Hellcats of the Wheel

11/08/2021

Anybody fed up with Aaron Rodgers?

The Little Old Lady from Dubuque unloads on her two favorite sports stars for not manning-up and getting the jab. She lives in New York City and she uses sports to escape and there's a lot of stuff to escape from in New York and she needs them to ...

09/02/2020

Hello, Hellcats friends. I'm postponing my Kickstarter project but I want to share with you my post on Darlington. Have a wonderful weekend.

THE FIRST SOUTHERN 500

The first Southern 500 took place at Darlington on Labor Day in 1950. It was a day of firsts, the first race at Darlington, the first time racers raced 500 miles and the first time racers raced on asphalt. Drivers were used to racing on dirt or on the sand at Daytona. Harold Brasington built the track and he was worried that there wouldn’t be much interest. When the race was announced, 80 drivers showed up to qualify. Qualifying took 2 weeks. 75 drivers started. Brasington thought that maybe 10,000 people would show up to watch. 25,000 people packed the stands.

The race lasted six hours, thirty-eight minutes, and forty seconds. The tires on the cars gave out so quickly that the crews wound up going into the parking lots and taking tires off fans’ cars. It was said that the fans were so in love with this race that they went into the parking lot themselves, jacked up their cars, and gave their tires to the pit crews. One fan is reputed to have yelled, “This one is for Fireball Roberts.”

Johnny Mantz was an open wheel driver from California who was used to running on hard tires. He saw that the drivers, who never raced on asphalt, were choosing soft rubber tires for traction. Johnny found a couple of rock-hard racing tires, the kind he used at Indy, and fitted them to the beat-up Plymouth Bill France, Sr. had lent him. He ran slowly on the inside of the track the entire race averaging a speed of around 75.250 mph. The crowd thought he was a joke. All the other racers had many long pit stops. Johnny only had to change tires once. He won with a 9 lap lead. It was the only NASCAR victory of Johnny Mantz’ career.

08/31/2020

JUNIOR JOHNSON DOES TIME

This is Junior Johnson’s mug shot. Junior Johnson is a legend, a great diver, a great team owner and the best whiskey runner ever born.

Junior came from a family that produced excellent corn whiskey. The Robert Glenn Johnson liquor business was huge, one of the largest in the State of North Carolina. Junior, who worked the family farm, learned to drive at an early age and became so good at driving dirt roads that his father sent him on whiskey runs in the Brushy Mountains. Soon, his territory expanded to the entire state of North Carolina. At one point, Junior was delivering whiskey as far away as Alabama. The family booze was that good. And Junior was such a skilled driver and the cars he had learned to build were so solid that he was never caught.

In 1953, Junior started to race in the big-time races at Darlington Raceway in the Southern 500. He crashed on the backstretch and finished 38th. He loved it. He formed a team and on May 7, 1955, Junior raced Tim Flock to the win at North Carolina’s Hickory Speedway. After that race, Junior couldn’t be stopped and won five races and finished sixth in the 1955 Grand National points standings in what was his rookie year. And the crowds fell in love with the daredevil racer. His philosophy was “win or crash trying.”

In 1956, Junior signed a contract with Ford. He was on his way to a brilliant racing career. But he couldn’t quite quit the moonshine business. It had become a habit for him.

On June 2, 1956, Junior came home from a race in the early hours of the morning. His dad asked him to go out and fire up a still. His brother was supposed to do it, but Junior did it himself. As he lit the fire, he was jumped by a group of revenue agents. They had found the still and staked it out. It was an ambush. “That put the brakes on me and racing,” Junior said.

Junior served 11 months and three days at the federal prison farm at Chillicothe, Ohio. When he got out, he went right back to racing.

Junior Johnson is my favorite driver ever. My show called HELLCATS OF THE WHEEL tells the story of the early days of stock car racing. You can help produce HELLCATS by clicking on this link and giving a contribution of as little as $1. Thank you so much. http://bit.ly/HELLCATS

A country music comedy that tells the captivating stories of stock car racing in SONG.

08/31/2020

THE DAY DALE WON THE DAYTONA 500

It was February 14, 1998, the day before the 40th Daytona 500. Dale Earnhardt had tried and failed nineteen times to with the Daytona 500, the Great American Race. He had won every major race but this one, including seven Winston Cup championships.

It was like Dale was jinxed. Everything bad had happened to him during a Daytona 500 race. In 1986, he ran out of gas when he was leading with three laps left. In 1990, he was in the lead when he ran over a clamp off another driver’s car and blew a tire with a half-lap to go. In 1991, his car hit a seagull that lodged in the car’s grill. In 1993, Dale Jarrett passed him with one lap left. In 1997, his car flipped with 12 laps left. Car owner Richard Childress said, “He had won the Daytona 498 or 499 so many times, you just wondered if he was ever going to win the 500.”

