Remembering Buddy Baker, a Big Man With a Bigger Personality

The NASCAR Cup Series driver I knew better than any other was Elsie Wiley Baker, Jr., much better known as Buddy Baker.

Not that I didn’t know who he was during the early stages of my career. Several times, I had the opportunity to interview him and many other NASCAR personalities. And he always had polite and informative answers to my sometimes dumb questions, as did most others.

It was Baker’s personal side with which I became familiar. I was aware of his adventures as a teenager. I knew he was an avid outdoorsman. I realized that given his size and muscular build, he was someone you hoped you never angered. But I also knew he was so mild-mannered and affable that you would have to work hard to do that.

I didn’t learn much of this through Baker himself; rather, it was a result of his friendship with Tom Higgins, the popular Charlotte Observer outdoors and racing writer who became my best friend.

Higgins was, arguably, NASCAR’s greatest storyteller — and he relished the role. Most of his tall tales came from his youth in and around Burnsville, N.C., and involved such characters as Jiggs Briggs, Mumsey Melloway, Uncle Horace and L.G. Deaton.

Higgins’ dad, Milt, was a game warden and a natural when teaching his son the intricacies of nature, hunting and fishing. The younger Higgins wanted to be a game warden also, but his father told him, “You can’t be. You are too nice to people.”

It seemed logical that Higgins eventually wrote about the outdoors for a major newspaper, and given that he was also its racing writer, it was inevitable that he and Baker, who enjoyed hunting and fishing, became friendly.

Higgins wrote several feature pieces about Baker’s outdoor exploits, but one he didn’t write involved a fishing trip they took to Georgetown, S.C., in 1972.

He told it to me, and it was just one of the many that exposed me to the Baker’s personal side.

Higgins and Baker planned their fishing trip to begin as soon as Baker could return from a race at Texas World Speedway in College Station, Texas.

As it turned out, Baker, driving the No. 71 Dodge for owner Nord Krauskopf and veteran crew chief Harry Hyde, won the race in a thrilling duel with AJ Foyt.

“Buddy was so excited he knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep that night,” Higgins recalled. “He called me and told me that he wasn’t sure how he would do it, but he was going to be at my door by six in the morning.”

Baker arrived at…