DirtonDirt.com exclusive
Father's legacy stretches back to racing's pioneers
By Todd Turner
DirtonDirt.com managing editor
Tommy Hickman and his son Brian in victory lane. (Family collection)
There was no doubt that Tommy Hickman’s funeral would have a significant connection to auto racing. After all, the longtime Soddy Daisy, Tenn., resident who died in January at the age of 76 learned about racing from his father, prepared and fielded family-owned cars for some of Dirt Late Model racing’s best Southeastern drivers in the 1970s and '80s and then spent more than 25 seasons racing with his son Brian. | Slideshow
Those paying their respects couldn’t help but notice the elder Hickman’s casket had a certain familiarity.
“We went to pick the casket out and I saw a black one. I said, ‘Oh, we’ve got to pick that,’ ” said 56-year-old Brian Hickman, one of Tommy’s three children. “We put our race car numbers around the bottom different drivers, some that drove for us some that we sponsored. We put checkerboard topping on it and then we had white flowers and red roses — our numbers on a race car a lot of the over the years was red and white and we had black and gold race cars.”
It was a representation of a lifetime of racing memories for the family and the younger Hickman, who retired from competition more than a dozen years ago after a back injury.
Memories of long-told stories shared about his grandfather and father and uncles, memories of exploits by National Dirt Late Model Hall of Fame drivers like Tootle Estes, Buck Simmons, Doug Kenimer and Charlie Hughes, and memories of Brian’s own lengthy career with 200 victories, each of them that began and ended with Tommy Hickman driving the tow rig to and from the racetrack.
“It’s heartbreaking to lose your best friend,” said Brian, who was comforted by members of the racing community after his father's passing. “We had so much in common. We were best friends. Like when I was 3 years old, I was going on tow calls, riding in the tow truck with my dad. I’d get mad and stomp my feet if I couldn’t go with my dad. I was his shadow. Everywhere I go, until this day, people say, ‘Man, you look just like your dad.’ We favored each other a lot. ‘Yeah, that’s my dad.’ ”
The Hickman family's love of auto racing began with patriarch Paul Hickman, Tommy's father, who founded Paul's Auto Parts and Hickman's Wrecker Service. Paul Hickman, who died in 1990, was an integral in the pioneering era of short-track racing around Chattanooga, Tenn., fielding dirt and asphalt cars for standout drivers including Estes, Bob Burcham, Sherman Howell, Freddy Fryar, Jerry "Wildman" Smith and Friday Hassler.
A young, tireless Tommy soaked up racing knowledge, along with brothers Ervin and Dwayne, and they joined their father in fielding race cars while also working the family businesses. Tommy participated in a few mechanics races, but Paul Hickman preferred he stayed out of the driver's seat.
“My grandfather said, ‘Tommy, you’ve got these three kids and you’re in this business so I wish you’d just have drivers and you try to run this business.’ My grandfather just didn’t want to see him get hurt and nothing like that," Brian recalls.
Instead of focusing on driving his father’s car, Tommy and his brothers built cars and engines while employing other drivers in a period when Dirt Late Model racing was transitioning into the modern era.
“My dad would build these cars from the ground up and it was a ’68 Camaro. We had a salvage yard, and when I was a little kid, my dad would take a torch and skin those cars out. I mean, he skinned some nice Camaros out. I wish we had all those Camaros back," Brian said, remembering some of the cars from the late 1970s. “He went and bought the chassis from (NASCAR competitor) 'Tiger' Tom Pistone, just the frame part, and my dad built a rollcage and I mean the whole thing. He’d build those cars in two months. It was unreal what he could do and what he did. He got that car going.”
Brian Hickman has heard many stories, some from before his time, and experienced many others while helping the family-owned team when he was a boy, much like his father had done with his grandfather a generation earlier. Brian himself was driving Hickman-fielded No. 41 cars by the age of 15 in the mid-1980s, but in the years before that drivers including Simmons, Hughes, Kenimer, Steve Smith, Charlie Mincey, Bobby Panter and Bobby Richey, Rex Richey's uncle, were among drivers of Hickman-fielded cars. Some of the driver stints only lasted a year or so, but they left a raft of oft-told tales that became Hickman family lore.
Following a successful stretch with Tootle Estes from 1972-76, among the team's best seasons came in 1977 when South Carolina hotshoe Buck Simmons won 14 of 15 races at Newport (Tenn.) Speedway — a rock broke the oil filter to prevent a season sweep. Late in the season, the team planned to head to Summerville, S.C., for the Tiny Lund Memorial. The race required special preparation because the car Simmons was driving was much lighter than most.
“They had to weigh like 2,800 pounds and my dad, he went and bought every piece of lead around Chattanooga trying to get enough lead put on that car," Brian remembers.
When they got to the Summerville, Tommy Hickman saw the huge field of cars and wasn't sure they'd made the best decision.
“My dad told Buck, he said, ’What in the world are we doing here?’ Old Buck looked at my dad and he said, ’Tommy, we’re gonna win this race. We’ll win it,' ” Brian said.
Indeed, in a race that included a huge pileup that allowed alternates to replace cars falling out of the race, Simmons stalked the leader and eventually slipped by for the victory that didn't come with a few high-jinks between the scales and engine inspection.
The next season, the Hickmans connected with Charlie Hughes of nearby Dalton, Ga., enjoying another successful season. The most memorable 1978 outing, Brian said, wasn't a victory but a runner-up finish at Atomic Speedway near Knoxville, Tenn.
