The NASCAR Cup Series driver I knew better than any other was Elsie Wiley Baker, Jr., much better known as Buddy Baker.
Not that I didn’t know who he was during the early stages of my career. Several times, I had the opportunity to interview him and many other NASCAR personalities. And he always had polite and informative answers to my sometimes dumb questions, as did most others.
It was Baker’s personal side with which I became familiar. I was aware of his adventures as a teenager. I knew he was an avid outdoorsman. I realized that given his size and muscular build, he was someone you hoped you never angered. But I also knew he was so mild-mannered and affable that you would have to work hard to do that.
I didn’t learn much of this through Baker himself; rather, it was a result of his friendship with Tom Higgins, the popular Charlotte Observer outdoors and racing writer who became my best friend.
Higgins was, arguably, NASCAR’s greatest storyteller — and he relished the role. Most of his tall tales came from his youth in and around Burnsville, N.C., and involved such characters as Jiggs Briggs, Mumsey Melloway, Uncle Horace and L.G. Deaton.
Higgins’ dad, Milt, was a game warden and a natural when teaching his son the intricacies of nature, hunting and fishing. The younger Higgins wanted to be a game warden also, but his father told him, “You can’t be. You are too nice to people.”
It seemed logical that Higgins eventually wrote about the outdoors for a major newspaper, and given that he was also its racing writer, it was inevitable that he and Baker, who enjoyed hunting and fishing, became friendly.
Higgins wrote several feature pieces about Baker’s outdoor exploits, but one he didn’t write involved a fishing trip they took to Georgetown, S.C., in 1972.
He told it to me, and it was just one of the many that exposed me to the Baker’s personal side.
Higgins and Baker planned their fishing trip to begin as soon as Baker could return from a race at Texas World Speedway in College Station, Texas.
As it turned out, Baker, driving the No. 71 Dodge for owner Nord Krauskopf and veteran crew chief Harry Hyde, won the race in a thrilling duel with AJ Foyt.
“Buddy was so excited he knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep that night,” Higgins recalled. “He called me and told me that he wasn’t sure how he would do it, but he was going to be at my door by six in the morning.”
Baker arrived at the appointed time. The two fishermen loaded all of their equipment into Higgins’ car, along with a thermos filled with Bloody Marys. They set off with Baker at the wheel.
“Buddy couldn’t contain himself,” Higgins said. “He was talking on and on about the race, which was his second win of the season. We were about a couple hours down the road when Buddy said, ‘I want you to look at me.’”
Higgins quickly learned that “I want you to look at me” meant Baker was exceeding the speed limit.
“We were doing 85 miles per hour!” Higgins declared.
Baker slowed down but never mastered driving 55 mph.
“Sure enough, we are rolling down the road, nearing Myrtle Beach when all of a sudden, blue lights are flashing behind us,” Higgins said.
Once pulled over, a state trooper Higgins said was remarkably similar to television’s Barney Fife approached and said to Baker, “Can I see your driver’s license?”
To which Baker replied, “Can I shoot your pistol?”
“I knew right then we were going to jail,” Higgins said.
The trooper snatched the license from Baker’s hand. As he read it, slowly a very puzzled look came over his face. Finally, he said: “What the hell kind of name is Elsie Wylie Baker?”
“Listen you two,” the trooper added. “I’m going to let you go but you are going to follow the speed limit for the rest of your trip. And to make sure you do it, I’m going to follow you.”
“As a result, we pulled into the marina in Georgetown with a state trooper on our rear bumper,” Higgins said. “Buddy went around telling everyone it was a police escort for winning at Texas.”
It didn’t take long for me to become very acquainted with Baker. If he liked you, that was easy.
He told me of his days as a teenager. He was an excellent athlete whose ambition to be a race driver was fueled by Fireball Roberts, and of course, his father Elsie Wylie Baker — a two-time Cup champion and NASCAR Hall of Fame member more widely known as Buck.
“I was a pretty big guy in school but I didn’t like trouble,” Baker told me. “I tried to avoid it.
“But there was this one time I was seeing this girl. I was told she was ‘Mule’s girl.’ but she never told me that. Kids kept telling me ‘Mule is looking for you.’ Finally, I got tired of it and said, ‘Tell Mule I ain’t hard to find.’”
When Mule found Baker, it took only a moment for fisticuffs to begin.
“He hit me so hard my left shoelace came untied,” Baker recalled.
The scrap ended when Baker picked up a fallen stop sign and walloped Mule with it.
“I reckon I’ve had about enough. What about you?” Mule asked.
Baker began his career at 18 years old and won his first race in 1967 in the National 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
He quickly established a reputation as a leadfoot who was a master of superspeedways. He won at Daytona International Speedway twice and Talladega Superspeedway four times. Among other victories, he won the Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway and at Charlotte four times.
His 1980 victory in the Daytona 500 is the fastest recorded at 177.602 mph. He led 1,136 laps at Talladega, which remains the track record.
He retired from competition in 1992 with 19 career victories. He moved on to a lengthy tenure in broadcasting, first with the Nashville Network and then with TBS and CBS.
He joined his father in the Hall of Fame in 2020.
While he was with SiriusXM, he learned he had been stricken with lung cancer.
He died on Aug.10, 2015. He was 74 years old.
Known as the “Gentle Giant,” even during his illness Baker never altered his personality. He never bemoaned his fate or sought any measure of sympathy.
The last words he spoke on his SiriusXM show were, “Do not shed a tear. Give me a smile when you say my name.”
And I always have.
Steve Waid has been in journalism since 1972, when he began his newspaper career at the Martinsville (Va.) Bulletin. He has spent over 40 years in motorsports journalism, first with the Roanoke Times-World News and later as publisher and vice president for NASCAR Scene and NASCAR Illustrated.
Steve has won numerous state sports writing awards and several more from the National Motorsports Press Association for his motorsports coverage, feature and column writing. For several years, Steve was a regular on “NASCAR This Morning” on FOX Sports Net and he is the co-author, with Tom Higgins, of the biography “Junior Johnson: Brave In Life.”
In January 2014, Steve was inducted into the NMPA Hall of Fame. And in 2019 he was presented the Squier-Hall Award by the NASCAR Hall of Fame for lifetime excellence in motorsports journalism. In addition to writing for Frontstretch, Steve is also the co-host of The Scene Vault Podcast.
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My favourite story is when the crew chief took off the rear spoiler at Talladega when Buddy complained about his loose car.
lol the good ol days. Crew chief, ok no problem, now drive it lmao
Great read, Thank you