In memory of Buddy Baker, a great man with an even greater personality

The NASCAR Cup Series driver I knew better than anyone else was Elsie Wiley Baker, Jr., much better known as Buddy Baker.

Not that I didn’t know him in the early stages of my career. I had the opportunity to interview him and many other NASCAR personalities several times. And he always had polite and informative answers to my sometimes silly questions, like most others.

It was Baker’s personal side that I got to know. I knew of his adventures as a teenager. I knew he was an avid outdoorsman. I realized that with his size and muscular build, he was someone you hoped never to upset. But I also knew that he was so gentle and easy-going that you had to work hard to get along with him.

I did not learn much about it from Baker himself; it was more the result of his friendship with Tom Higgins, the popular Charlotte Observer Outdoor and racing writer who became my best friend.

Higgins was arguably NASCAR’s greatest storyteller – and he relished the role. Most of his tall tales came from his youth in and around Burnsville, NC, and featured characters such as Jiggs Briggs, Mumsey Melloway, Uncle Horace and LG Deaton.

Higgins’ father, Milt, was a gamekeeper and had a natural talent for teaching his son the intricacies of nature, hunting and fishing. The younger Higgins also wanted to be a gamekeeper, but his father told him, “You can’t do that. You’re too nice to people.”

It seemed logical that Higgins would eventually write about nature for a major newspaper. And since he was also a racing journalist for that newspaper, it was inevitable that a friendship would develop between him and Baker, who enjoyed hunting and fishing.

Higgins wrote several stories about Baker’s outdoor adventures, but one of them was not his and is about a fishing trip they took to Georgetown, South Carolina, in 1972.

He told me about it, and it was just one of many experiences that gave me a better understanding of the baker’s personal side.

Higgins and Baker planned to begin their fishing trip as soon as Baker could return from a race at the Texas World Speedway in College Station, Texas.

As it turned out, Baker, driving the No. 71 Dodge for owner Nord Krauskopf and veteran crew chief Harry Hyde, won the race in a thrilling duel with AJ Foyt.

“Buddy was so excited he knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep that night,” Higgins recalls. “He called me and told me he wasn’t sure how he was going to make it, but he would be at my door at six in the morning.”

Baker arrived on time. The two fishermen loaded all their gear into Higgins’ car, along with a thermos full of Bloody Marys. Then they hit the road with Baker at the wheel.

“Buddy couldn’t control himself,” Higgins said. “He kept talking about the race, which was his second win of the season. We were about two hours into the race when Buddy said, ‘I want you to look at me.'”

Higgins quickly learned that “I want you to look at me” meant that Baker was exceeding the speed limit.

“We were doing 85 miles per hour!” Higgins explained.

Baker slowed down but never managed to reach 55 miles per hour.

“And sure enough, we’re rolling down the road approaching Myrtle Beach when suddenly blue lights flash behind us,” Higgins said.

When we stopped, a police officer who, according to Higgins, bore a striking resemblance to Barney Fife from television, approached Baker and said, “May I see your license?”

To which Baker replied, “Can I shoot your gun?”

“I knew immediately that we were going to jail,” Higgins said.

The policeman snatched the license from Baker’s hand. As he read it, his face slowly became very confused. Finally, he said, “What the hell kind of name is that, Elsie Wylie Baker?”

“Listen, both of you,” the cop added. “I’ll let you drive, but you have to obey the speed limit for the rest of your trip. And to make sure you do that, I’m going to follow you.”

“As a result, we pulled into the marina in Georgetown with a police officer behind our bumper,” Higgins said. “Buddy told everyone it was a police escort for the win in Texas.”

It wasn’t long before I knew Baker very well. If he liked you, it was easy.

He told me about his teenage years. He was an outstanding athlete whose ambition to become a racing driver was fueled by Fireball Roberts and, of course, his father, Elsie Wylie Baker – a two-time Cup winner and NASCAR Hall of Fame member, better known as Buck.

“I was a pretty big boy at school, but I didn’t like trouble,” Baker told me. “I tried to avoid it.”

“But one time I was with this girl. I was told she was ‘Mule’s girl,’ but she never told me that. The kids kept telling me, ‘Mule is looking for you.’ Eventually I got fed up and said, ‘Tell Mule I’m not hard to find.'”

When Mule found Baker, it was only a moment before the fistfights began.

“He hit me so hard that my left shoelace came loose,” Baker recalled.

The fight ended when Baker picked up a fallen stop sign and beat Mule with it.

“I think I’ve had enough. And you?” asked Mule.

Baker began his career at the age of 18 and won his first race in 1967, the National 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

He quickly earned a reputation as a master of superspeedways, winning twice at Daytona International Speedway and four times at Talladega Superspeedway. He also won the Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway and four times at Charlotte.

His victory at the Daytona 500 in 1980 was the fastest ever recorded at 286.4 km/h. At Talladega he led 1,136 laps, which remains the track record to this day.

After 19 victories in his career, he retired from competitive wrestling in 1992. He then worked for a long time in broadcasting, first with the Nashville Network and then with TBS and CBS.

In 2020, he was inducted into the Hall of Fame along with his father.

During his time at SiriusXM, he learned that he had lung cancer.

He died on August 10, 2015. He was 74 years old.

Baker, known as the “gentle giant,” never changed his personality even during his illness. He never lamented his fate and never sought sympathy.

The last words he spoke on his SiriusXM show were: “Don’t shed a tear. Give me a smile when you say my name.”

And I have always done that.

Steve Waid has been in journalism since 1972, when he began his newspaper career at the Martinsville (Va.) Bulletin. He has spent over 40 years in motorsports journalism, first at the Roanoke Times-World News and later as editor and vice president for NASCAR Scene and NASCAR Illustrated.

Steve has won numerous state sports journalism awards and several others from the National Motorsports Press Association for his motorsports coverage, features and columns. Steve was a regular on “NASCAR This Morning” on FOX Sports Net for several years and is co-author, with Tom Higgins, of the biography “Junior Johnson: Brave In Life.”

In January 2014, Steve was inducted into the NMPA Hall of Fame. And in 2019, he received the Squier-Hall Award from the NASCAR Hall of Fame for lifetime achievement in motorsports journalism. In addition to writing for Frontstretch, Steve is also the co-host of The Scene Vault Podcast.