<< PREVIOUS PAGE

She had stories written about her in the Associated Press, Super Stock magazine, Drag Racing magazine, the IHRA newspaper, and one year, she won the "Ambassador of the Year" award at the IHRA banquet. Car Craft Magazine declared Cleo the Stock Eliminator racer of the year, and she shared the same stage with Eddie Hill, Warren Johnson, Scotty Cannon, all the big boys of drag racing.

"She knew who they were," Chandler said, "but it was no different for her than me and you sitting here talking. Nobody shook her up, she was right there with anybody."

Cleo began racing I/Crate Motor Stock in the Chevelle after Ed built her a 350/300 horse engine, and she attracted more attention.

TCI would furnish the Chandlers with transmissions, Mickey Thomson gave her tires, Holley gave her intakes, carburetors and fuel pumps, Hedman gave her headers. She got tools and uniforms from Snap-On Tools, and Lucas Oil Company gave her money to race on.

A guy who was in the same class as she was in would ask her if she was going up before or after him, to keep both separated in eliminations. "He could outrun her, but he would lay back for her," Chandler said. They were at Bristol one year, and the IHRA made a birthday cake for her for her 77th birthday and presented it to her on the starting line, "and there were all these people clapping and a-hollerin' and a-hoopin' and it was sort of embarrassing for her. (Announcer and TV personality) Bret Kepner introduced her to the crowd and he made a big deal about it."

She also liked it when she raced in Aruba in 1992, Ed said. "She'd make a pass, and it would be 30 minutes before I could get to her, the crowd around her was so big," he said.

But things changed for Cleo in 1996, when Ed had his crash at Darlington. That, he says, did something to her. Chandler was on a 185-mph pass when his nitrous system froze up, and he rolled and tumbled down the finish line guard rail so hard that the car split in two. He was unhurt, but somehow, it hurt her as far as her racing, he says, because it made her leery of it. Her last full year of racing was 1997.

At the end of the year, she got sick. She finished around 10th in points. She was still planning on racing in 1998, but it wasn't to be. Cleo was 81 years old. She had some trouble with her lungs before, and she couldn't get enough oxygen, and she just went down, Ed says. She was in and out of the hospital a few times, and her doctor from Birmingham, John Farley, a fan, did all he could do for her final years. Cleo Chandler died of a lung infection on March 1, 2001 at the Regional Medical Center in Anniston. She was 84.

"I was holding her hand when she died," Ed said. "I never left the hospital. She was admitted on Friday afternoon and died the following Thursday, and I was there the whole time. She was laying there facing me, and she rolled her head away from me and a lady who was at the foot of the bed said she just smiled and went to sleep. It was very peaceful they way she did. I guess that's the way it's supposed to be."

Ed's mother was still at home when he first talked to her about putting the Chevelle in the museum, some time this past February. She kept asking Ed if that meant she wouldn't get to race anymore. And Ed said, "By no means. I told her, 'When you get to feeling better, all we have to do is go get the car out and go racing.' It was race-ready. This was in February, and she died in March. I never put it in there until she passed away. We wanted to put it in there for people to see it. She was resting, and when she got better, we'd go racing. That's all there was to it."

He had talked to Hall of Fame director Jim Freeman about putting the car in the museum for some time, and Ed had had an "in" with the museum for a long time before --- his split-window '63 Vette had been on display there for eight years. Ironically, Freeman had known who Cleo Chandler was for some time --- he was in Chattanooga when she raced at the local track and the local newspaper had sent someone out to interview her and her story had appeared later. Freeman said sure, he'd like to have the Chevelle there with Bonnett's and Roberts' and all the rest.

"We were going to put it in in February, but then Dale Earnhardt got killed in Daytona and I knew he (Freeman) had everything upside down then, trying to get everything fixed, so I backed off and didn't put it in until June," Chandler said. The engine and trans are still in the Chevelle. All he has to do is gas it up and put the necessary fluids and oils in and it's ready to go. "It's local, so I can check on it from time to time," he says of the car.

Retired racer and friend Johnny Cofield, of Ranburne, Alabama, made the wood frame for the plaque that holds all the mementos of Cleo's racing career -- photos of her and Linda Vaughn, IHRA news clippings, Cleo at the Car Craft banquet, at the Washington, D.C. salute to women in motorsports in 1997, photos of her with with Amy Faulk, Shirley Muldowney, Janet Guthrie, Angelle Seeling, with Eddie Hill, WJ. . . .

Ed wishes his mother could be here now, to tell people like the Isbells about the Chevelle and her fabulous career that started at age 68, a time when most of us would want to hang it up and not embark on something totally new. Especially this drag racing game, which can be so hard and demanding but can be so rewarding, especially for a great-grandmother whom everybody took to heart.

"She'd be proud of it in the motorsports hall of fame," Chandler said. "When she won the Winter Nationals in 1992, that's exactly how the Chevelle was, her helmet and fire jacket in the seat, and the only thing different is that wreath of 23 roses in the back seat area, in the shape of her car and in the same color combination."

He thinks the Isbells would understand.

< MORE STORIES >