[Racer Duck]

Do you know this driver? He's standing with his famous car that he won many races with including a championship or two .. at a famous short track.



He was a farmer and cattleman who raced on and off through the 1960s and 1970s. He never scored an official victory in NASCAR. He was one of the sport's earliest stars, a hard-nosed racer who made his name racing around the short tracks in Tennessee and Alabama. When he wasn't racing, he was farming, raising crops and cattle.

He was an "independent" driver, fielding his own cars with no major sponsorship backing. He was forced to compete against such well-financed, big-name drivers as Richard Petty and David Pearson, racers he called "hot dogs." When asked if he had any regrets about his racing career. At first he said no, but after pausing a moment, he confessed: "I'd have liked to have run against the hot dogs just one time with the same equipment that they had. I'm pretty sure I could have beat them, but I never got a chance. I reckon we'll never know."

Recalling the first big-time race he entered, an event held around 1950, “I drove up to Nashville and got me a Hudson Hornet,” he says. “We put straight exhausts on it and a seatbelt in it. Then I drove it south to Decatur, Alabama, taped up the headlights and raced it. I think I got third there. After the race, we untaped the lights and drove to a curb service place for something to eat, then drove it on home.”

Daytona and Talladega were his two favorite tracks. During the early ’70s, his 14-year-old son started working as a right-front tire changer on the pit crew. After his retirement, he could be seen at his favorite tracks, keeping a close watch on his son. Can you imagine how this man felt when his son's first win came at the same place he was denied one? With his grandson, a racer also, they celebrated his son's win in Victory Lane at Daytona. “It’s a good thing [they] are race drivers,’cause they don’t know nothing about farming.”

[I Flip For Carl]

Coo Marlin

[Racer Duck]

Originally Posted by I Flip For Carl

Coo Marlin

got it half right .. Coo Coo Marlin.

He was born Clifton Burton Marlin but Clifton doesn’t exactly sound like a name for a fledgling race car driver and probably none of the boys racing with him back then knew him by that name. Even Marlin had trouble with it. “I couldn’t say Clifton right and when I was around 4, I gave myself the name ‘Coo Coo’ and it stuck.”

here's a pic of Sterling when he was his dad's right front tire changer:


One of his favorite competitors was the entertainer Marty Robbins, who ran the Nashville Fairgrounds on many a Saturday night when he wasn’t on the road singing. On nights he worked the Grand Old Opry, Robbins would ask to be put on last so he could get some racing in.

“One night I was running up front and Marty spun me out in the first few laps. Well, down in the infield I went,” Coo Coo says. “When I got the car re-fired, I was back around 27th, and I went hunting for him. I was really making some speed, and I think I lapped the field, but I couldn’t find Robbins. Finally the crew gives me the sign ‘Slow Down ... Marty’s gone to the Grand Old Opry.’

“Another time he blocked me for the whole race. I’d get up to his door, but he kept me from getting by. The last thing I wanted to do was touch him, ’cause them stands were pretty full and his fans would of all come down out of them stands and kill me. But all and all Marty was my buddy. We would pit next to each other at all the big tracks.”

Clifton "Coo-Coo" Marlin, whose love of auto racing eventually led to three generations of drivers, died Sunday, August 14, 2005. Mr. Marlin was 73 and had been suffering from lung cancer.