There was "a big pileup on the start, and a car piled in the back of Charles. The back end just all turned up and it was horrible looking and it cut the tire down. Charles come in. They pulled it in and he then put his helmet in his bag. He was ready to quit," Brian recalled. "And Dad said, ’Oh hell, we’re gonna put a tire on it. So get back in there boy.’ They put a left-rear tire on it and he started dead last come all the way from the rear and ran second that night.”
“I don’t know what they did," Brian said of the National Dirt Racing Association event won by Larry Moore, "but that car flew in the feature.”
Kennesaw, Ga., driver Charlie Mincey took the Hickman ride from 1979-81 and the team primarily ran in Georgia with the Swims family promoting West Atlanta Speedway, Dixie Speedway and Rome Speedway on Friday-Sunday, which drew top Georgia drivers like Billy Clanton, Stan Massey, Leon Sells, Bud Lunsford and more.
Brian Hickman remembers the generosity of promoter Mickey Swims when the team ran into trouble one night.
“There was a guy that blowed the motor up in front of Charlie in the feature and it totaled that car. He got into the wall and bent it all up," Brian said. "Monday morning, Mickey Swims called and said, ’How long you’uns gonna be out?’ My dad said we were going to build a new race car and he, he said, ’I’m gonna help you,’ and heck, (Swims) sent us a check in the mail to help try to get another race car. He really took care of his drivers.”
Over the next half-dozen years, Kenimer, Richey and Panter were among Hickman drivers with Brian starting in the pony stocks as a teenager, moving into a B-class Late model division and eventually Super Late Models a few years before Paul Hickman died. Brian and his father went on to compete for 25 years in the division with a 1991 Hav-A-Tampa Dirt Racing Series victory and 1994 Southern All Star Series victory, both at North Georgia Speedway in Chatsworth, among the highlights with success at Cleveland (Tenn.) Speedway, Crossville (Tenn.) Raceway, Green Valley Speedway in Glencoe, Ala., and Boyd's Speedway in Ringgold, Ga. (also called Stateline Speedway among other names).
Even in the years Tommy Hickman was focused on Brian's car, his wealth of racing knowledge meant his advice and assistance was frequently sought by fellow races. On one occasion, South Carolina standout Chris Madden had a misthreaded spark plug that Hickman had a special tool to solve, allowing Madden to win a big race. Another time Hall of Fame driver Ronnie Johnson didn't have a motor, and when he ran into the Hickmans at a Saturday breakfast, Tommy Hickman offered to loan him one for that night's Alabama State Championship at East Alabama Motor Speedway in Phenix City. The Hickmans scrambled to help Johnston install the motor at his shop, and — in true R.J. style — they arrived at EAMS during qualifying, where Johnson set fast time and went on to win the next night's Super Late Model feature.
Johnson and Brian Hickman talked about the story at his father's visitation.
“(Johnson) was telling me that and he said, ’Brian, I would have never dreamed that morning that I would be racing that night,’ ” the younger Hickman said. “I never will forget that. It was so fun.”
Another story long before Brian's time is among his favorites. His father and grandfather were heading for Moccasin Bend Raceway near Chattanooga with a 1930s-era Ford, but they didn't have a race car trailer or tow-bar chain. The solution? Loop an inner tube between the bumpers of the truck and race car.
"My daddy said he sat in the back (of the truck) and turned around facing out the back glass," Brian said. "Dad said they'd go up a hill, so that inner tube would get really long, and then whenever (they got back) level back on ground, so it would shorten back up. ... He said he’d never forget that.”
Brian will miss fishing, competing in turkey shoots, going on tow runs and and watching live-streamed Dirt Late Model races with his father, who had open-heart surgery in 1999 and had another heart episode three years ago. Tommy continued working with the family's towing operation into his mid-70s, but fell ill in January after joining Brian on a towing job to Knoxville one night. Brian decided to spend the night with his parents and overnight, Tommy needed CPR and medical attention. He was revived at a nearby hospital, but later doctors discovered he'd lost brain activity and died shortly thereafter.
“My dad had a good life and he was real good to my whole family. A family man, didn’t drink or nothing and it’s just unreal that the stuff he did," Brian said. "He built cars from the ground up. I mean, to this day, I couldn’t keep up with him. I mean he’d work. He’d want to do this or that, and I was like, ’Dang dad, I’m ready to go home or ready to go to bed.’ He really loved being on the go.”
While drivers get the glory, Tommy had no problems staying in the background while the family’s cars raced to victories. Making pan-fried chicken — the likable Estes would always ask "where's that chicken at Tommy?" Brian recalls — and eating watermelon after the races was part of the fun.
“He just loved to win. He’d give the drivers the trophy ... he loved he people and camaraderie and all of it," Brian said. “He loved it. He loved racing. He said, 'I know I spent a bunch of money, but I kept my family and we was always together.' He said: I wouldn’t have done it any other way.”
At the Jan. 21 funeral, 17 area towing companies showed up to be part of the procession. If Tommy had been alive, there's no doubt he'd have been behind the wheel of a tow truck, too.
”Not one time in my whole racing career did I ever drive the tow truck (to the track)," Brian said. "He drove every time he drove the tow truck. He just loved doing it. He loved me and my brother and sister all and he just really loved me and spent lots of money on my racing. He just really loved us."
Never interested in retirement, Tommy wouldn't have wanted to linger in poor health, so his life ended fittingly.
“I mean, it's just the way he wanted it," Brian said. "He was working, happy, with family and all, and it was quick. Just the good Lord wanted him to come on, I reckon.”
