Baker announced on Tuesday he has inoperable lung cancer
It’s difficult to write something personal about someone you’ve really only known professionally.
And that’s the case with Buddy Baker. I’ve known Buddy for years but truthfully I don’t “know” him. And the fault in that, if there is any, is mine.
Record books and media guides and the Internet can provide you with the following, that Baker won 19 times in NASCAR’s premier series and a slew of poles (38) in a career that ran the better part of three decades. You don’t need to know the man to know that he was a success on the race track.
You don’t need to know the man to know that he was equally successful in the television booth, where he ventured when his driving career had ended and The Nashville Network (TNN) as well as CBS came calling. Baker was folksy, he was genuine and he was a perfect fit.
Those same qualities helped him launch yet another career, this time on radio. Since ’07, he’s been heard on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, most recently as co-host of the program “Late Shift.”
Those broadcast efforts gave folks a glimpse into Buddy Baker. Fans who came to know Buddy through his TV and radio work probably feel as if they do know Buddy and they’re not entirely incorrect.
All of this comes to mind because on Tuesday evening he told listeners that he was stepping away from the microphone for health reasons. Baker has inoperable lung cancer.
I remember bits and pieces from the late ‘60s when Buddy’s run with Ray Fox was coming to an end and a new one with Cotton Owens was beginning. I remember the stops with Petty Enterprises, the K&K No. 71 Dodge and the No. 15 of Bud Moore, too. And all that took place before he hooked up with car owner Harry Ranier and engine builder Waddell Wilson and finally won the Daytona 500 after 18 years of trying.
He was “Leadfoot” and the “Gentle Giant” but until he finally pulled into the winner’s circle at Daytona, he’d also been “Bad Luck Buddy” due to the number of occasions when he won, as he often recalled “the Daytona 450” or some other number that always fell just short of the race’s 500-mile mark.
It was probably 1985 and Bull Frog Knits. That might have been the first time I met Buddy and he was every bit as big as we’d always been led to believe. At six-foot six, Buddy didn’t climb out of a race car. He came out in a collection of elbows and knees.
He and partner Danny Schiff had teamed up to field a green and white No. 88 Oldsmobile and for the next five years Baker made less than 100 starts. The results were mixed.
It was a particularly bad wreck at Charlotte that sidelined Baker, and in August of ’88 he underwent surgery to have a blood clot removed from his brain.
He not only recovered, but he raced again and in ’92 made what would be his final start in NASCAR’s premier series.
Highlights? He won the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway three times with three different teams.
He won the Southern 500 at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway.
He won at Talladega on four occasions. He won at Atlanta and Texas World Speedway and Nashville and Ontario, Calif.
And in 1980, he won the Daytona 500.
His victories came with seven different organizations; more than half the owners for whom he drove are already enshrined in the NASCAR Hall of Fame.
He won before radial tires, power steering and engineers.
“We never had luxury of car that would turn in the corner, we had to make it turn … trial and error mostly,” he once said. “We had to do that at the race track; we didn’t have the engineers and things like that.”
Add “driver coach” to the list of items on Baker’s resume. It’s an often-overlooked part of his career.
When team owner Roger Penske wanted someone to help a young Ryan Newman as he began to work his way into NASCAR, Penske turned to Baker.
When Brendan Gaughan was giving Sprint Cup a try in ’04, Baker got the call.
Baker proved to be an excellent coach; he didn’t get too excited when working with youngsters.
In ’04, Gaughan was making his first Sprint Cup start at Darlington. He hit the wall, by his own admission, roughly a dozen times.
Finally Baker came on the radio to provide a bit of advice.
“After I’d hit the wall like the 12th time,” Gaughan said, “… Buddy came over the radio and said, ‘Hey man, why don’t you give that wall a rest for a few laps?'”
“Do not shed a tear. Give a smile when you say my name,” he told listeners Tuesday evening.
The smiles will continue to come easy. Baker often left listeners grinning, whether in person or across the miles and miles of airwaves.
You don’t need to know Buddy Baker to understand he had a lasting impact on the sport.
Here’s hoping we haven’t heard the last of him.