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Senior Moment From Russ Dodge:
Tommie's Skill as a NASCAR Shill?
Above
is one of my favorite pictures of Tommie Elliott. However, I never saw him
race in the 4Jr. pictured. To me when I hear Tommie Elliott's name I
automatically associate it with Matty McMann's purple 4, Joe Racz's 41 or
Don House's XL-1. The negative for this print was included when I had the
opportunity to print the Curley Collection many years ago.
Using logic I wondered if the car was owned by Joe Racz since his garage ad
was displayed on the side and the number 4 was used. This deduction coming
from seeing the yellow Racz owned 41 often compete with Tommie driving. I
even figured since the car appears light in color it could have been the
yellow used on the 41 cars.
It wasn't until about a half dozen years ago that South Jersey race car
driver Herby Schoch, shared some information about the picture. Telling me
first of all how much Tommie had helped him set up his car when he was
starting out in his career. He couldn't stop talking about how much he
liked Tommie.
The car was a light yellow and was trimmed in blue. As the photo shows, it
was professionally lettered and full bodied with the back window post still
intact. Here's the interesting part, it was housed at Racz's Garage, but
was reportedly owned by Bill France Sr., founder of NASCAR. The intent was
for the car to compete at NASCAR tracks and help promote racing by adding
quality cars to the NASCAR sanctioned program. How the "deal" ended up is a
little vague, but from listening, I surmised that it all went "South", so to
speak, over trying to keep track of where the car was racing.
I want to emphasize this is based on "hear-say" from a person who is now
deceased but was in a position to perhaps know the story. As always, if you
know anything about this car, your contribution is welcome and will be
deeply appreciated.
Thanks for
listening, Senior Moment by Russ Dodge |