From the February, 2000 issue of Circle Track

By Doyle Ford

We used to tease honorary starters, adding further to their apprehension. You’ve got to understand that these people are nervous to begin with and have no idea what to expect. They don’t like the idea of hanging over the flag stand with cars speeding underneath them.

Chief starter Harold Kinder and I, his backup, had a little ritual we’d go through after the honorary starter came to the stand, too late for him to make any changes.

At a race in Atlanta, we had an extraordinary honorary starter, President-elect Jimmy Carter. Mr. Carter reported and we introduced ourselves. Harold asked me if Mr. Carter was equipped with his safety gear. I told Harold I was sorry, but that I couldn’t get access to Mr. Carter to tell him.

Harold explained to Mr. Carter, already visibly concerned, that starters were required to wear a metal cup and a jockstrap over their private parts to protect them against an aerodynamic vacuum created by the cars at high speed. Mr. Carter asked what he should do, and Harold told him to cross his legs as high as he could before he waved the green flag.

Harold had arranged for a photographer to capture Mr. Carter standing with his legs crossed, but the photographer wasn’t the only one to see him. (NASCAR President) Bill France had seen it, too. France called on the radio and told Harold he wanted to see him in the NASCAR office as soon as the race ended. France asked Harold if he had done to the president-elect of the United States what he thought he had. Harold responded that he didn’t know what France was talking about. France asked why Mr. Carter started the race with his legs crossed. Harold burst out laughing and confessed. France said he would not tolerate belittling the next president like that, and if he did that to any other honorary starter, he might as well apply to Indianapolis Motor Speedway, because his flagging days in NASCAR would be over. That ended the ritual.

Fingered

We were racing at Talladega in the ’80s. Buddy Baker was driving car #88, which he co-owned with a partner, Danny Schiff. Buddy was leading the race. I noticed something hanging from the back bumper of Buddy’s car, but given speeds then in excess of 200 mph, neither Harold nor I could distinguish what it was. The race director ordered Harold to black-flag #88. He did several times with no response. Finally, under the threat of disqualification, Buddy pitted. His crew removed a piece of plastic from the bumper. I don’t know why it was there, because back then bumpers were metal, not fiberglass.

When Buddy reentered the track and got around to the flag stand, he flashed us the finger. Harold and I had no desire to get a driver in trouble, so we laughed it off. However, the race director had seen his gesture from the tower-and it wasn’t one bit humorous to him. Baker was ordered to report to France after the race. I didn’t know at the time what the outcome of the meeting was.

At the next race, in Charlotte, Buddy went up to me and grabbed me by the arm like he was really mad. He said to come with him, he wanted to show me something. Considering Baker’s physical size, I had little choice. When he got to his garage stall, he opened a drawer of the team toolbox and pulled out a pair of ordinary mittens. Laughing, he said that his car “owners” were requiring him to wear the mittens (so he couldn’t isolate one finger) for the rest of the season because they couldn’t afford to pay any more $500 fines for obscene gestures.

Flagman’s Nightmare

All starters have their most embarrassing moment-a dropped flag. At the ’94 Charlotte 500, Jimmy Cox, a longtime NASCAR official, and I were handling qualifying. His job was to send the cars off the line on the white flag, which meant that two cars were on the track at the same time-one coming for the checkered, the other for the green.

Sterling Marlin was headed for the checkered and Joe Nemechek for the green. After I waved the checkered over Marlin and gave Nemechek the green, the checkered flag fell off the staff and onto the track in a little wad against the wall. Obviously, I had no checkered to give to Nemechek, so I leaned way over the edge of the stand and gave him the OK sign.

I radioed Cox to hold up the rest of the cars while I rectified a little problem. The communication drew attention to me, and officials, spotters, crews, and everybody that was monitoring our frequency knew I had dropped a flag. The spectators went wild when I climbed down to retrieve the flag. I turned toward them and bowed.

Souvenir Returned

At the ’96 Southern 500 at Darlington, there was a caution a few laps into the race. On the restart, I waved the green flag over about half the field, then dropped it. The wind was blowing hard enough that it blew the flag into the grandstand instead of it falling onto the track.

The kicker to the story is that a spectator picked up the flag and had a rare souvenir indeed. I was taken aback when he brought the flag to the stand and gave it back to me.

Last-Lap Loss

It wasn’t always a flag that got away. Before the second Brickyard 400 (in 1995), my girlfriend, Barbara Flippen of Nashville, gave me a gold nugget bracelet, to which I became very attached. During the race, the bracelet came off my arm. After the race, we found some small, bent links on the racetrack about 150 yards from the flag stand. I couldn’t figure out when I lost it or what I was going to tell Barbara.

