That Last Lap Woulda Tickled <i> Sterlin’s </i> Mama

It’s a shame that Eula Faye wasn’t there when her son Sterling Marlin won the Daytona 500 last Sunday.

Eula Faye died in 1988, but she was there through 18 years of racing while her husband, Coo Coo, was trying without success to win a Winston Cup race, and she was there for most of the 14 seasons Sterling was trying, with equal lack of success.

Between father and son, they went to the post 444 times before Sterling won with the No. 4 Kodak Chevrolet owned by Tim Morgan and Larry McClure.

When Eula Faye talked, her accent was so backwoods-Tennessee syrupy that even Southerners found her hard to understand. By comparison with Eula Faye, Scarlett O’Hara spoke the Queen’s English.

Eula Faye was violently opposed to Sterling becoming a race driver--until she realized that he was the one to take over for his dad. The Marlin men, Coo Coo and Sterling, waited until the night before Sterling was planning to drive in his first race to tell her.

The story, perhaps apocryphal, has the family at the dinner table when Coo Coo says, innocently, “Pass the ‘taters, Eula Faye, Sterlin’s going racing.”

Coo Coo was a teen-ager driving jalopies on a dirt track near his farm in Columbia, Tenn., when he first met Eula Faye Hughes. Four years later, they were married. There was never any thought of Marlin not continuing with his hobby of racing.

“I just looked at it like going fishing,” she said a few years ago. “It was something Coo Coo wanted to do, and I accepted that. It was different with Sterling. When I knew for sure he was going to drive, I wouldn’t let myself think about it for a year, I’d get so upset.

“When time came for his first race at Nashville, I figured he would spin out or not make the field or do so poorly that I would be able to convince him to forget about racing.”

But Sterling finished seventh, one position behind Darrell Waltrip, then the hot shoe of Nashville.

“He did soooo gooood,” she drawled. “I knew right there I’d lost the battle.”

Eula Faye made a deal--if he would go to college for two years, she would accept his driving. He graduated from Columbia State Community College.

“I never quit worrying,” she said, “but when he got married, I turned the fretting over to Paula (Sterling’s wife).”

Sterling drove in his first Daytona 500 in 1980 as a substitute for his father, who became ill on race morning. He started 36th and finished eighth, and his payoff of $17,810 was more than his father had ever earned in one race.

Coo Coo was a character whose antics lived up to his nickname.

In the 1974 Daytona 500, Coo Coo Marlin was running second, just ahead of Richard Petty on the track--but nearly a lap behind--when the checkered flag was given to Petty. Marlin, seeing the flag waving, believed it was for him and slowed down, waving to the crowd.

When first Cale Yarborough and then Ramo Stott passed him, Marlin figured something was wrong and speeded up. It was too late. He finished fourth.

“I thought I’d won the race,” Marlin said, drinking a beer in the garage later that day. “I let up right after I get the checkered, and I wondered why those other guys went by me in the turn. Then I said to myself, ‘Lawdy, Coo Coo, you done messed up.’ ”

When Sterling began racing, his name was listed as Sterlin --without the g . Eula Faye explained:

“He was too lazy to spell the whole thing out. When he was a little kid he used to bring his test papers home from school, and up in the corner where they wrote their name, he would put Sterlin . I would scold him and tell him it was Sterling on his birth certificate.”

Coo Coo, who was in Victory Circle on Sunday to help Sterling celebrate, won’t get caught up in the spelling bee. He has his own stories.

“Lord, don’t get me involved,” he said. “I have trophies at home from my early days running at Nashville where they spelled Coo Coo ‘Cuckoo’. “

Nashville is where it all started for both Marlins. Coo Coo was track champion there in 1959, ‘63, ’65 and ’66. Sterling took the 1980 championship.

When he came down to the final lap Sunday, knowing Ernie Irvan was hot on his bumper, Sterling Marlin said he kept his cool by telling himself it was “just like a short-track Saturday night in Nashville.”

Eula Faye was probably smiling about that.

Motor Racing Notes

INDY CARS--Robbie Groff of Northridge, a six-time winner on the Indy Lights circuit, has signed to drive for Tony Bettenhausen’s team in selected Indy car races, starting with the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach on April 17. Mike Groff, Robbie’s brother, will drive the full season, starting March 20 at Surfers Paradise, Australia, for Bobby Rahal. . . . Dick Simon Racing continued its tradition of filing the first entries for the May 29 Indianapolis 500. He will have two Lola-Fords each for Raul Boesel, last year’s fourth-place finisher; Lyn St. James, 1992 rookie of the year, and Hiro Matsushita, who is returning to Simon after a season with Derrick Walker.

OFF-ROAD--Ivan Stewart will be a busy man in his Toyota trucks this weekend. He will drive Friday in the Tecate SCORE San Felipe 250 trophy-truck race, a 250-mile adventure for factory teams. Eleven drivers, including Walker Evans, will be in Friday’s race. Saturday night, Stewart will be at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium as defending champion in the Grand National sport truck class of the Mickey Thompson stadium series. Other desert classes in the San Felipe 250 will run Saturday.

SPRINT CARS--The Sprint Car Racing Assn. will open its points season Saturday night at the Imperial County Fairgrounds, near El Centro.

MISCELLANY--More than 400 Chevrolet owners will participate in the Parts Plus Super Chevy drag racing show Saturday and Sunday at Bakersfield Raceway. Competition will be held in super pro, pro, street tire and street legal classes. . . . At Willow Springs Raceway this weekend, the Toyota sportsman division will kick off its eight-race season on the road course while the KCR Challenge winter series for IMCA and Grand American cars will continue Sunday at the Kern County Raceway. Lorenzo Lamas has filed an entry for the road race. . . . The American Historic Racing Motorcycle Assn. will hold a two-day event this weekend at Tulare Cycle Park.