The Lynchburg Flash

Today's story is about the beginning and end of Harlow Reynold's driving career. Back in the mid-seventy's, four of us decided to fix up a ‘67 Ford Fairlane painted and numbered 21 like the Wood Brothers car to race at Natural Bridge Speedway which was a little over a half mile dirt track. Our division couldn't run anything but a six cylinder motor so we found a 240 motor(same motor UPS ran in their trucks) which was pretty wore out but stayed together at the time. We started our first race which was going well until some drunk from Rockbridge that had a dale Earnhardt attitude put our car up on the fence which ended the day for us. This aggravated me so much I decided to have a talk with Mr Mast (Rick Mast's dad) who was running the track at the time about letting this drunk get on the track but when I went into the little office he had in the infield I found one of the other local's by the name of Harold already ahead of me because the drunk had wrecked his car also. Harold had his rug on which looked like somebody had shot a squirrel and sat it on his head well I was pretty mad when I went in there but seeing Harold with this funky rug it was all I could do to keep a straight face and not laugh. Mr Mast started talking to Harold and the madder he got and shaking his head the rug started turning on his head until it was completely sideway's sticking out like a bat's wings. Even though I agreed with everything Harold said I was thinking "Dam I wish I had a video camera" because Mr Mast was trying to keep from laughing also. After I talked to Mr Mast he told me he would tell "the drunk" he wasn't getting on the track if he showed up gassed again but the next week he was juiced again so Mr Mast came by and said tell your driver to put his ass in the fence hard enough to kill the car and we will be rid of him and this happened 5 laps after the start of the race and the guy was so gassed he fell on his face as soon as he climbed out of the car. Well he informed Mr Mast he was gonna get his gun and shoot all of us but when he got the gun the local sheriff's deputy handcuffed him and off to the cross bar motel he went. Following week was the race Harlow was making his driving debut which started great until he decided he would be better able to pass other cars on the bottom of the track but he found out this was a bad move because no one was running down there and it was rough and rutted and Harlow spun out threw it back in gear and spun out the other direction which by then looked like a dust devil with so much dust flying off the wheels. He finally got it righted and took off again made a lap spun out again and had the car spinning in a circle trying to get it righted again. After this comedy show and finishing 5 lap's down Harlow tells me you can drive next week but I told him nope I know I can't drive and there's no use for me to make a fool out of myself to prove it so that was the start and end of the Lynchburg Flash's driving career. I found out later on one of our many beer joint trips that Harlow’s drinking buddies thought I was Ralph because Harlow had turned his car over on it's top and told the police his pal Ralph had been driving and took off running away in the woods and got away with this BS excuse, so every time his buddies would see me they said how you doing Ralph. Never a dull moment with the Lynchburg Flash. Joe

I want to thank Harlow for the use of his photos and his friend Joe for a great story. There's more to come.