Yunick was deeply involved in the early years of the NASCAR, and he is probably most associated with that racing genre. He participated as a racer, designer, and other jobs relating to the sport but was best-known as a mechanic, builder, and crew chief. He was renowned as a crotchety, crusty, opinionated character who "was about as good as there ever was on engines," according to Marvin Panch, who drove stock cars for Yunick and won the 1961 Daytona 500. His trademark white uniform and battered cowboy hat, together with a cigar or corncob pipe, were a familiar sight in the pits of almost every NASCAR or Indianapolis 500 race for over twenty years. In 1990 he was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame.
Smokey wrote a book titled, "All Right You Sons-a-Bitches, Let’s Have a Race!" and here is what he had to say about La Carrera Panamericana.
WARNING: For lack of a better word be warned that Smokey Yunick had what many might call a "colorful" way of putting things down on paper.
“Carrea Panamerica” means “Mexican Road Race” in
Spanish. I don’t know who dreamt this deal up, but if it
had a main sponsor, it should have been the morticians of
Mexico. Marshall Teague wanted to run a Hornet in the
’52 race. Hudson says, “Yeah, we like that…here’s ’bout
5,000 dollars…go tear ’em up!” We got three Hornets: a
race car, a tow car, and another Hornet to pull a two wheel
supply trailer. In the race it’s Marshall and co-driver Les
Snow. Les is a driver, and a pretty good one, from some
rough suburb of Chicago…a nice guy. Also a damn good
mechanic in general, though not an engine ace. One guy
on the crew was from Marshall’s gas station, Harry Van
Driel. Harry was a damn good general mechanic and is
still around. If I missed someone, I apologize.
We got ’bout 50 bucks a week and expenses. Some
motor companies spent a fortune to try and win.
Lincoln-Mercury were big spenders, with maybe the
greatest mechanic that ever lived, Clay Smith as their
main man. Watching Clay’s behavior, and absorbing his
preparation…it was a treat to watch one of our peers
show you how it should be done: so perfectly and with
seemingly effortless execution. Clay Smith was a genius.
Probably the greatest so-called “racing mechanic” in the
world at the time. But none of his ability impressed me
as much as his helping his competitors with advice, and
sometimes materials and tools. I’d watch him at 1:00 am,
knowing he was as tired as I was, in the garage where we
were preparing the cars for tomorrow’s run. He would go
help a competitor fix his carburetor so it wouldn’t flood.
True, the Lincoln budget was light years ahead of us, but
he still had time for anyone who asked him for help. He
did this in boats, Indy cars, midgets and stock cars. He
even ground his own cam shafts. I think his 1st year to
Indy, his car sat on the pole with a rookie driver, Walt
Faulkner. In three point hydro in both classes…(racing
boats) we run Ford 60s and Ford 85s…this was in the
TOWN…THE WORLD ACCORDING TO SMOKEY
262
early 50s…I worked my ass off to beat him. Next
week he’d come back and beat us again. The sad
thing really is, to this day, racing has never come
close to recognizing his contribution to helping
build the foundation U.S. auto racing sits on. You
know what really makes Clay Smith story so sad?
He was killed at a way early age by his own race
car. A sprinter that lost control coming off turn 2,
and got in the pits and “nailed” him. The driver
was one of Clay’s best buddies.
Back to the race. There are a thousand stories
’bout the Mexican Road Race. Hell, in 1950 Bill
France, Sr. and Curtis Turner co-drove an “upside-
down bathtub” (Nash) in the race. Well, we
drive down through Matamoras (Brownsville,
Texas). We have been told all kinds of horror stories
’bout the bad roads soon as you enter
Mexico…(’cept the Pan American’ hi-way to El
Paso). I’m driving one Hornet, towing the race car.
We cross over into Mexico and hell, it’s a good
paved three lanes…for three miles.
Turn a corner…Bam!… running 60 and the
asphalt stops no, one lane dirt… wrong road? turn
around? down a little hill… hard turn… pow!!