The chief photographer at Indianapolis Motor Speedway sent me a photograph made from the inside of the track showing me waving the white flag over (eventual winner) Dale Earnhardt. The picture also showed that the bracelet was on my arm. It was clear that I had lost it on the very last lap of the race. Fortunately, the insurance company bought me another bracelet, which I wear today with pride.

Montezuma’s Revenge

We were at Richmond in 1988, the year the track was rebuilt and extended to 0.75 mile. Henry Benfield, who drove Junior Johnson’s car hauler, was always up to pranks and practical jokes. Once his hauler was unloaded, Benfield drove another team vehicle to the grocery store to get snacks for his crew. When he returned, he asked the gate guard if he could drive inside the garage to unload his items. The guard refused.

Benfield parked in the muddy infield, a bog from days of rain, and, lugging four grocery bags, returned to the gate and was stopped by the same guard, who demanded to see his pass. Benfield sat his sacks down in the mud and, without emotion, showed his pass. But Benfield was determined to retaliate.

At the time, Country Time Lemonade was a car sponsor, and there was plenty of it around the garage. Benfield mixed a concoction of lemonade-but mostly a strong and quick-acting liquid laxative-in the biggest cup he could find. He went to the guard and explained that he was supposed to meet a man wearing a Goodyear jacket and a Winston hat there and give him a big cup of lemonade. The guard said he hadn’t seen the man. Benfield waited a few moments and said to the guard that his man must have gotten tied up and wasn’t coming to get the lemonade. Benfield asked the guard if he wanted it. The guard thanked him and began to drink it.

Benfield came to me and said I’d better get somebody to guard the gate. I told him we had a man on that gate. He snickered and said, “Not for long.” Sure enough, in a short time, the guard had to leave and was gone for most the day. I substituted as gate guard until the security officials could replace the indisposed gentleman.

“Deer” Flag

Occasionally, starters have to improvise. The Pocono Mountains are a natural habitat for several species of animals, among them lots of deer. During a race at Pocono Raceway, a deer was spotted inside the track. Even though the animal wasn’t on the racing surface, Harold Kinder was notified, and he asked the race director by radio what he should do. The race director asked Harold if he had a “deer flag.”

Without saying a word, Harold handed me the flags and leaned over the edge of the stand as the cars rushed by. He folded his thumbs to his palms, with all of his fingers extended upward and spread wide apart, and positioned his hands to each side of his head, just above his eyes. His deer imitation apparently worked and got a lot of laughs, too.

Kinder’s Kindness

Harold Kinder, who died in 1992, was very compassionate, softhearted, and in this case, humane. Also at Pocono, before a race, a wild dog got inside the track. Harold feared that the dog would wander onto the track, get run over, and perhaps cause a wreck. He recruited maintenance and safety personnel in an attempt to capture the dog, but they couldn’t catch it. The dog ran inside a large drainpipe in the infield. Harold and his fellow chasers blocked both ends of the pipe so the dog couldn’t get out. Harold left food and water and fully intended to free the dog at the end of the day. He forgot until late that night, though, while he was driving to Charlotte. He stopped, called the track, and asked that someone let the dog out. That’s the way Harold was.

Not the Place

For fear of embarrassing three of my best friends, I won’t reveal their names or in which city on the NASCAR circuit we were. At dinner, one of us said a friend had told him about a place that had a great band and was a fun place to go for entertainment. We reached the downtown address to find the huge front door locked. A sign read “Private Club, Members Only; Ring Bell for Service.” We rang the bell, and a lady, large in stature-somewhere between Santa Claus and Mean Joe Green-opened the door. She asked if we were members of the club. “No, just visitors looking for a fun night,” replied one of the nameless.

The woman said we could come in but must sign the guest register. One of the guys signed for all of us and said later that he had used the names of well-known NASCAR executives and car owners instead of ours. We ordered bottles of beer, and by the time the server brought them, our eyes had adjusted to the dim light. Looking around, all of us realized at about the same moment that we were sitting in the middle of a gay bar. That had to be the first time any of us had gotten up from a table and abandoned four full bottles of beer.

Doyle Ford, 66, our host for Scrapbook this month, was associated with NASCAR for nearly 40 years, 20 as a Winston Cup flagman. After working as a NASCAR official, Ford, a native of Nashville, became the assistant to the late chief starter Harold Kinder in 1978. He became the Winston Cup chief starter when Kinder retired in 1990. After retirement from NASCAR in 1996, Ford now owns a business, Acme Fire & Safety Equipment, operated by his son, Neal, in Nashville and maintains a home there. He has a married daughter, DeAnna, a beautician in Nashville, and five grandchildren. Ford resides on Lake Norman, north of Charlotte, and is a public relations and marketing specialist for two insurance firms: Bartel & Wahl and Brian Allen Insurance and Financial. Obviously, many of his memories originated on the flag stand.