Racing with the Outlaws

Part 2

by Dale Wilson
photos by Classic Motorsport Services and Dale Wilson
8/8/03

Part 2:

We continue with our tour of small southern outlaw tracks.

PUTT-PUTT BUSH

Then there's Putt-Putt Bush. Managed by Teddy-Teddy Yarbrough and Roger Reaves, the eighth-mile is, like many other tracks, often referred to by the town it's near, Eatonton, home of Southern writer Joel Chandler Harris and his "Uncle Remus" stories, plus another famous writer, Alice Walker. Putt-Putt Bush is raced on Sundays, but Thursday is the test 'n' tune day (night), and people turn out by the hundreds just to watch. Like Baileyton, there's not much else to do in Eatonton some nights except watch TV and go to the drags.

First the name. We can't confirm the "Headhunters Club" part (we can guess), but we do know about the "Putt-Putt" and "Bush." Seems that Teddy-Teddy and Rogers' motorcycle club, the "Headhunters," wanted a place to race their hot motorcycles, so they found this piece of land near Eatonton 30 years ago and developed it into an eighth-mile drag strip. It was once exclusively for motorcycles, hence the "Putt-Putt." But what about the "Bush?" Well, there was a row of bushes to the right of the first drag strip, and those bushes were the track's guardwalls. Seriously. Hence the name, Headhunters Club (you figure that one out) Putt-Putt Bush."

Every once in a while someone will call into the local big-city paper the results of Sunday's race, and above the winners' names, where the track name goes, there will be displayed "Headhunters Club Putt-Putt Bush." As if the sports editors of the paper just don't get the whole joke.

We always stop at the General Putnam Motel just a half-mile from the track, to have Sunday lunch before racing. It is one of those places where a couple of grandmas must do all the cooking. They serve it Southern style, with three meats and five veggies, biscuits, sweet, raw green onions held in plastic glasses, plus sweet ice tea and dessert, for $5, serve yourself, all you care to eat, just make sure you eat all yours. It has gone up a dollar and a quarter since we were first there, but we can still eat enough to last us all day and not be hungry when we go home at night.

Teddy-Teddy always holds a drivers' meeting at the track, where he'll explain how much we'll be racing for, except when the "big boys" show up, the Pro Modifieds like "Flukie Son," "Mr. Kwik," "Blue-for-You," "Bay-Bay," "Too Sweet," "Big Stan," "Papa Smurf," "Mr. Pitiful" and the legendary black racer Thomas Jackson, who always buys (and wins in) Pro Stocker Rickie Smith's old cars. Then, Teddy-Teddy will guarantee the purse at $1,000, but the entry fee is liable to go up to $50.