Sterling Marlin - A County Boy Can Survive

We can't confirm it, but we feel it's a fairly safe assumption that Sterling Marlin is the only NASCAR driver in history to accidentally set a cow on fire.

Here's how it happened: Several years ago Sterling was helping his dad, Coo Coo (yes, we know what you're thinking, and no, the nickname is not related to the story in any way) with some branding and delousing, when all of a sudden ... well, let Sterling explain it:

"Me and Daddy had herded a bunch of cattle into the chutes, and I was pouring some stuff on them to kill lice while Daddy branded them," Sterling says. "Me and him are pretty bad about reading directions, and we didn't know the stuff was real flammable. I'd poured a bunch of the medicine on the back of one old cow, and when Daddy stuck her with that hot branding iron-poof! She burst into flames. We started throwin' dirt on her to put her out.''

And?

"Aw, she was OK. Just singed her a little bit,'' Sterling continued.

Just another day on the farm for Sterling, the only child of Coo Coo and Eula Faye, who spent his boyhood doing backbreaking chores while daring to dream about racing at such magical meccas as Daytona, Talladega, Darlington, and Charlotte. Someday he would leave Carter's Creek behind and see the world. Someday fans would cheer his name. Someday ...

Today the dream has come true for Marlin. At age 45 he is an established NASCAR star, champion of two Daytona 500s, and the winner of $25 million in purses. He was the front-runner for the coveted Winston Cup Championship for most of the 2002 season before being sidelined by injury.

The gold and glory have not turned Sterling's head. He remains as down-to-earth-"as country as cornbread'' as one buddy put it-as he was growing up on the family farm near Columbia, Tennessee. He also remains one of NASCAR's last links to its rural past, when Southern boys dominated the sport, and when racing oozed with colorful personalities.

Marlin has managed to stay on top through simple hard work. It's the only life he knows. "We had a working farm,'' Marlin says. "We raised the usual stuff-hay and cattle, corn, and tobacco. We worked hard, but we also had fun.''

Fun, as in the time Sterling caught a "big old blacksnake'' in the hayfield and playfully slung it at one of his hay-hauling pals. "It wrapped around his neck and like to have scared him to death,'' says Sterling, chuckling at the memory. "He was afraid of snakes, and we thought he was gonna die before he could get that thing off of him.''

There's also the time Sterling, about 15, and a buddy named Spook were speeding down a country back road, goofing around, when Sterling missed a turn. They sailed off the road and over a cliff. "Lucky for us it wasn't too steep and we landed in some treetops,'' Sterling says. "We weren't hurt, but Daddy wasn't too happy when we towed the car back home.''

Sterling's high school football coach, Brud Spickard, dropped by one summer to check on his star quarterback. "Sterling was out in the barn, shoveling manure,'' Spickard recalls. "Unless you've shoveled manure inside a barn on a hot summer day you can't appreciate how rank it is. But there was Sterling, shoveling and sweating and never complaining. He wasn't afraid of hard, dirty work.''

Good thing, because hard work was part of daily life for the Marlin family. A faded snapshot from the family album shows a shirtless, bareheaded young Sterling sweltering in a field of tobacco-"'backer," as it's known locally-looking almost dazed from fatigue.