Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, September 18, 1993 TAG: 9309180175
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Baker and his wife, Shane, a professional artist, have filled the house with oriental antiques, starting in the living room with a huge hand-carved couch and matching chairs.
"When they walk in, they go, `My gosh!' " Baker said. "They can't believe it."
There is nothing to suggest stock car racing. Baker has no trophy room, and the bathroom floors are not tiled in the checkered-flag motif.
"I don't have a trophy - not one," he said. "I put 'em in museums for other people to enjoy or gave 'em to car owners. I don't want to live that every day. Besides, some of those trophies are 6-foot tall. Where are you gonna put 'em?"
One thing he does cherish, however, is the diamond-studded watch bracelet he picked up a few years ago at an antique store in the Poconos during a race weekend there. He found it with the costume jewelry. It cost him a quarter.
"Now that I've kept," he said.
It might surprise you that big, burly, leadfooted Buddy Baker, whose uncomplicated attitude toward racing went little further than mash the gas and go, has substantial gray matter inside that noggin of his.
"My life away from the race track is totally away from racing," Baker said.
And a few weeks ago, he decided that his life would no longer include driving in competition.
Some racing careers end with a flourish, some end with a bang, and some, like the old soldier in Gen. Douglas MacArthur's famous farewell speech, just fade away.
Buddy Baker's impressive 34-year NASCAR career just faded away.
A week or so after failing to qualify for the DieHard 500 on July 25 at Talladega Superspeedway, the hulking 52-year-old war horse quietly began telling old friends he was hanging up his helmet for good.
He did not make a big deal about it because he had retired once before, and second retirements go over about as well as used salad.
Baker said goodbye the first time after brain surgery in 1988. A blood clot had formed on his brain after a crash at Charlotte, and although the operation to remove it was a success, Baker said he was retiring.
Baker has had a great career, he said, and while it didn't include a Winston Cup championship, his 19 victories included all the big ones, from the Daytona 500 on down.
But Baker couldn't make retirement stick. The fires still burned within. So, like A.J. Foyt and Sugar Ray Leonard, he unretired and went back to the wars in 1990.
Right away, he knew it was different.
"I was away from competition for almost a year-and-a-half and it took the edge off," he said. "I could still take mediocre cars and race like crazy. But that edge got dulled.
"I used to be kind of like the pitcher who could pitch a no-hitter. And then, all of a sudden, I just pitched," he said with a hearty laugh.
Baker raced 17 times from 1990 to 1992, but he never finished in the top 10.
But there were glimpses of the past.
"Just like last year, when I was running in sixth place in the Daytona 500 at one point," he said. "That was a feeling you couldn't buy. Then the jack broke on that last pit stop and we ended up 11th. But it had its moments. Just not enough of them."
So now he's done for good. And the closest he gets to the action is in The Nashville Network broadcast booth above the track, where he provides color commentary for cablecasts of NASCAR races, including today's Grand National event at Dover Downs International Speedway.
"I really love my work with TNN," he said. "That's just like winning a race to me. And I know I can talk a hell of a lot longer than I drive."
Baker also teaches at his legendary father Buck's stock car-racing schools at Rockingham and Atlanta, and he will test other drivers' cars on occasion.
In his prime, Baker flat drove.
His first and only love was the superspeedways, and the faster he went, the better. He was the ultimate leadfoot - the guy who never lifted his foot. Seventeen of his 19 victories were on the big tracks. But he lost four or five big ones on the last lap, too. There was no finesse about him. Buddy Baker was all brute force, and his husky, 6-foot-5 frame hammered that home.
He only ran a full season a few times, and the best he ever finished in the Winston Cup championship standings was fifth. That was in 1977. And he didn't even win a race that year.
No, the championship hunt was not for him. And the short tracks weren't big enough for a king-sized fellow like Baker. The road courses? Those were for sissies.
But put him on the high banking and he'd eat 'em alive.
Except, it seemed, at Daytona. Year after year, the Daytona 500 dangled its prize in front of Baker, then sent him to the garage a crushed man. It seemed to mock his leadfoot efforts, as if something more sophisticated was required to open the gates to victory lane.
In 1973, he led 157 of the 200 laps, only to see his engine blow with six circuits left.
In 1975, he had a 28-second lead with about 50 laps to go.
"I'm sitting in the car thinking, `Let me make sure to thank Goodyear and Champion.' And all of a sudden there was no noise at all - total quiet." A timing chain had broken.
In 1977, he finished third. In 1978, he almost lapped the field and was ahead with 11 laps to go when his engine went sour and he lost to Bobby Allison. He got out of his car and moaned, "What have I got to do to win?"
In 1979, he won the pole and led the first 15 laps. But misfortune was a bit less cruel this time. His engine blew after 38 laps.
And then came 1980.
On the track, it wasn't much of a race. Baker won the pole and then blew away everybody at an average speed of 177.602 mph - a record that still stands.
But to thousands of racing fans, including this writer, it was an excruciating delight. Still, the final 50 miles were wracked with tension, because as much as you wanted the big guy to finally win the big one, you knew something bad was going to happen.
"Even people who didn't pull for me on a regular basis wanted to see me win that race," Baker said. "I had been so close so many times."
And the sheer, unrestrained joy he showed in victory lane made it all the more worthwhile for those who had cheered him on.
Baker is intensely proud of his Daytona 500 victory, but he didn't keep that trophy, either.
"I think I gave that one to [car owner] Harry Ranier," he said. "I don't need a trophy to remind me what I did. I know what I did."
And so do we.
by CNB