So, on the day before this race, Dale met with a group of children from the Make-A-Wish Foundation. One of them was Wessa Miller who had spina bifida and was confined to a wheelchair. When Earnhardt met her, he squatted down so he could speak to Wessa eye-to-eye. Wessa handed Dale a penny for good luck. She told him, “I rubbed this penny and it’s going to win you the Daytona 500.” He said, “I hope it does.” J.R. Rhodes was Dale’s PR agent. He said "Earnhardt went right over to the car. He glued the penny on the dash. He did it himself."

The next day, he ran the Daytona 500 for the twentieth time. And on February 15th, 1998, he won. I think it was the lucky penny. And a very special little girl.

You can get the free song about Dale Earnhardt that’s in the show Hellcats of the Wheel by contributing to my Kickstarter campaign. Check it out on http://bit.ly/HELLCATS2

A country music comedy that tells the captivating stories of stock car racing in SONG.

08/28/2020

HELLCATS GOES LIVE!

Our KICKSTARTER PROJECT is up and running!

HELLCATS OF THE WHEEL is a country music show dedicated to telling the great stories of the early days of stock car racing in song. Junior Johnson is the heart and soul of what we love about racing.

From the harrowing escapes of whiskey runners from revenuers on treacherous mountain roads to a fist fight between losing drivers at the Daytona 500 in 1979 that made America fall in love with racing to Dale Earnhardt finally winning the Daytona 500 in 1998 after 19 tries because a little girl in a wheelchair gave him a lucky penny, stock car racing is a fascinating part of American history. HELLCATS want to tell those stories to the world, especially to kids.

HELLCATS has 20 story-telling songs. We would like to put the show on the stage but first, we want to record some of the songs and we need your help.

We’re running a Kickstarter campaign to get your support. Here’s the link:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tonihart/hellcats-of-the-wheel?ref=15kc2o

Sign up and be a part of HELLCATS. It’s a simple deal - you give us support, we give you rewards. The rewards include the CD, access to our private website, online listening parties and you can even sing backup on a song!

You can preview two songs on the Kickstarter website, “Whiskey Road” and “Renegade, the Ballad of the Man in Black.” Any level of support from you and we will send you “Renegade.”

Help us fund HELLCATS OF THE WHEEL! We could use some great American stories right now!

And please share the link and the project with your friends. Use this link for that:
http://bit.ly/HELLCATS

Many thanks, Toni

A country music comedy that tells the captivating stories of stock car racing in SONG.

08/26/2020

BUCK BAKER LOST HIS HEAD

“None of us knew what it would take to go 500 miles."

Buck Baker said that after he ran the first Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway on Labor Day in 1950. It was the first race at Darlington, the first race on asphalt and the first time drivers raced 500 miles. No driver knew what they were going to find at this new track.

75 drivers started the race and it lasted six hours, thirty-eight minutes, and forty seconds. A number of drivers, figuring they might need some refreshment, brought along something to drink. Buck Baker supplied himself with a jug of tomato juice. It was rumored that the tomato juice was spiked. Just a rumor, you understand.

After 176 laps, Buck crashed. The juice container broke and covered Baker with a bright red liquid closely resembling blood. When the safety worker found him, he yelled, "There ain't no helpin' this one. Buck got his head cut clean off!"

Buck Baker kept his head and went on to win the Southern 500 three times. And the NASCAR championship twice.

Be sure to check out my website (link in my comment) and sign up for my newsletter. Many, many more great racing stories coming. I love this stuff.

08/22/2020

This is a photo of Junior Johnson, whiskey runner, NASCAR driver and great team owner. Junior is the heart and soul of "Hellcats of the Wheel." Click on the magic sign-up button and become a part of Hellcats.

What is Hellcats of the Wheel?  Hellcats of the Wheel is a country music comedy that tells the story of stock car racing in song. Created and written by Toni Hart, HELLCATS OF THE WHEEL centers around a group of friends in the grandstands watching a race. A newcomer learns the story of the birth o...

08/18/2020

JUNIOR JOHNSON EXITS HIS CAR

This is a photo of Junior Johnson exiting his flipping car in the 1956 Daytona Beach NASCAR Grand National. He had been fighting for the lead with Tim Flock.

His ’56 Pontiac had flipped 3½ times. Junior couldn’t get out through the car’s door so he jumped into the back seat and punched the back window out. He then ran through traffic and dodged the cars in his way.

No one raced like Junior Johnson did. Richard Petty said: “Junior drove harder than anyone ever has in NASCAR. That was his nature.” And that was why is fans adored him.

Junior Johnson is the heart and soul of a country music show I’ve written called “Hellcats of the Wheel.”

Please check out the link in my comment below, listen to a song or two on my website and sign up for my newsletter.