Wheeeeeee!!…river…no bridge… whooooeeeee…
goddam near drove ’er in a small river. The river’s
got a flat deck barge, but river is way up from too
much rain, (yet when we crossed the Rio Grande
in Brownsville, it was damn near bone dry)…
river’s too wild… can’t cross. Turns out five bucks
gets river crossable (barely). Really, that was a very
hazardous crossing. We could have lost everything
we had. A single cable keeps barge from getting
out of hand and you pull yourself across with ropehand-
power. Well we manage the skinny, rough
roads until we find the Pan American hi-way to
Mexico City. (From there to Mexico City, roads
good…very good) Mexico City…everything’s
same as today I think, ’cept then it was 90 percent
smaller. Traffic rules are Russian roulette, kinda
“don’t let the other guy see your eyeballs.” It’s actually
a game of “chicken.” There were no traffic
lights there. A very loud horn was best driving aid.
In Mexico City we work on car at the Hudson
dealership. We can’t speak Spanish, but the dealer’s
got a 15 or 16 year old son. A real nice guy and
helper. He’s going with us as our interpreter.
(Good idea as it turned out.) Gotta have a place to
stay for five days. Taxi driver says “Go to Angel’s,
best place in town” Angel’s is a big house, 15 bucks
a day for room and three meals…free booze part of
rent…free hookers and dirty movies all day and
night…all for 15 bucks a day. Yes, it was all
good… for a dose of the crabs…quite an interesting
place.
The owner took a liking to our driver. I
observed her giving oral sex to him with a condom
on. That puzzled and amused me. Actually… Les
Snow, the co-driver, brought it to my attention…
it was as interesting, I think, as the discovery I had
made a few minutes earlier. After Les guided me to
the room where our landlady was attempting to
relax the driver, I then showed him my startling
discovery. Remember I said “whiskey no charge?”
Well if a tenant had sex with a waitress or bartender,
an old lady would come in room after, and
wash your sex parts with whiskey. Makes sense
right? Well, on the second day I notice a door and
I wonder “where does that go?” So I open door and
am startled to see an old lady pouring whiskey out
of wash basins into a funnel stuck into a whiskey
bottle. I realize “Hey! That’s what we were drinking”…
(No wonder it had an unusual flavor) We
soon solved that problem. We were able to buy a
quart of good whiskey for ’bout three bucks.
I will always have a fond spot in my heart for
Angel’s place. Those young ladies actually taught
me some things that the Californian’s hadn’t got to
yet…(the deal with the beads in particular).
Although that deal actually had a few draw backs
– I got no rest at all. I told you about acquiring a
group of annoying passengers in an area you see
baseball players scratch all the time. Every time I
see it on TV, I smile and say “wonder if they been
to Angel’s?” Piggins had made arrangements for us
to stay in a private home in Mexico City, so when
Les and I turned in our expenses (5 days, $75 as
medical expenses for the “Inca flu”). Piggins disallowed
the expenses. I guess he was pissed we didn’t
invite him over there.
I’m really grateful to Marshall for including me
in the race. It was an experience. When Marshall
first invited me, I understood I was gonna be a codriver.
Now co-drivers never drove. They just sat in
right side of front seat and hollered…“Watch
it!”…“Slow down!”…“Turn right you dumb shit
or you’ll never make it!”…“Whoo-ee!”…“Ohshit!”…
or when you passed someone in your class,
give ’em the finger. But when the time came, Les
got the co-driver job. The race was run on a new
paved road (two lane) that run from El Paso in the
United States to Tuxtla, at southern end of Mexico
at beginning of Central America. One-half mile
south of town, road went to jungle… not even dirt
road. The Pan American hi-way race was 1,934
miles long in 1952 we ran it in five days: 1st leg:
Tuxtla to Oaxaca; 2nd leg: Oaxaca to Puebla; 3rd
leg: Puebla to Mexico City; 4th leg: Mexico City to
Leon, 5th leg: Leon to Durango; 6th leg: Durango
to Porral; 7th leg: Porral to Chihuahua; 8th leg:
Chihuahua to Juarez. The race was a mountain
road race, on a typical mountain…sharp turns…
always either gaining or losing altitude…with no
goddam guard rails and plenty of 5,000 foot
straight down drops in case you slid off. Damn
rite, somebody got wiped out ’bout every day…
and sometimes spectators…actually, 26 people
(mostly spectators) died in five years.
