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CNN Live Saturday

Interviews With Trish Yunick Brown, Donald Davidson

Aired May 25, 2002 - 18:16   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: Well, it is Memorial Day weekend, a time to remember veterans, of course. And it is also a big weekend for racing fans. With NASCAR's longest race and of course the Indy 500 tomorrow, we bring all three events together now with the story of a man that you may never have heard of, racing legend and World War II veteran Smokey Yunick.

Now, Smokey died last year -- he's the one you see there in the hat. He died last year just weeks before the Indy 500 that he loved so very much, and his three volume self-published autobiography has received some great reviews as well. What a life he did lead.

Joining us now to tell us more about Smokey's story are his daughter Trish Yunick Brown, and also Indy historian Donald Davidson is with us today to talk with us a little bit about the Indy and Smokey's contribution. Thank you both for being with us today.

TRISH YUNICK BROWN, SMOKEY YUNICK'S DAUGHTER: Thank you.

CALLAWAY: Trish, I know this was really a big weekend for your father. I want to start off by asking you what you feel like his biggest contribution to racing was?

BROWN: He felt like he was a racer. He was proud to be included in what we look on today as racing. He loved the sport, he especially loved Indianapolis. He said he'd haul his car there with a rope if it was necessary. He had fun.

CALLAWAY: He did have fun, and I have to tell you -- these books -- I don't know if people can see just how big they are -- I have all three of them here. You can tell what kind of life this man led just by looking at his autobiography.

Donald, let me ask you about his contributions to racing. And certainly, he will be remembered this weekend, not for being a driver, certainly, but for other contributions to racing. Tell us a little about those. They sure are far reaching from types of cars, contributions that way, a number of ways he added to racing.

DONALD DAVIDSON, RACING HISTORIAN: Well, he's better remembered for being in stockcar racing than NASCAR. But he was at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway a number of times between 1958 and 1975, and he wasn't there every year, but he bought a car in 1959 called Smokey's Reverse Torque Special. The engine ran backward. And he finished seventh with a driver named Dewayne Carter (ph). Then he was on the winning crew in 1960 with Jim Rathman (ph). He tried a wing in 1962 that they asked him to remove, because it was against the rules at the time.

And he also used stock block engines here. And in 1973, he had a car that had a Chevrolet stock block engine with dual turbo chargers, and he's the only person that ever did that.

CALLAWAY: He was thinking ahead, wasn't he? Trish, let me ask you about that. He mentioned the wing. He was trying that -- of course, no one else was -- but now we see it on all the cars. Also the capsule car. We know that -- Trish, didn't he get that idea from a German Spyder?

BROWN: He did. When he was flying in the war he was actually pursued by a plane that had the pilot out in a little pod to the side. And once he came back and entered racing, he decided that that was actually worth pursuing, because putting the driver out in a little pod actually broke the air and made it -- in a smaller way -- and made it easier for the car to get through more rapidly. He was very proud of that car.

CALLAWAY: Donald, this man sounded like quite a renegade. He's putting wings on cars, and making cars that look like capsules. Is it amazing to look back and see how truly he was thinking ahead? Because all of those things are now incorporated.

DAVIDSON: Well, a lot of those things you can't even do now because computers have designed the perfect racing car, but back in his day, what he did, was he had these ideas and so he'd think, well, I don't know if that's going to work or not, let's build it and find out.

And there's a lot of things that he did that were actually great innovations that he probably should have tried a second or third time but he would try something once and if it wasn't particularly successful, he wouldn't do it again.

I mean, for instance, the capsule car -- that wasn't too far from making, as strange as it looked. And I don't know that anybody really wanted to be the driver, with the engine right next to their ear, but Bobby Johnson (ph) wanted to ride in the race so badly that he drove the car and almost qualified. He wasn't that far off in speed.

CALLAWAY: I have no doubt that if he could he would drive it. He would have driven it. Trish, let me ask you about your father just as a man. What a character he was. I understand that he made up his own birth certificate, is that right?

BROWN: He did. He was born very poor in rural Pennsylvania. And, had to drop out of school in the tenth grade to support the family because his father had died. After he got moving on, war was out, and he decided that that was where he needed to be, to serve the country. And...

CALLAWAY: And did he serve. He was a Flying Tiger, wasn't he? I think he...

BROWN: ... he was, he flew over 50 missions over Europe and survived to tell the tale.

CALLAWAY: He sure did. And, boy, does he have a long tale too. As we say, we've got three volumes here just of autobiography. Trish, why did he decide to write this?

BROWN: He was giving a tour in the pits at Charlotte Motor Speedway and realized that the history of racing was really lost the way it really happened. What we have now -- especially for stock car racing -- is a politically correct sanitized version.

So he sat out to write it in his own amenable way -- very conversational -- it's as if you were talking to him. And it just kept growing and growing and growing. I have no doubt, had he not gotten very sick, he'd still be working on it.

CALLAWAY: Hey, Donald, we know that Smokey gave up stock car racing because he said there were too many rules and that's why he liked Indy racing, right?

DAVIDSON: Well, he did that. Of course, he was back into stock car racing for a long -- he actually dropped out several times. But as I said earlier, he was not at Indianapolis every year from 1958 to '75 but in most of the years in between and he just -- he really loved it here -- which was a surprise to me when I met him because I just figured boy he's a NASCAR stock car guy through and through and he felt the Indianapolis Motor Speedway was the greatest place there was. And Tony Norman (ph) the gentlemen who owned it, he thought he was the greatest person that had ever lived.

CALLAWAY: We have to mention the safety wall that's in place for the race this weekend because Smokey was experimenting with safety walls years ago, wasn't he?

DAVIDSON: Oh, probably. I don't know. I think he was interested in safety. And, he was always innovating something.

BROWN: He had actually patented a safety wall, a crash barrier, in the '80s and he would be absolutely delighted to see this one in place. It's not exactly the way he had it designed, but he would be thrilled to see something being done to keep these guys safe as they hurl around there.

CALLAWAY: Right. Donald, will he be remembered this weekend?

BROWN: Oh, yes. He was so quotable -- and I don't know that the general public really remembers him now like they would down south, but people ask me about him all the time. And they all tell me their favorite quotes, and we've go the great stories, their favorite stories, none of which we have time to do right now.

CALLAWAY: All right. And, if you do want to hear some of those stories, want to know more, you can go to smokeyyunick.com for more information. There's so much to talk about this man. I wish we did have more time, I know that he'd even started a foundation where he's giving awards to innovators because he was a true innovator.

But thank you both for being with us today, for discussing that. Trish and Donald Davidson, thank you very much for being with us. Have a good time this weekend.

DAVIDSON: Thank you, we're looking forward to it.

CALLAWAY: All right, bye-bye then.

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