What is Hellcats of the Wheel?  Hellcats of the Wheel is a country music comedy that tells the story of stock car racing in song. Created and written by Toni Hart, HELLCATS OF THE WHEEL centers around a group of friends in the grandstands watching a race. A newcomer learns the story of the birth o...

08/09/2020

Hellcats of the Wheel is a show with 20 songs. I started writing it after 9/11 to get out of my depression.

The only thing I knew about racing was that I had heard of a guy named Earnhardt. I bought a couple of books and started reading about him and the first thing that I wrote in the margins was “country tough, dirt track rough.” That became the chorus to my first song, “Renegade, the Ballad of the Man in Black”

The opening lyrics are:

If ever a man was born to race, he was the one
Hunger etched upon his face, pure Southern son
He came up the hard way, he had a lot of pride
It gave him rough, raw edges that he never tried to hide
He learned to race on old dirt tracks, times were pretty lean
His only chance was his machine

Country tough, dirt track rough
The man was a renegade
The only rules he lived by
Were the rules he made

This is one of my favorite songs and you can get a free download when you log onto the website and sign up for the newsletter.

08/08/2020

THE EARLY DAYS: NASCAR’S DAREDEVIL, DEATH-DEFYING DRIVERS

Yes, it’s true. Most of the early racers had been whiskey runners. They were the best drivers in the world. Nobody could drive as well as a guy whose ability to feed his family depended on outrunning the revenuers. The shiners built their own cars and learned to drive while being chased down rocky mountain roads by the law. Junior Johnson said it himself. The fastest, hardest driving he ever did was when he was running whiskey.

I love the stories of the early stock car racers.

Big Bill France was the organizer and NASCAR became official on February 21, 1948. France actually created order amidst the brawling bunch of drivers who were becoming professional racers. He set standard rules for the tracks and banished crooked promoters.

The first generation of NASCAR drivers included some of the most colorful characters who ever competed in sports. Junior Johnson, Lee Petty, Curtis Turner, Red Byron, Tiny Lund (6 feet 5 inches tall), Buck Baker, the Flock brothers, Fireball Roberts, Ned Jarrett, the list goes on. These men were as tough as they come.

Red Byron had been a tail gunner on a B-24 bomber in World War II. His plane was shot down over the Aleutian Islands and his left leg had been shot to bits. With basically one leg, Red Byron went on to win back-to-back NASCAR championships. They don’t make ‘em like Red Byron anymore.

Lee Petty’s first race, at the age of 35, was in the inaugural NASCAR race at Charlotte in 1949. He borrowed a Buick from a neighbor and told him that the prize money would cover any damages. He rolled the Buick four times. Undaunted, went on the win the 1st Daytona 500 in 1959 and he followed that with 3 NASCAR championships.

Junior Johnson ran raced on weekends and ran whiskey on weekdays. He said the whiskey money was better. Johnson won the second Daytona 500 in 1960, having discovered the draft. He went on to become a team owner whose drivers, Cale Yarborough and Darrell Waltrip, won 6 NASCAR championships. Junior Johnson is a legend.

When Buck Baker ran in the first Southern 500 at Darlington in 1950, he brought along a jar of “enhanced tomato juice” to drink. He took a hard hit, crashed and the tomato juice spilled all over him. The safety worker who found him yelled, 'There ain't no helpin' this one. Buck got his head cut clean off!’” He kept his head and went on to win 2 NASCAR championships.

Tim Flock had 2 brothers and a sister who raced in NASCAR, all great drivers. He traveled with a trouble-making monkey named Jocko Flocko. Tim won the NASCAR championships in 1952 and 1955. He broke an axle and barrel-rolled his car in a 1955 race and said, “I was the only driver to ever win a championship upside-down.”

And there was Curtis Turner, possibly the most outrageous driver of all. Called NASCAR’s first superstar, Turner was a self-made millionaire who made fortunes, lost them and made them back. He raced because he loved it. Turner was movie-star good-looking, he loved a party and the fans loved him. He won 350 victories in various series. He never won a NASCAR championship because he only raced when he wanted to.

Toughest men ever born.

What is Hellcats of the Wheel?  Hellcats of the Wheel is a country music comedy that tells the story of stock car racing in song. Created and written by Toni Hart, HELLCATS OF THE WHEEL centers around a group of friends in the grandstands watching a race. A newcomer learns the story of the birth o...

08/06/2020

HELLCATS OF THE WHEEL – THE SHOW

I started writing Hellcats of the Wheel after 9/11. I live in New York and I had worked in the North Tower of the World Trade Center until about 6 months before the attack, when I changed jobs. I was pretty depressed, so I decided to write a show I could get lost in.