I left out something regarding Mexican culture
and law. Radios and guns…it was not legal to have
a radio capable of any distance to speak of…so getting
car in country with radio was a son-of-abitch…
and if that radio was gone when you tried
to leave country…that was hell. So guess what
would get stolen quicker than a cat could lick it’s
ass? Right…the radio. I took radio out, and antenna
off, and hid them in with spare parts. Guns?
gave ’em away in Brownsville coming in when I
heard how that worked. More about guns later.
Now the little town where race started, is at the
southern very end of Mexico. This is mountain…
dry, poor, old-old town, but they had a Ford deal-
ership there that was one half block square
(inside). This dealership had a huge parts department.
Very few cars, new or used…but at least one
of every kind of tool to work on Fords, Lincolns
and Mercurys made in the world, and take my
word for it, them cats knew how to use ’em. They
had some uncanny metal, or body men…threw
away damn near nothing…straightened everything…
like big Cadillac bumperette…How? Split
’em in four pieces… straightened each piece, then
welded back together. They had a chrome plating
facility that amazed me. The Mexican state troopers
all run Mercurys. A wild bunch…you haven’t
lived until you get on latin country roads, including
cities. No traffic lights, big-assed loud horns,
and the code of the hills is “big is better”…so
100,000 pound tractor and trailer double, owned
the road. (Yes, they had them…pulled by French
tractors where 15 year old kids rode on both front
fenders and hand oiled the valve gear… huge
engines, diesel, ’bout 1,000 cubic inches.) For
some reason these Latino truckers ride in the middle
of a two lane hi-crown road and drive like a
“bat out of hell.” I swear, when they wind down
out of the mountains and hit a town, they add 30
miles per hour and blow the horn like a freight
train going through Fayetteville. Most Latinos
can’t drive worth a shit, but some of them cats with
a little experience and good equipment, can race
any son-of-a-bitch in the world.
Back to the Carerra Panamerica. OK… Here’s
how it works. Race starts around 6:00 or 7:00 am
in morning (first daylight)…cars are flagged off a
couple minutes apart… ’bout 10 classes, so “hot
dogs” go first. Idea is to keep “hot dogs” from wading
through “slow stuff.” This is a real road course
– no fences or guard rails either. The way they kept
people and animals back, or kept regular cars off
the road was to station soldiers within sight distance
of each other on alternating sides of the road.
(By the way, they drive on same side of the road we
do.) It’s a simple deal…in the race hours the road’s
closed. If an animal or human attempts to cross
during the forbidden hours, the soldier shoots
your ass “to kill.” The race I was in, a young man
right on outskirts of Tuxtla, crossed the road…soldier
shot and killed him. A friend of mine, (well
actually a friend of any racer), Don O’Reilly, had
a magazine called “Speed Age” and witnessed this
deal. He like to went “ape-shit” over it. I seen him
a few months ago at his house, and we talked
about the killing.
OK…pit crew: at the end of every “leg” you
got lots of things to fix. (Reference: sliding off the
road, tires, broken engine) so the pit crew gets cars
ready to race, then you drive your ass off all night
to get to next check-point, cause if you don’t make
it by “road closing,” it’s over for that team. Well,
“we” (the Hudson team) are the Mexican Hudson
dealer’s son, Marshall’s mechanic/employee, hibuck
10-dollar-a-day-man Harry Van Driel and
myself. The back of car is full of parts and tools,
and we are pulling a two wheel trailer loaded with
tires, parts and fuel. We had to carry everything we
needed. At that time in Mexico, a gas station was
a collection of 50 gallon drums along the road at a
house. You stop…toot your horn and maybe. We
all ride in front seat…either Harry or I drive. Let’s
call the son, (’bout 15) José OK? (I forgot his real
name, sorry.). José is our interpreter, and a damn
good one. Can speak English super…we have to
really haul ass to get to next race checkpoint. First
night, just ’bout midnight on Isthmus of
Tojuanapec Road on the only straight level ground
in whole race, (’bout sea level), all of a sudden…
road block (with driftwood)! I’m asleep…car is
lurching…tires screeching…horn blowing…guns
going off. Harry, the dumb shit has decided to run
through the road block, running ’bout 90, with
the trailer flying all over hell behind. As I look in
rear view mirror, I see what looks like career-ending
flying experiment of a Mexican highway bandito.
