Floyd County will celebrate 100th anniversary of birth of NASCAR pioneer Curtis Turner

Margaret Sue Turner Wright could not help but beam as she prepared to spin a tale about her father.

“Do you have a minute?” she said when the subject of the Ford Mustang she drove during her final years as a Northside High School student came up. “One time I was stopped, and Daddy drove up next to me.”

At this point, Wright stopped to say that she does not condone drag racing on the streets around Roanoke or anywhere else in Southwest Virginia. Still, she was not going to pass up this opportunity for an impromptu speed contest.

Her dad, as it turns out, knew a thing or two about racing himself. She called him Daddy, but everyone else knew him as NASCAR pioneer Curtis Turner. And Margaret Sue had an edge that she couldn’t resist.

“I looked at his car, and I saw he was in a rental, and I was in my Mustang,” she said. “He looked at me and gunned his car, and I gunned mine, and then we just took off.”

We won’t give all the details of this story here, other than it also involves zipping by a police officer and Margaret Sue spending most of the rest of that day hiding at her house under her bed. Wright plans to include it during her remarks at the celebration of the NASCAR Hall of Fame member’s 100th birthday this weekend in Turner’s hometown of Floyd.

The festivities, which include lectures, memorabilia displays and some musical entertainment, are scheduled to begin at noon at the Floyd Event Center and last until 4 p.m.

Wright and representatives from two North Carolina-based racing halls of fame are scheduled to talk about the 17-time winner in NASCAR’s Grand National Division, now known as the Cup Series.

While Turner’s 100th birthday came on April 12, waiting to celebrate until now works out well because Aug. 31 is Wright’s birthday and it gives the Floyd County Tourism Office the opportunity to use the weekend to also christen its partnership with neighboring Franklin and Patrick counties in the Mountain Spirit Trail, which celebrates Virginia’s moonshine heritage.

“The timing of this for the tourist people made this a good time to work it all in,” said Gino Williams, the president of the Floyd County Historical Society (and also a general district judge). “We had our event planned, and when they are working on their thing, it just sort of worked its way into this.”

Williams and his sister, Linda Wiseman, who serves as the historical society’s office manager, are the grandchildren of one of Turner’s first cousins. And when family members get together, there’s always a chance someone in the group has something new to share about their famous relative.

Wiseman said her mother said you always knew when Turner was coming up the driveway.

“You could hear Curtis coming up the road because the gravel was spinning,” Wiseman said. “And he had his airplane. He’d fly very low, like a stuntman.”

Added Williams: “I’ve heard stories about him from people who have been around him, and family members and everything. And everything I’ve been able to work out, it seems most of them were true. His legend — good, bad and otherwise — was something that was built on a lot of truths as opposed to just rumor.”

About Turner’s career

Born: April 12, 1924, in Floyd

Died: Oct. 4, 1970, in a plane crash in Punxsatawney, Pennsylvania

First race: 1946 in Mount Airy, North Carolina

Last race: 1959 in Darlington, South Carolina

• Won 17 NASCAR Grand National Division races
• Won 38 NASCAR Convertible Division races
• Named NASCAR’s most popular Grand National Division driver in 1949 and 1956
• Inducted into NASCAR Hall of Fame, Motorsports Hall of Fame of America, International Motorsports Hall of Fame
• Named one of NASCAR’s 50 greatest drivers

Wright, an artist who works out of her studio in downtown Roanoke, has been sharing stories and preserving the legacy of her father for decades. Turner, who died in a plane crash in 1970, was inducted into the Alabama-based International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1992 and into the Motorsports Hall of Fame in Daytona Beach, Florida, in 2006.

However, Wright said his 2016 induction into NASCAR’s Hall of Fame was the crowning moment in her mind. Turner was a founding member and one of the most popular drivers in the first 20 years of what has become one of the best-known racing organizations in North America, and Wright said she was never prouder than when she stood in for her late father at his induction ceremony.

She’s learned more about her father as a result.

“The race drivers who knew him and are still here have talked to me about him,” she said. “And then there were some who maybe didn’t know him and came onto the scene later, have now [learned] about him. It’s been really cool.”

Many of her paintings, some of which will also be on display on Saturday, are of her father, both during his racing days and involved in some of his other endeavors, including his lucrative business dealings as a timber broker.

“I plan to paint as much as I can of his history,” she said.

Turner, like many of his early NASCAR rivals, honed his expert driving skills as a Prohibition-era bootlegger.

Five Mile Mountain Distillery plans to feature what was allegedly Turner’s favorite drink — The Runnett Bag, peach-infused moonshine with lemon juice and sparkling water — all weekend.

The historical society will exhibit some of Turner’s memorabilia it has been entrusted with, including trophies, race programs and photos. It will also hold a raffle for tickets to a 2025 NASCAR Cup race at Richmond International Raceway and for some memorabilia, including the Feb. 26, 1968, edition of Sports Illustrated, which featured Turner on the cover. Proceeds from the raffles will benefit the historical society.

Various parts of Turner’s life will be remembered on Saturday. Representing the NASCAR Hall of Fame will be curatorial affairs manager Tom Jensen. On the organization’s web page devoted to Turner, he is referred to as the “Babe Ruth of stock car racing,” and it also notes that in addition to his 17 Cup-division wins and the 16 poles he claimed in 184 starts, Turner won 38 of the 79 races he entered in NASCAR’s Convertible Division, which ran in the late 1950s.

One of those famed convertibles, which is regularly on display at the Virginia Museum of Transportation in Roanoke, will also be on view at the event center.

Also scheduled to speak is Bob Hissom from the North Carolina Auto Racing Hall of Fame. While Turner spent most of his life living in Virginia, his contributions to auto racing in North Carolina are significant. He was a key member in the business partnership that constructed and opened Charlotte Motor Speedway in 1960.

Turner’s grandson, Bryan Wright, will team up with his friend Ian Williams to give an acoustic music performance.

“I think it will be a pretty good crowd,” Williams said. “He’s still got a considerable amount of family here, and there’s still people who live here who knew him when he was in his prime.”

More information: https://floydhistoricalsociety.org/celebrate-curtis-turner

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