Time for Burke County Sports HOF to look at the ‘outlaws’

With all the recent talk about the Burke County Sports Hall of Fame and who deserves to be in the class of 2025, I would like to talk about five very deserving athletes that you probably never heard about.

Before the Carolina Panthers or the Charlotte Hornets, there was stock car racing. NASCAR’s roots are deeply rooted in the moonshine runners of western North Carolina.

In 1957, former Drexel police chief Earl Blankenship purchased 230 acres beside the Morganton-Lenoir Airport and opened the Burke-Caldwell Drag Strip. By the summer of 1962, Blankenship had converted the drag strip into the half-mile clay oval he named Lenoir-Burke Speedway. The track remained open until 1973.

Then in the fall of 1988, after sitting dormant, the track was reopened and renamed Antioch Speedway. NASCAR Hall of Fame members Ralph Earnhardt (father of Dale Sr. and grandfather of Dale Jr.) and Harry Gant both raced at the track, and stars of the sport such as Tommy Houston, Morgan Shepherd, and Bosco Lowe all cut their teeth there. Dirt racing hall of famers like Mike Duvall, Freddy Smith, Scott Bloomquist, and Stick Elliott all added to their legacy at the track.

Here are five local drivers who I believe deserve to be in the Burke County Sports Hall of Fame ...

Bennett Clontz

A Navy veteran turned local legend, Clontz began his driving career after he returned home from the Korean War. He started driving at Hickory Speedway in a car owned by Jimmy Williams and Paul Miller in 1959 and won multiple times that year racing in the Hobby Division.

By the early ’60s, Clontz moved up to the late model sportsman division and kept on winning. He won feature events and track championships across the Carolinas. Among those victories was the prestigious Fair Race at the Cleveland County Fairgrounds Speedway in Shelby twice in the late ’60s.

In the ’70s, Clontz started driving for Bill Petty out of Spartanburg, S.C. Throughout the decade, he raced and won big money races across the Mid-Atlantic region. Clontz decided to step away from driving in the mid ’80s, but he came back in the new millennium to add to his trophy collection, winning races in five different decades.

He is a member of the Cherokee Speedway Hall of Fame and considered one of the 25 best dirt track drivers of all time.

Herman Mooney

The “Barnyard Boss,” Mooney started his legendary racing career in the early ’60s on the clay bullrings across the Carolinas and Tennessee. Driving for Scott’s Garage in Glen Alpine, he made a name for himself by winning races and track championships.

Throughout the ’70s, Mooney was the man to beat at Cherokee Speedway in Gaffney, S.C., as well as at Harris Speedway in Rutherford County and Metrolina Speedway and Concord Speedway, both in the Charlotte area.

Over the following three decades, Mooney returned home to dominate here in Morganton as well as at Thunder Valley in Lawndale. During the two-year period in which he drove for Leonard Huffman, Mooney visited victory lane 78 times. The multiple-time track champion was known for both his dedication to winning and his big smile.

Ronnie Vasser

Vasser began racing in the early ’80s, winning lower division races at Tri-County and other local tracks. He moved up to the upper divisions and kept up his winning ways.

The black No. 3, owned by Jerry Fleming, was the car to beat at Antioch Speedway for an entire decade.

Vasser moved to the red and white No. 77 owned by Roger Bracket in 2001, and behind the wheel of that machine, won almost 300 races and eight track championships.

Bud Williams

Williams started racing in 1959, helping Jim Williams and Paul Miller build the No. 84 Chevy that took several checkered flags. And while Williams drove a lot of races at several tracks across the Carolinas, he is best known for being a car builder and set-up man.

Williams was decades ahead of his time in understanding tire stagger, spring rates, and shocks and all the small details that help create speed. He spent the next 60 years being a car owner, builder, set-up man, mechanic, engineer, and crew chief.

Williams worked with each of the three aforementioned drivers plus many others. While he would never admit it, he was a part of over 1,000 wins in his career.

Brian Carswell

Brian “Meat Head” Carswell has been collecting checkered flags since 1994. Starting in four-cylinder, Carswell quickly worked his way up to the high-speed Late Model division.

He often drove three or four different divisions on race nights at the track, and some nights, he would win in each car.

Carswell has won on every level of racing over his career, and several local racing historians consider him to be the best driver from the area, while others say he is second-best behind only Clontz.

Either way, he is a winner. He has hundreds of victories and multiple track championships on his resume.