The trailer catches him, and he gets a trampoline
type launch from the swinging trailer. I
think “Harry can file at least one notch on side of
the steering wheel”…(but probably two)…or we
can paint something on side of car (kinda’ like
fighter planes did in war for a shot down enemy)
…well nothing broke.
Next night Harry’s driving again, I’m opposite
side…José in middle. Hear brakes, then downshift
and wide-ass open engine. José’s hollerin’
“Stop!!!”…I look up… horses lined up across road,
and up each bank…’bout 20 of ’em…all got rifles,
and they are coming down. Twenty rifles are aimed
at the windshield. I reach over, turn key off. Harry
gets ’er whoa’ed ’bout five feet from the end of
twenty rifle gun barrels. The boss-man is ’bout five
foot four tall by five foot four around; got glasses
and a mustache; got a “general” kinda hat with a
strap to hold it on when his horse is going real fast.
I can’t understand him, but he is pissed! And Jose
is talking his little diplomatic ass off to keep Harry
from being turned into a very dead gringo son-ofa-
bitch. (You know Harry, I doubt you have any
idea how close you came to having a rock sitting in
a cemetery, where the last thing on it said “1952.”)
Well ’bout nine-ten bucks was cost of “permission”
to continue on our mission to next check-point at
Oaxaca… You’d think by now I’d get thinking and
put Harry’s ass in the trailer and drive myself.
Nope, I need some rest…ain’t no way in hell it’s
gonna happen again rite?…so I doze off. Now
we’re in bad very-very twisty mountains, ’bout
4:00 am, Getting close to check point – one to one
and a half hours out. Car’s slowing… I hear José
raising hell with Harry. I wake up…we are damn
near stopped, going up real steep hill. I see ’bout
20 Mexicans…rocks across the road. One cat had
a pistol…’bout 10 with machetes. Whoa Nellie! I
wind window down…I’m opposite Harry, Jose in
middle. Mr. Bandito is shit-faced drunk… Got a
pistol with ’bout an 18 inch barrel, and he sticks it
in my right ear. Harry don’t see the pistol, and as
men move around in front of car, and José tries to
negotiate a peaceful arrangement which will let us
continue to Oaxaca without any leaks in our blood
carrying equipment, (engine’s still running). I hear
Harry say “I’m gonna floor it and take off – road
is clear now.” I say, “Harry, before you do, check
over here and see what’s sticking in my right ear
and note the drunken and unhappy attitude of the
cat that’s holding it.” Well ’bout two quarts of
wine (a departure present from the ladies at
Angel’s), about three or four bucks and one five
gallon can of gas cured that deal. We get to Oaxaca
an hour before road closure, so I decide to notify
authorities about our terrible experiences. (Get the
cops in the deal.) José says, “I don’t think so”…I
say, “Bullshit,” so we go. It ain’t far. Still dark as
hell. As I walk into station I damn near have a
heart attack. There sits Mr. Five Foot Four’s twin
brother (the horse bandit)…even the same clothes
– boots and hat. I know it’s impossible for it to be
the same man…no vehicle passed us all night. Or
was it the same man?…maybe there’s another
road? Anyway, José explains whole terrible deal.
Mr. Mexican general rolls to the side, lets out a big
fart, and eats José’s ass out, and tells us “get our ass
over to check-point garage and keep our damn
mouths shut, or our ass is in jail.” “OK, OK’…
I’ve heard ’bout Mexican jails, and we ain’t hurt.
“Come to think about it, maybe it never happened…
maybe I dreamt it’ we got our stuff out to
do our work, but still got to wait four or five
hours. An American tourist…(big trout fisherman…
fly rod champion of the world I think) is a
Hudson Hornet lover, matter of fact, has a year old
Hornet right outside. He can’t go till race cars
come and go (remember the system…“road closed
to public and animals for a time?”) He tells me
about Mexican’s trying to hold him up. He was
fishing some place to our west, and came onto the
Pan American highway ’bout 20 miles before “Mr.
