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Racing pioneer Bethea one of NASCAR's few black Cup drivers

03/25/2006
By JEFF BOBO

NEWPORT - While watching TV coverage of Monday's rain-delayed NASCAR Nextel Cup race from Atlanta, Randy Bethea was listening to Darrell Waltrip's comments on African-American racer Bill Lester, wondering if Waltrip might mention his name too.

On Monday, Lester became only the sixth African-American driver in the history of NASCAR to start a race at the Nextel Cup level, an exclusive club in which Bethea is also a member.

In 1975, Bethea became the fourth African-American driver to start a Cup race, but that's not why he was waiting for Waltrip to mention his name.

Bethea, 57, of Newport, Tenn., shocked the NASCAR world in 1973 by knocking Darrell Waltrip off the pole at the Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway for a 400-lap NASCAR Late Model Sportsman event. That series was the precursor to what would become the Busch series.

Waltrip had dominated the Nashville Fairgrounds for years, and for any driver to turn a faster lap than him in qualifying was big news. But for a black driver in 1973 to beat Waltrip at his home track brought Bethea a lot of attention.

"That was a big thing back then," Bethea told the Times-News this past week. "Sure was. You know, Darrell never mentions that in anything he does."

On that day in 1973, Bethea had practiced with old tires, and he felt like his car was good enough to make the show. This day was a rarity, however, because Bethea had enough money to buy a set of qualifying tires, which have a softer compound.

"I had a good engine and a good setup and new tires, and I felt confident," Bethea said. "But when I came in from qualifying and they told me my lap time, I was shocked. I wasn't supposed to beat Darrell Waltrip for the pole.

"I was just hoping to make the show because we were up against guys like Bobby Allison, Donnie Allison, Red Farmer, Neil Bonnett, Jack Ingram, L.D. Ottinger - it was a big race and everybody was there, and no one expected me to do that."

Bethea ended up falling out of the race with an oil leak, but that pole was likely one of the factors that earned Bethea his shot at NASCAR's premier division two years later.

On May 25, 1975, Bethea became the fourth African-American to start a Nextel Cup race when he qualified for the World 600 at Lowe's Motor Speedway in Charlotte. He was preceded by Charlie Scott (1956), Wendell Scott (1961-73) and George Wiltshire (1971, 1975) and followed by Willie T. Ribbs (1986) and Lester last Monday.

When Bethea made his appearance in the Cup series, it didn't occur to him that he was making history. He was there to win the race.

He'd returned to his home in Newport in 1975 after living in Philadelphia a year and a half, where he was competing in a minor league IndyCar series. When he got back home, all of his NASCAR stock car partners had moved on to help other drivers, and he was without a ride.

Then he received a call from Lowe's promoter Humpy Wheeler with an offer to drive a car owned by D.K. Ulrich in the World 600 in Charlotte.

Bethea doesn't remember receiving nearly as much attention 31 years ago as Lester did this week. He remembers being interviewed by winning NASCAR driver turned journalist Fred Lorenzen, but he never saw an article.

"The promoter talked about it quite a bit, but as far as the media coverage, there wasn't any to my knowledge," Bethea said. "That was pretty much it. So you're there. So you're black. So whatever. I think it was seen as an opportunity, but I don't know if it was more for me or more for them.

"I don't think NASCAR was so much interested (in broadening fan appeal to African-Americans) as the promoters - Humpy Wheeler and Bruton Smith - and I think that's why I got the call. Of course I said yes."

Bethea qualified 39th out of 40 for the World 600. He said he felt like he was getting everything he could out of the car, but it wasn't front-runner equipment.

About halfway through the race, a pulley fell off the engine and knocked a radiator hose loose, and Bethea spun in his own water in turn three. The team made repairs, and he got back out on the track, and then the motor blew. He finished 33rd.

Bethea said he's glad to see the media coverage that Lester has received for his first Cup start.

It's good for the sport, and it's gotten Bethea's name mentioned again.

After being out of the spotlight for a long time, it was a bit unexpected for Bethea to learn that his name and photo were being used in a national TV commercial touting black racers as pioneers of the sport. It was a pleasant surprise.

In the commercial, a black child holds a photo of a black driver.

"Thank you Bill Lester," one child says.

"Thank you Wendell Scott," another child says.

"Thank you Randy Bethea."

A friend called Bethea recently and asked if he'd seen himself on TV.

"That was the first I'd heard of it," Bethea said. "It's a good commercial."

He didn't set out to become a pioneer or an inspiration. If that's the way it worked out, he's glad to have had a positive effect on the lives of other young drivers.

