NASCAR 75: One of a series of 75 stories that helped define the first three quarters of a century of NASCAR.
If there ever was an example of redemption and second chances earned in NASCAR, it was Curtis Morton Turner.
However, due to the deaths of two of NASCAR’s most popular drivers—and Turner’s closest friends—Joe Weatherly and Fireball Roberts, less than five months apart in 1964, it prompted France to lift the lifetime ban against Turner in 1965 .The layoff from NASCAR apparently didn’t hurt Turner, as he won his seventh race back in the series in the inaugural American 500 at North Carolina Motor Speedway in Rockingham, North Carolina in September 1965.
Turner was practically a NASCAR prototype, born into a family of moonshiners, led by his father, Morton. Long before he could even qualify for a driver’s license, young Curtis was transporting cases of his father’s “’shine” around Virginia. Legend has it that Turner was chased by police numerous times throughout the mountains of southwestern Virginia but was never caught, making him somewhat of a local legend, much to the chagrin of police and “revenuers.
Turner drove for a number of legendary teams including Holman-Moody, Wood Brothers and Smokey Yunick, and set a number of records, including winning 25 races in the same year and in the same car in 1956, including a triumph in the Southern 500 at Darlington.
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