fun of KURT, calling him “Dumbo” and other names. And KURT also thought that he would look better for pictures and television appearances. The look FOGGY gave us said he wasn’t sure whether to believe us or not. But then FOGGY’s got a wild eye, like the actor JACK ELAM so it’s sometimes hard to tell where or what he’s looking at.
“Surgery huh,” said FOGGY doubtfully. “I remember back in 1934 at Indy I made the mistake of commentin’ on STUBBY STUBBLEFIELD’S ears. He was there to drive the #5 Cummins Diesel car and I was in the Mittman’s Thin Sliced Baloney Special that year. I guess I musta’ forgot that old STUBBY was a boxer before he started driving race cars. Anyway, STUBBY didn’t run off and have no surgery. Nope. Instead he waded into me and commenced beatin’ me like a rented mule. I got in some licks though. I hit him two, maybe three times in his balled-up fist with my face. Then I nailed him in the foot with my groin. Oh I tell you it was pitiful the beating he gave me. Talk about embarrassin’! He actually stopped for lunch, then came back and started up on me again.
“So finally he’s standin’ there breathin’ hard and I’m layin’ on the ground barely breathin’ and he says to me, he says ‘Well FOGGY, you had enough?’ And I says ‘Lord, I wished I’d knowed you was waitin’ on me to say somethin’. I was finished with my part of this a couple of hours ago!”
“So everything sorta’ worked out. STUBBY didn’t have no surgery. And neither me or any of the other 300 guys in the pits who saw STUBBY whoop up on me ever said anything about his ears ever again.”
FOGGY studied us for a minute or two and then burst out laughing. “You guys is puttin’ me on! I shoulda’ knowed you was pullin’ my leg. I know that the ‘wussification’ of NASCAR is in full swing, but no driver worth his salt would have ear surgery just cause his ears stuck out a little. You sure got me goin’ though! Ha! Next thing you know you’ll be tellin’ me that Mr. Excitement, JIMMY SPENCER, is wearin’ store-bought hair!”
We decided to wait until Foggy finished his breakfast to tell him.
-----March 9, 2006