Undoubtedly the emphasis being placed on cultural diversity in NASCAR these days will help Lester receive future opportunities that weren't there f

or him, Bethea added. Bethea said he's rooting for him. "I've been watching him in the Truck series for years, and I can't help but pull for him because I've been there and done that," Bethea said.

Lester has been quoted recently saying he'd prefer the attention he receives be focused on his driving rather than the color of his skin. Bethea couldn't agree more.

Bethea considers himself a race car driver who happens to be black. Unlike the case of Wendell Scott, who was occasionally the victim of racism during his long racing career, Bethea said he rarely felt like his skin color was an issue.

As a youngster growing up working in race shops, an old friend gave him the nickname "Snowball," which he didn't mind at first. But as he grew to adulthood, he wished he'd never heard that obviously ironic twist on his skin color.

He eventually asked his friends to stop calling him that, and for the most part they did. But the nickname stuck, much to his dismay.

There may have been other subtle racism, but nothing blaring that Bethea can recall three decades later.

"I'm sure it was there, but when you're focused on your race car and on the race that day, that's all there is time to think about," Bethea said. "I remember one time we went up to the little dirt track in Rogersville in 1968 where they drew for starting position. When I got there they said they'd already drawn for me and I was starting last, and to me that was kind of a low blow. I don't think they had drawn for me, and I kind of attributed that (to prejudice).

"For the most part, though, I was just another driver, and I was treated well. I never felt out of place or unwelcome. I grew up around racers, and I did know a lot of people."

Bethea credits his older brother for getting him interested in stock car racing. They were raised in Asheville, N.C., and when he was 7 his big brother began dragging him off to the old McCormick Field Speedway to see races on the

weekends. Eventually they both landed odd jobs in the shop of successful Asheville short track driver and car owner Roy Trantham. That's where Bethea caught the "racing bug" and learned to work on race cars.

As a teenager his family moved to Newport, and by 1967 when he was 17 he was offered a chance to drive a friend's car in a weekly division at the old Tennessee-Carolina Fairgrounds in Newport.

In 1970 he won the Tennessee State Championship and the Smokey Mountain Raceway track championship in Maryville, and in 1972 he began touring with NASCAR's Late Model Sportsman division.

He spent the 1974 and early 1975 seasons in Philadelphia driving in an IndyCar stepping-stone series for a group of car owners interested in preparing a black driver for the Indy 500. Bethea said that deal fell apart because resources he'd been told would go toward his effort went to other cars.

It's a common story in the world of racing, and Bethea walked away from the deal. Right after that, he was offered the one-race Cup deal.

Bethea had hoped to get another shot at a Cup race after his experience at Lowe's, but it never happened. By the late 1970s he didn't have the money to race his Sportsman car every week.

If you weren't at the track when an opportunity arose, it went to someone else, Bethea said.

For the second half of the 1970s he ran sporadically in the NASCAR division, mostly at nearby tracks like Bristol Motor Speedway, Kingsport Speedway and Lonesome Pine Raceway. He also drove in the weekly series at the newly built Newport Speedway.

In 1980 Bethea moved to the Virgin Islands and worked as an assistant to Trantham, who owned several businesses there. He'd gone on vacation there to try to talk Trantham into selling him a stock car he still owned in Asheville, and wound up staying in the Caribbean for seven years.

After more than a decade out of racing, Bethea joined the old NASCAR Slim Jim All Pro touring series in 1991 for two seasons before deciding to stick to the local short track divisions.

Bethea is still a popular racer around his East Tennessee home. He teaches auto mechanics at Cocke County High School, where his students often ask him to tell stories of his racing exploits.

At the age of 57, Bethea hasn't completely retired from driving, although he hasn't raced a full season for several years.

It's been a long time since Bethea's name has been mentioned in the national media, that is until just recently with Lester's Nextel Cup achievement. He's proud of the attention, although it also makes him feel a little bit uncomfortable.

He said he raced with a lot of great drivers in the 1960s and 1970s who didn't get the attention he did because of his color. The one color which becomes an impediment to drivers of all races and creeds is green, and how much of it you have, or don't have, in your bank account. "The spotlight has kind of shined on me from time to time because of my color, but there's so many people I raced with who have had a lot of struggles in racing," Bethea said. "Being black certainly doesn't give you the right to say racing is out of my reach or I can't afford to do this. Black or white, there's just a lot of people who enjoy racing and can't do it at the level they'd like to because of money. "There's no racial barrier in racing, but there is a money barrier, and that's kind of what I got stuck behind most of the time." Published: March 25, 2006 Contact this Times-News contributor- JEFF BOBO Copyright 2002 Kingsport Times-News.

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