All in the Family: Carrying on the Pressley family racing tradition

Coleman Pressley is just 17 years old, but he's in his second year of racing Late Models in the Carolinas. As Hank Williams Jr. would say, "He's just carrying on a family tradition." That's because Coleman's father, Robert, and his grandfather Bob, are racing legends on the short tracks of the South.

Bob Pressley started racing on the tough Late Model circuit in western North Carolina in the early '60s and quickly became an icon at Asheville Speedway, where he won track championships in four decades, from the '60s through the '90s. By the time the track closed in 2001, Bob Pressley had garnered a total of seven titles there. While driving for Leo Jackson, he was so dominant at Asheville Speedway, which ran on Friday nights, that he had clinched the championship halfway through the '77 season. With a bounty on his head at Asheville, Bob turned his attention to an oval in Kingsport, Tennessee, where he ran on Friday nights for the rest of the season, taking that championship, too. Just for good measure, he added Saturday night's Hickory Motor Speedway title as well.

Throughout Bob's heyday on the short tracks, his chief rival was his Asheville neighbor, Jack Ingram. Bob and Jack were bitter rivals on and off the track. It had gotten so bad that if Bob knew that Ingram was going to be at a certain track for a race, Bob would race somewhere else that night, and Ingram did the same thing to Bob.

When the fans arrived at a racetrack and saw both the No. 11 of Ingram and the No. 4 of Pressley, they knew they were in for a special treat that night. While they lived barely 5 miles apart all of their lives, the two never spoke to one another until they both had retired from racing. They became friends late in life. Even today Jack Ingram is a frequent visitor of a hot dog stand in Asheville owned by Bob's son, Robert, and he always sits at the same table under the display case full of Bob's trophies. Ingram will wait for that table if he has to, then sit down and turn it until the headline under the laminate on the table faces him. The headline states, "Pressley's Posse Lays In Wait For Ingram." Jack Ingram will eat his lunch, glancing down at that headline occasionally, with a quiet, knowing smile on his face.

Tough Teacher

In a time of hard-nosed race car drivers, Bob Pressley probably had the hardest nose of all, and that is how he taught Robert when he began racing in 1982. Robert quickly became successful at Asheville, but running against Bob was tough. If Robert lost to Bob without trying to knock him out of the way, Bob would have harsh words for his son. "He will never make it in racing," Bob would say. "He's too weak."

If Robert put his dad's car into the wall, more words followed. "He's a dirty racer," Bob would say, "and can't win any other way than wrecking the guys in front of him."

Robert worked hard and learned well. Before too long it was Robert on the winning streak at Asheville, with Bob chasing him. Most of the time a driver had to go through Bob to have a chance at taking the lead from Robert. Very few drivers at Asheville ever got that chance.

As Robert worked his way into a full-time Busch Series ride, he made the decision, in 1988, to close the family race shop permanently and make the commitment to only drive for other people the rest of his career. While Robert's statistics in the Cup Series may not have made him a superstar, his record in the Busch Series and Craftsman Truck Series will ensure him a place in NASCAR history. In those series, Robert has a remarkable record of finishing in the Top 10 in 33 percent of the races he started. Among those Top-10 finishes are 10 Busch wins and two in the Truck Series, including the very first Truck race that he started in 2002 at Daytona.

While Robert has spent the last few years in the Craftsman Truck Series, he's currently waiting for the right opportunity to come along before he jumps back into all of the travel and constant wars that make up NASCAR's three top series. He's intent on not taking the first ride that comes along just to drive around the track.

"If a ride comes along that can be in contention for a win, then I'll be back," says Robert. "With the hot dog stand doing so well and Coleman's racing career starting to expand, its going to take a top-notch team for me to get back on the road."

Bob Pressley, meanwhile, died at age 71 in April 2004, following a five-year battle with cancer. One year later, a 2-mile stretch of highway near Asheville was named for him, a fitting tribute for a man who was credited with over 500 victories during his career.