Thread: Ga. Racing Hall Of Fame New Member

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On October 26, 2007 Paul McDuffie will be Ga,s. newest member of the Ga. Racing Hall Of Fame! Paul was born in Hawkinsville Ga. (MY HOME TOWN) and was engine builder as well as crew chief for FIREBALL ROBERTS in 1958. Roberts won the Southern 500 in Darlington that year. In 1960 he was crew chief for Joe Lee Johnson with a win at the inaugural World 600. In the early 50s he was instrumental in getting Chevrolet into NASCAR racing. He was killed in a racing accident in 1960 at Darlington Raceway when Bobby Johns went out of control and spun into the pits hitting the pit wall. It may be of interest to note that in the 40s he began his career by turning the harness horse track in Hawkinsville into a dirt track making it a forerunner of NASCAR. IN 1950 he was mechanic for Roz Howard and together they won the NASCAR Championship. In 57 he teamed with FIREBALL ROBERTS and won 12 out of 15 starts in the Grand Nationals and Convertible Division. In his career he was voted NASCAR MECHANIC OF THE YEAR 3 times. I beleive this is a well derserved reward for all his efforts to make racing into a #1 sport(pastime).

Did you know Paul McDuffie? My fiance is his granddaughter.

No i didn,t know him but have some friends that did. Some of the oldtime racers still put on shows at some of the local tracks and they knew him. I was too young to remember him. My folks knew him and i guess it,s because my family has been here about as long as this has been a town. I know his grandaughter is proud of his accomplishments.

These guys are the real champions! They were pushing the envelope when it was all new territory. Hats off.....

I was real bummed that we didn't go for the induction. I knew there would be some real racing heroes there, but our son broke his arm that month.
Does anyone here know about his involvement with the '57 Chevy "Black Widow" project? It was a secret car that Chevy had Paul McDuffie, the Clements brothers, and Bradley Dennis design for racing that had a 383 fuelie! Nascar banned fuel injection shortly thereafter.

tommyhawk13 I had an interesting conversation with a friend of mine named Woody Moore on Sun 2nd of Dec. He was one of the speakers at the induction ceremony. Woody was telling me that Paul was his mechanic in the fifties and that Paul was so good that GM called him for info on how he built his engines. I wish you had time to come here and sit and talk with Woody. I am sure he could tell you some interesting stories. Our local paper is doing an article on Paul that will be featured over a three week period. Hope you can at least get a copy for his grandaughter to keep. It may start this week i don,t know yet the paper comes out on Wed of every week. I will post when i get this weeks paper to let you know.

Got the local paper yesterday and they had the first of a 3 part series on Paul Mc,Duffie in it. This is very interesting reading. Anyone wishing to read this should contact the Hawkinsville Dispatch and News via email dn@comsouth.net. or Sam Crenshaw at samsam3125@yahoo.com. The address for the paper is Hawkinsville Dispatch & News 329 Commerce Street P.O. Box 30 Hawkinsville, Ga. 31036. Ph. (478)-783-1291 Fax (478) 783-1293