I wanted the show to be country music about something very Americana, about folk history, and something kids might like. I searched and I searched for something to write about and, finally, I figured out that stock car racing was started by outlaw whiskey runners. I read a ton of books about whiskey runners and the early days of stock car racing and I fell in love with these incredible stories, stories about the early, fearless drivers, stories of the races at Daytona and Darlington, stories of events, like Dale winning the Daytona 500 because a little girl in a wheelchair gave him a lucky penny.

I took my favorite 20 stories and I turned them into songs. Then, I came up with the idea for the show that I could put the songs into.

The show has a simple premise: there are four people in the grandstands watching a race, two men and two women. One of the women has never been to a race before, so the other three are explaining the action on the track to her as the race proceeds. Here are the characters:

Will is a banker who wants to be a bubba and thinks about all the things he could do to become one. He sings a song called "Bubbahood.” “I’ll get a girlfriend who wears a gold spandex tube top and eyelashes so long one wink could body slam a cop. I’m gonna get a muscle car, I’ll learn how to shoot pool. I am gonna be so cool.”

Ginger is the girlfriend to Will. She’s in love with the good old days of racing, “When real men drove real cars.” She sings about her boyfriend. “He has gone ten rounds with every single tool you can name. His last religious experience was Sunday’s football game. Play-off tickets are the holy grail. He’s my all-American male.”

Nick is a dirt track driver who reveres any driver who can fix his own car. Nick’s favorite T-shirt reads: “If the dirt ain’t flyin’, you ain’t tryin.” He swears life-long love for Dale Earnhardt and sings the song about Dale called “Renegade.” “Country tough, dirt-track rough, the man was a renegade. The only rules he lived by were the rules he made.”

Beth is at the race because a client at her ad agency is interested in advertising at the track. Beth is a snotty city girl. Ginger tells Beth that all race fans pick one favorite driver to follow. Beth is a chocoholic. “I eat enough chocolate to pave a turnpike.” She looks down at the track and sees Kyle Busch’s M&Ms car and sings “I am sorry, I was wrong. I’ve been snotty for so long. Chocolate is a higher power. The whole race is my happy hour. They put chocolate on a car. Now I know who my friends are. Watching chocolate cars fly by. I’m so happy I could cry. ” And then Beth declares her love for Kyle and everybody boos her.

What is Hellcats of the Wheel?  Hellcats of the Wheel is a country music comedy that tells the story of stock car racing in song. Created and written by Toni Hart, HELLCATS OF THE WHEEL centers around a group of friends in the grandstands watching a race. A newcomer learns the story of the birth o...

08/05/2020

GOOD HEAVENS! WOMEN DRIVERS!

The Story of Louise (the “Barnstormer”) Smith

See the photo of that pretty little woman with the racing helmet on leaning up against that car? Oh, look at that! It looks like the car has her name on it! Maybe she was a lady driver? Could that be?

That pretty little woman is Louise Smith and Louise was one of the best whiskey runners in South Carolina, whiskey-running’s home. Yes, little Louise had outrun every lawman in Greenville County. She was good.

Well, back in the 1940s, Big Bill France, ever the promoter, wanted to put a few women in racing. He knew good publicity brought a crowd. Big Bill was promoting a race in Louise’s hometown of Greenville and he asked Louise to take a chance and try racing. Louise liked the idea.

Never having seen a race before, Louise sat behind the wheel of a modified 1939 Ford coupe, probably familiar with it as it was the favorite car of the moonshiners. Being a good driver, Louise came in third. However, she didn’t understand that the race was over when the checkered flag waved, so Louise kept driving around the track. Finally, someone had to get out there in sight of the Ford and wave a red flag. Then, she got the idea.

OK, one race down. Next? Louise had fallen in love with racing and was raring to go.

Louise heard that Big Bill France was running an important race down in Daytona, the 1947 Daytona Beach Road Race. She borrowed her husband’s new maroon Ford coupe to drive down and watch. But Louise couldn’t contain herself. She took one look at that beach-road track and signed right up. She drove out on that sand beach and raced. She wrecked the car.

She hopped a bus back to Greenville and planned to tell her husband that his car had broken down. However, Louise’s Daytona crash was so spectacular that photos of it, and her, were on the front page of newspapers nationwide. Nobody knows how Louise explained that one.

Louise Smith raced for nine more years and won 38 races in four divisions. She was the first woman to race on the track and the first woman to be inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1999.

The 2017 Disney Pixar film “Cars 3” featured a character named Louise “Barnstormer” Nash. I’ll just bet that’s the same pretty little woman with the racing helmet on you can see leaning up against that car in this photo. I’ll just bet. You go, girl!

What is Hellcats of the Wheel?  Hellcats of the Wheel is a country music comedy that tells the story of stock car racing in song. Created and written by Toni Hart, HELLCATS OF THE WHEEL centers around a group of friends in the grandstands watching a race. A newcomer learns the story of the birth o...