Long barrel pistol.” They set up a road block with
small rocks. He got scared and pulled a “Harry
Van Driel, and run the road block. I said “Did they
shoot at you?…Did it hurt your car?” “Hell
no!…I’m a good driver!…I then notice a dark
puddle under the engine, and a wet looking place
at rear of the car, so I get a light and get close…
You guessed it: oil and gas leaking. Turned out
“Mr. Good Hudson driver” had ’bout no oil in oil
pan (a rock from road block caused oil pan to
flunk the “hit a rock with the oil pan at 60 miles
per hour test”) and “Mr. Very Lucky Champion
Fly Fisherman Hudson-loving Good Driver-lucky
Son-of-a-bitch, only had 22, yup…22 bullet holes
in back of his “lucky black Hornet.” Well “Lucky”
decided he wanted to talk to the American ambassador
to Mexico…said he knew him (maybe he
gave him a free fish) about this outrage. So I directed
him to the military headquarters and “General
Fat-ass.” I don’t know what happened, but we left
’bout four hours later, and the “lucky black trout
fishin’ Hornet” with 22 bullet holes in it was still
sittin’ there, and the puddle of oil under engine
was ’bout two foot in diameter. If your still living
“Mr. Champion Fisherman,” I’d appreciate a note
from you telling me how that deal ended. From
there on, I never got to meet any more Mexican
bandits, but I kinda’ have a little idea how those
people felt when they were on the stage coaches
and they were attacked and robbed. I guess it’s
tougher the way we had it, cause only José knew
what the bad guy was saying. (You know, Harry
might have been a stage coach driver in a previous
life.)
Another thing I haven’t mentioned was the
goofy spectators. Wherever anybody run off the
road and got killed last year, that’s where there
would be 4,000 people – rite up to the edge of the
road, and as a rule on the outside of turns. Then in
Mexico City, you’re coming in straight…running
over a hundred…you’ve been off the road three or
four times front and back. (What’s the tires look
like?). There’s damn near a million people lined up
for four or five miles with their toes on edge of
asphalt, and your going by ’em at over 100, rubbing
your left and right door handles against their
tits. What if a tire lets go? Those in back shoved
those in front, and they couldn’t back up. No, it
never happened…maybe courtesy of the Inca
gods…but in general, few races in the world
extracted an unacceptable high cost in lives, sheet
time, and inconvenience to the citizens as the
Mexican road race. The same thing, reference
crowds, happened coming into Juarez at end of the
race.
Clay Smith and his Lincolns, and Bill Stroppe
and his Mercurys dominated those races. Marshall
and Les did pretty good. I think they ran from
fifth, and I believe ended up seventh in stock car
class and thirteenth overall. The whole deal took
’bout 22 hours racing time. Hershel McGriff, from
Portland Oregon, won the first race which
changed his life forever. I remember the car. An
Olds 88, with a clever sign on it from Portland,
Oregon “For You in Portland, a Rose Grows”…
Who in the hell ever heard of a sponsor who sold
roses in early ’50s? Hershel I guess is still going…
He turned out to be very good, and last I heard
was ’bout 70, and still winning.
The Mexican Road Race was a wild chapter in
American racing’s early experiments while trying
to find it’s way, or to find a place where those who
loved to go fast went to hear those loud, tortured
engines. The hope was to establish a least an annual
event that could fund the competitors sufficiently
so that they could do it one more time next
year. There are attempts to re-establish parts of
that exciting time…but men, you missed the boat.
It has come, and it has gone…like the Pony
Express.
Mercedes won the race with a gull-wing coupe,
with, I believe, a German driver (in 1952). John
Fitch, a yankee American driver, was at his prime,
and really doing the best job…but poor John got
screwed by the Germans. They wanted a German
driver to win, and as I remember, they had four or
five cars in the race. At race end, Fitch gets disqualified
cause he can’t curse in German, and Karl
Kling, a German race hero got the marbles. The
Mexican Road Race ran many classes…from the
fastest sports cars in the world to stock car to little
shit-box sports cars with ’bout 100 horsepower at
8,000 rpm. So this race was between Mercedes and
Ferrari. I guess the four things I remember most
were: Number One – Angel’s guest accommodations.
Number Two – watching and working with
Clay Smith. In my book Clay, you’re “#1” by a
ton. Number Three – The pit action of Ferrari and
Mercedes…particularly the Germans: they performed
as an army exhibition marching team, like
robots with human minds. Watching John Fitch
die a million deaths trying to get his car repaired
(he developed brake trouble) But the real act was
Ferrari.
