It was hard to get started on racing at Berlin Speedway’s 59th Anniversary night with rain washing out all practices and qualifying. Patient fans and teams from the Vintage Racing Organization of America, Coors Lite Late Models, Engine Pro Super Stock and Kerkstra Services Pro Stock divisions held on. Each class ran an Australian Pursuit race in stead of a Fat Car Dash because qualifiers were never chosen.
Those races were exciting with line ups placing division points leaders at the rear of the pack and last place on the pole of a single file start around a cone at the start finish line. If a driver got passed they were done. In each case a few more laps for the fast car might have given them the victory, but hungry drivers without wins didn’t give up easy and most pole sitters took home wins.
Divisions will run double features on their next night of scheduled racing. So with news to report this week in short supply, lets look back about a week to the ARCA ReMax Series presented by Generac. From that night came an experience of a life time for this reporter, when a seventy-five year old Nascar, USAC and ARCA veteran of over seven hundred starts took a minute out of watching - with other ARCA stars - local Pro Stock drivers race, to compliment my hat.
Something about my leather Civil War era hat struck James Hylton into approaching me to ask where it had come from. What a nice guy, who could have hung with the crowd of young drivers all trying to hear just a little bit of his wisdom just before a big race, but took a moment to talk to one of the locals as just ‘one of the guys’. Not being one to pass up an opportunity, I asked him if he had time for a few questions. He pulled out a cigar, lit it and said, “shoot’.
Even with over six hundred Nascar starts it didn’t take a blink of an eye for him to come up with his favorite win. “In 1966, the year I won Rookie of the Year’, I beat Richard Petty on his home track in Virginia at the Richmond 500 by fifteen seconds. How many people can say that.” That year he had placed second in points to David Pearson and took home quite a few second place finishes, but to the likes of Richard Petty, Bobby Allison and Cale Yarborough. He also took second in points after Petty in 1967 and 71’.
Hylton plans on entering the Datona 500 next year and is currently fifteenth in the ARCA standings, so he shows no signs of stopping. He was very thankful about his staying power in explaining, “When you can race all your life and do what you like to do, that’s hard to come by’. From wins in Camaro’s on road courses in the GT Division at Datona on up to the Talladega 500, he’s proven he’s also still good at what he loves.
“We could be standing here chatting and have Richard Petty walk up, and I know the first thing out of his mouth would be, ya know I’d have got you at Richmond if they’d thrown that caution for the ambulance trying to get out of the infield”, he laughed in explaining that it’s still a rivalry between friends. “Richard got with me by beating me out for the championship those two years.”
As the pit area speakers called drivers to the make ready shoot for their feature he went to excuse himself but stopped to laugh with us one more time when a young ARCA driver named Tyler Nawrocki joked, “just to let you know I’m on deck, cause I’m gonna beat him here tonight.”
I posted pictures on our web site michigancircletrack.com of Mr. Hylton with a group of young drivers and team members huddled around him, hanging on every word. Check them out to get the full picture of a humble gentleman who still has allot to give to younger drivers, but still sees himself as one of them.
