Tim Flock

Julius Timothy Flock, later to be known as Tim, was born on the 11th of May 1924 in Fort Payne, Alabama. He was the youngest son of Lee, a mechanic and a taxi driver and Maudie. When Tim’s father died when he was one years old his mother looked to her older children to help make ends meet so the family became involved in the "Bootlegging" business under the watchful eye of Uncle Peachtree Williams who was said to be "the biggest bootlegger ever lived in Atlanta". Tim’s eldest brother Carl, took over the business when Uncle Peachtree died and he decided to move the family to Atlanta and Tim’s other brothers, Bob and Fonty, joined Carl in the family business. As was common in those days the bootleg drivers took great pride in their driving skills, outrunning the local police and Federal Agents and soon started to race against each other in unorganised races that were held in cow pastures, often attracting between two to three hundred spectators. Bob and Fonty joined in the races but tried to discourage Tim, urging him to stay in school. At the age of sixteen Tim dropped out of school and started to work. At eighteen he was into the Army but was discharged due to an ulcerated stomach. This same year, despite his brothers' attempts to dissuade him from racing, Tim entered a Modified race at North Wilkesboro after persuading car owner, Bruce Thompson to let him drive his car. He said, "I seemed liked everyone bumped into me and I was glad when the rear end finally froze up and I had to quit the race". Recognising that their young brother was determined to become a race car driver Bob and Fonty felt that they should teach Tim the skills involved in the art of survival on the race track. "They took me out to the old Lakewood track in Atlanta and showed me all the tricks. They would knock me through the fence - just to demonstrate how it was gonna be and that I’d just have to deal with it. I learned quite a bit in a short period of time", he remarked. Racing was in the Flock blood, Tim’s father was a bicycle racer and had the first car in his home town, his brothers had racing careers and his sister, Ethel drove in over one hundred races, finishing 11th in her only Grand National race.

In December 1947 Bill France formed NASCAR and all three brothers, known as the - Flying Flocks, were interested in this new type of race. 1949 brought the inaugural race season of the Strictly Stock Division and all three brothers finished, Bob was third, Fonty was fifth and Tim finished in eighth place in the overall points system. Tim returned to racing in 1951 after spending the 1950 season recovering from a four car pile up at Charlotte. He had seven victories this season followed by eight race victories plus four poles in 1952, giving him enough points to earn his first Grand National Championship. 1955 saw Tim achieving a record setting nineteen poles and eighteen victories in forty five races. The record of eighteen wins in one season stood for twelve years until Richard Petty broke the record in 1967. The record for nineteen poles still stands as the highest in any NASCAR season. In 1953 he won only one race while accompanied by his unusual co-driver - Tim’s pet Rhesus monkey, "Jocko Flocko", who is the only monkey ever to win the Grand National. This was at Hickory Motor Speedway. Overall Tim won forty races, had 129 top tens positions and thirty eight poles. He gained two Grand National Championships -1952 and 1955. His many awards include National Motorsports Press Association Hall of Fame and State of Georgia Hall of Fame in 1972, inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame (1991), Charlotte Motor Speedway Court of Legends (1994), named one of NASCAR’s 50 Greatest Drivers, inducted in the Motorsports Hall of Fame of Americas (1999) and inducted in the Alabama Sport Hall of Fame.

Tim died on 31st March 1998 at the age of seventy three after being diagnosed with lung and liver cancer in January of that year. This was the year of NASCAR’s fiftieth anniversary.

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Tim Flock - IMDb
Tim Flock - How Stuff Workd
Tim Flock - Wikipedia

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