Meet Hal HamrickHal Hamrick, born in Asheville, North Carolina, began broadcasting races in 1952 with a network that had only six stations. He considered himself "big time" when he moved up to the Darlington Raceway Network in the mid-'50s, and took an even bigger step in 1959, when he was on the team for the broadcast of the first Daytona 500 when Daytona International Speedway opened. After that, he joined Universal Racing Network, owned and directed by Hank Schoolfield. The late Bob Montgomery was anchor. After the death of Montgomery, Hamrick took over as anchor. Universal Network remained in business until the early '80s.
But radio was not a full-time job for Hamrick. In 1960 he was Bristol Speedway's first public relations director. He later became the track's general manager. In 1965 the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) hired him as public relations director, where he stayed until 1967 when he joined Atlanta Raceway as general manager. For a period in the '70s he ran Dixie Speedway on the north side of Atlanta, and in 1977 he bought into Hickory Speedway. Today, he owns and operates a weekly race publication called Fast Track.
Hamrick is married to the former Selma Melton of Rutherford County, North Carolina. They have two children, Leon and Debra.
I was the general manager of Bristol Raceway when the first races were held in 1961. Well, I had broadcast football and basketball games at Kingsport, Tennessee, and I knew the football and basketball coaches there. We didn't have any security, so I hired these coaches to handle security at key places around the track. This one football coach had been an All Southern linebacker. His name was Tom Brixey, and he weighed about 270 pounds. I put him on the press-box door.
The first day the track opened, Bill France Sr. came up and tried to go into the press box, but Brixey would not let him enter. They passed a few words, and Brixey ended up telling France that there were two ways he could get in the press box: "either with the right credential or through me."
France came back down the hill to my office. He was laughing and saying this is the kind of security guard you want. "Now give me a credential," he said.
The Football GameWhen you look at Bristol Speedway today, it's hard to imagine that it wasn't always just a raceway. When it was first built, there was actually a football field in the middle of the track. The field was watered by an irrigation system under the infield, which probably still exists. Believe it or not, we had an NFL exhibition game between the Washington Redskins and the Philadelphia Eagles right in the middle of the speedway. It was a year when football great Norm Van Blocklin was quarterback of the Eagles. We put up lights for the game, and I think all we paid was $4,500 to the Redskins. It was their home game, and it was the last for Bristol.
Wrong TurnDuring my years in Atlanta I remember one event where I got a call from the staff on the infield. It was before the race began, and they told me that a man, his wife, and two kids were trying to get out of the infield. It seems that they were on their way to Florida and followed the traffic right into the track and onto the infield. We let them out and gave them their money back.
Burn It to Get A New OneAnother time in Atlanta, in 1968, there was this great big guy who was with the media. He walked in the old, dilapidated press box we had, and his foot went through the floor. I went to the board of directors after the race and told them we had to do something. The board said tear it down and build another one.
So before they could change their minds, we poured gasoline all over the press box, lit it, and let it burn to the ground. That way, they had to build another press box.
The Woods At HickoryUp behind the fourth turn at Hickory Speedway there was a hill with trees, and people would climb up in these trees and watch the race. They were not on speedway property, but one Monday morning this lawyer came into my office and said he was going to sue. He said a client of his fell out of one of these trees while watching the race. I told him the tree wasn't even on our land and besides that, the guy got to see the race for free!
Later, I leased the hill from the guy who owned it. Ned Jarrett's dad cut it down and pushed up the stumps, and we built a parking lot there.
He Fell AsleepI was broadcasting at Charlotte Speedway in either 1962 or 1963. They had a big rock hill in Turns 1 and 2. We put an announcer on the hill, and during the course of the race we kept calling on him, but nobody would answer. We were concerned, so we sent an engineer over there to see if everything was OK. To our amazement, we learned from the engineer that the announcer was asleep.
Wrong AccentI was helping ABC Television at Darlington the year Junior Johnson was flagged the winner, but Larry Frank was later given the win. I told the people in production that Frank was leading the race, not Johnson. They shot a lot of footage of Frank, and after it was over, the director called me and told me I should apply for a job with ABC. I called the network and spoke with them, but they said I had too much of an accent, so they hired Jackie Stewart. I don't guess they could pick up on his accent.
The Long BroadcastNed Jarrett and I were broadcasting a race at Richmond one year. We went on the air at 12:45 and went off at 7:30 that night. They had a wreck in the fourth turn and had 13 cars involved, with some of them catching fire. It was a mess. We stayed on while they cleaned up the track. Then we had rain, and we stayed on during the showers. It was an all-day affair-more than seven hours. We'd take turns going to the bathroom during commercials.