This is an early decal from Ted’s business, which for several years was based out of the service stations he owned. (Photo Courtesy Spehar Family Archive)

      The now-recognized Detroit engine builder had a very busy year in 1969. In addition to the factory magazine demonstrators and at the behest of Mr. Hoover and company, that late summer found Ted converting his wife Tina’s street-driven Slant Six 1964 Dodge Polara into an SS/CA-class Hemi car he called The Iron Butterfly. Accomplished in a few weeks leading up to the Indy Nationals by working mainly outside behind the Woodward Sunoco station because garage space in all of the buildings was at a premium, the fresh vehicle was driven first by noted Detroit racer Wally Booth at the Nationals. Then, it was turned over to a new mechanic with a college engineering background from New York named Dick Oldfield.

      Oldfield’s deployment as the driver came about from Dave Koffel’s recommendation and the shop contract Spehar recently signed with Chrysler. Oldfield was a dominant figure in NHRA Division 1 racing, and he already had the driver points from racing his Good Guys Dodge Dart that were needed to be able to compete with the Butterfly at the NHRA World Finals. This he did well, going to the event’s final round before falling to Ronnie Sox, who won his first NHRA World Championship in the other lane.

      Moreover, that Chrysler contract was the reason for the new location Ted found on Fernlee with friend and Hurst employee Jack “Doc” Watson. The Gulf station was being sold, and Jimmy Addison bought the Sunoco station from Ted at the same time. As winter approached, the 1960s came to an end and Ted and his new group of employees got to work. None of them ever looked back as the revolution of Pro Stock dawned on the horizon for 1970.

      * * *

      Ahead stretched a measured eighth-mile of pavement as Don Carlton squinted through his black-rimmed glasses at the Christmas tree. He was oblivious to the girls on the fence, their guys leaning forward for a better view. The top bulb turned on, and the staging bulb below it flickered on in the evening haze and remaining tire smoke as he carefully rolled the Hurst-built Hemi Barracuda that he named Lil’ Thumper into the starting beams. His opponent, in a Ford Mustang, did likewise. Now came the countdown of five lights.

       Yellow … Yellow … Yellow … Yellow …

      Don knew that if he saw the green light come on, he was too late. With the pedal to the metal and the Hemi engine screaming for mercy, he sidestepped the clutch and the Plymouth leapt forward with its front wheels hanging a half-foot off the pavement, aided in part by gold-dust rosin sprinkled on the starting line. The next throw was down into second, and the Mustang could no longer be heard as the Hemi engine’s RPM climbed the second time against the steep 5.13 rear gear. With a quick read of the tachometer and the ball-knob shifter in his hand, he flashed across the shift pattern up into third, and the finish line loomed immediately ahead. Fourth gear in the eighth-mile was almost anticlimactic, but he took it down through the final gate anyway with the Mustang behind by a car length. Round one down; two more to go.

      * * *

      “Run whatcha brung” Southern-style match racing in the Carolinas was a way of life for many amateur racers by this time in 1969. They ran against each other on grass-aproned strips of asphalt barely wide enough for two race cars to fit side by side. Indeed, some of the cow pasture emporiums ended in shut-down areas that required the drivers to quickly lift up from the gas and brake hard because the track actually narrowed to a single lane.

      Lenoir, North Carolina, is a quiet town located north of US Route 70 and Interstate 40 in the hill country known as the Piedmont region of the Tar Heel state, and Don Carlton was one of several talented drivers from the area. NASCAR star Bobby Isaac was from nearby Hickory, while the Petty clan was over in Randleman, and Junior Johnson led his crew of circle-track merry men from up North Wilkesboro way. Drag racers included Ronnie Sox in Burlington, young upstart Roy Hill from Randleman, and Stuart McDade, who was also right from Lenoir.

      To be honest, Southern-style racing of all forms was its own breed. The NASCAR guys had been the forerunners in competition, earning their stripes at the track in Darlington since 1950 and occasionally in prison garb when caught running or making high-grade moonshine. Drag racing was a simple contest of getting to the end first, and if you didn’t buy enough right from the factory, you innovated to make sure you had more: a little weight removal, sticky retreaded tires, California-type speed parts, or nitromethane blended into gasoline on some occasions for a concoction known locally as cherry mash. Promotors (such as Bobby Starr at Piedmont near Burlington) paid cash to the winners, and the rules were sometimes as simple as “four wheels, 3,000 pounds, and doors.”

      Don Carlton posed for these publicity photos when a sponsor package came to the Motown Missile team. (Photo Courtesy Spehar Family Archive)

      Don was not the son of some scion of Southern gentility. He funded his racing through long hours of work at one of a myriad of furniture factories that then dotted the countryside of the Piedmont. After a stint in a 4-speed Chevrolet, he bought an RO-code 1967 Plymouth Belvedere that was somewhat similar to the 1966 car Mr. Hoover owned but with some race-lightened parts right from the factory. He then waited in line to buy one of the Hurst-built Barracudas in 1968.

      He raced it locally, but the car was badly damaged late that year in a towing accident. He called Buddy Martin over in Burlington, who not only agreed to buy the carcass but offered Don the job of driving one of the team’s many cars: first, a Modified Production Road Runner; then, Lil’ Thumper, a 1968 Barracuda set up as a match racer. This car was created to run Southern-style events and in the AHRA’s new heads-up Super/Stock Experimental class, where Ronnie Sox himself sometimes took over the driving. Still, Buddy could book the car Don drove when he and Mr. Sox were out on tour with the monstrous Chrysler clinic responsibilities that Sox & Martin operation then performed. Carlton had already established himself as a fearsome driver when that 4-speed was in his hand.

       In 1969, Don spent considerable time driving for the Sox & Martin team in this match-race Barracuda set up to run in heads-up AHRA races. It is seen here at the 1969 Super Stock Nationals in York, Pennsylvania, running a special SS/X division at that solitary race. However, Ronnie Sox himself drove it on that weekend. (Photo Courtesy quartermilestones.com, Pit Slides Archive)

      Into the air and onto history’s pages, the Motown Missile takes flight during a test session.

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