No Keystone Cop movie can ever match the
act those 20 “dago” mechanics, drivers and staff,
put on at every pit stop. They were poorly
equipped in all ways but bodies. At mid-point of a
day’s running, you have to fuel – change tires – and
as a rule, change drivers…(Only the hottest sports
cars had professional sports car drivers).
Remember all these had co-drivers…(Some dumb
shit who strapped his ass down in right hand seat,
or left hand, as case might be) to yell at driver his
observations, opinions, advice and/or criticism.
Driving a race car is, as a rule, fun. But be a passenger
in a fast car with a great driver, or even
worse, with some terrible driver with tons of
money and the balls of an elephant…and do this
five to 10 hours a day for four or five days. As far
as I’m concerned, is like sitting in an electric chair
for that amount of time waiting on them to fix a
problem in the system so they can fry your ass.
Well the drivers jump out, after sliding a quarter of
a mile, and ending up running over their pit setup.
Why?…he is headed for the shit house…
remember he’s on ’bout on his fifth day of Mexican
food. During a Carrera Panamerica stop, besides
changing tires, (and fueling in case of sports cars),
you had to for sure replace brake pads, and fix or
“band-aid” whatever else is “not doing it.” The
Ferrari tire changers best act was to drop car without
the wheel on yet…or put front tire on rear, or
vise-versa. The fuelers, (with cans), dumping gas
all over everybody and everything…and sometimes
catch car on fire on re-start. The “soakers”
getting smacked by the “soak-ee’s” and the “soakee”
attempting to dump gas on “soaker” to get
even. But by far the best act was the water boys.
They used garden water cans, (like your grandmother
used to water her garden…with built in
funnel…held ’bout a gallon and a half). The
Ferraris run hot…so as tires, fuel and brake pad
were being done, two to four guys open hood and
start dumping water on radiator and into radiator.
In the process, the brake pad, and/or tire guy, gets
an unexpected bath, which pisses him off…so he
jumps up, grabs the bucket and dumps it on radiator
man, or the contest is even, and two guys are
in a “bucket pulling contest,” during which, driver
accidentally gets a bucket of water down his helmet
and back. Now mix in ’bout five officials, who
don’t know what the hell they’re doing either, and
Ferrari staff and race brass get into it…so now you
got a mixture of Italian-Spanish, and maybe some
English, French and German…cursing and lots of
pushing and pulling…rule books, pit boards, and
“motherfucker” in three to four languages. In addition
to this, is a hoard of afficionados: ex-racers,
wannabe racers, rich fans, about ten “Miss Italy’s,”
and the news media (no TV yet). Every once in
awhile throw in a Mexican policeman and
farmer… (Wantin’ to get paid, or “put your ass in
jail” for a cow, donkey, pet or chickens you ran
over last year.) And in Pueblo, a teen-age young
lady with ’bout a three month old baby. Seems like
a driver last year left some of his seeds with the little
lady, and she wanted to talk to that driver about
marriage, and a home in Italy…and it seemed like
her father and brother had a different plan. They
wanted to kill the son of a bitch. (This was in
Ferrari pit.) Since big sports cars started first, and
run fastest, we got to watch the deal from best seats
before our cars came in. Number Four – the
Mexican hi-way banditos, and their version on
how to run a toll-road without any investment in
it. Maybe Number Five could have been the “Inca
trot,” caused by not being cursed by it in Mexico
City at Angel’s, and my assumption “I can drink
the water and eat the vegetables…it don’t bother
me.” I left a trail from Tuxtla to El Paso, and back
into Florida…but it helped in later life, during the
early sixties in my adventures in the jungle oil
fields and gold mines in the Ecuadorian Oriente, I
did not challenge the local medical wisdom of how
to avoid the “toilet paper boogie.”
Racing needed this five days of stupidity to
guide us…but we didn’t know it was a mistake
until we did it…though it sure was a shame so
many died. Actually, considering the scope of the
race, the management did a hell of a job when you
think of all the details of such an event. For those
who would re-create this race today…some advice:
just assemble all drivers in an auditorium and play
Russian roulette instead. This spares the people
who live on the race’s proposed route the loss of
several days of their lives, and the almost sure loss
of several lives. Racing has “been there and done
that.” I learned one sentence “besame culo” in
Spanish…(means “kiss my ass) and two Spanish
words: “Adios” and “gracias.”
“Adios” Carrera Panamerica… and “gracias.”
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