LITTLE ROCK — Hood, 86, lived life to fullest
If you were a racer, motor sports fan or gearhead in the Mid-South, you probably knew Hooker Hood.
Apparently, that included Elvis Presley.
Clarence “Hooker” Hood, a colorful character who raced sprint cars and super modifieds for more than five decades, died Christmas Eve. He was 86.
Hood, a Memphis native who was inducted into the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame in 1999, enjoyed success at tracks around the country, but the majority of his races were at the track where his career began in 1950 - Riverside International Speedway in West Memphis. He last raced there at age 75.
“Hooker lived 86 years, but that would be like living 400 years for me or you,” said Ben Shelton, Riverside’s former public address announcer who gave the eulogy at Hood’s funeral.
“Hooker definitely lived his life.”
The first race Hood saw was a midget event at Los Angeles Coliseum in the mid-1940s while he was in the Navy. He began racing jalopies at Riverside, earning his first victory in his second start while driving a 1939 Ford.
He won more than 700feature events in his career.
At his peak, he won 20 times in 22 feature starts in 1966 - all at Riverside - and won 57 times in 63 starts around the nation in 1967.
But Riverside, nicknamed “The Ditch,” remained his home track.
“Cat, I’ve flipped over the top of every fence at that place,” Hood told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in 1998. “I ran at places all over, but there weren’t too many who could keep up with me at The Ditch.”
Tim Crawley, a top sprint car driver from Benton, said he remembered lining up beside Hood for a heat race at Riverside late in Hood’s career.
“He would have been in his late 60s,” said Crawley, who won the Hooker Hood Classic at Riverside two years ago in a car carrying Hood’s No. 99. “He ran so hard, even at that age. I remember thinking that I would have hated to have to race him when he was my age.”
Hood also was credited with making five NASCAR Grand National starts in 1954 and 1955. Three of the starts came at Memphis-Arkansas Speedway, a 1.5-mile dirt track located at LeHi.
In 1957, Hood was caught transporting moonshine and served “111 days, 4 hours, 19 minutes and 22 seconds” as a prisoner-at-large at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Ala.
“Hooker said it was the worst period of his life,” Shelton said. “Not because he was incarcerated, but because on Saturday night he could hear the races going on over at Montgomery Speedway.”
And Elvis?
The story goes that it wasn’t uncommon to slip inside the old race shop behind Hood’s house in the Whitehaven neighborhood of Memphis and find Presley there, seeking speed tips from Hood.
“There are plenty of the old-timers that swear that’s true,” Shelton said. “There are a lot Hooker stories like that, ones that kind of border on legend. But if they aren’t true, I don’t want to know about.”
Outlaws to I-30
The World of Outlaws Late Model Series will make its first visit to Arkansas on March 22 at Little Rock’s I-30 Speedway.
The Outlaws visited Tri-State Speedway outside of Fort Smith in 2004 and 2005, but that track is officially in Pocola, Okla. Those events were won by Bart Hartman of Zanesville, Ohio, and Batesville’s Billy Moyer.
Moyer is one of the most successful drivers in the series’ history, winning national titles in 1988, 1989 and 2005. He also ranks third on the all-time series list with 38 victories.
The series began in 1988 and 1989, then was dormant until 2004 and has been in operation since.
It will be the first appearance at I-30 by a national touring late model series since the defunct Hav-A-Tampa Series was there in 1996 and 1997.
The Outlaws season begins its traditional winter swing through the Southeast when it opens Feb. 8-9 at Screven Motor Speedway in Sylvania, Ga., followed by events Feb. 15-17 at Bubba Raceway Park in Ocala, Fla., and Feb. 21-23 at Volusia Speedway Park in Barberville, Fla. The series will take a month off before the event at Little Rock.
Last laps
This week the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame in Knoxville, Iowa, named Tracey Clay of I-30 Speedway in Little Rock its National 360 Promoter of the Year. It’s the third time she has earned the award. ... Batesville Motor Speedway will open its season March 7 with the completion of the 17th annual Schoenfeld Headers Street Stock Nationals, which was rained out in September and will pay $10,000 to win. The track will host the Tracktek Spring Street Stock Nationals on March 8-9, which will pay $3,000 to win. ... The Beebe-based Comp Cams Super Dirt Series will begin its 2013 season April 12 at Beebe Speedway and April 13 at Riverside International Speedway in West Memphis.
So far the schedule includes 19 events at 11 tracks in four states.
Chili Bowl
TULSA - Friday night’s preliminary feature race top finishers at the 27th annual Lucas Oil Chili Bowl Midget Nationals at Tulsa Expo Raceway. The top three finishers advance to the main event, which was held Saturday night:
Chad Boat, Phoenix
Cory Kruseman, Ventura, Calif.
Dave Darland, Lincoln, Ind.
Billy Wease, Noblesville, Ind.
Trevor Kobylarz, Birdsboro, Pa.
Jason Meyers, Clovis, Calif.
Daryn Pittman, Owasso, Okla.
Justin Allgaier, Riverton, Ill.
Austin Brown, Millstadt, Ill.
Ryan Bernal, Hollister, Calif.
Heat winners - Meyers, Levi Jones, Chase Stockton, Brown, Kobylarz, Daniel Robinson, Chris Coker, Allgair. Qualifying race winners - Ronnie Gardner, Gary Altig, Boat, Jones. C-Main winners - Chase Barber, Cody Darrah.
B-Main winners - Alex Schutte, Tim Barber. Nonqualifying Arkansan - Eldon Blackaby, Bentonville (ninth in heat, 12th in C-Main).
Sports, Pages 31 on 01/13/2013