Inaugural Barber Vintage Festival
(Page 3 of 3)
March/April 2006
By Richard Backus
Watching Nixon, it’s clear he’s in his element at the track, which comes as no surprise when you consider he’s been racing his entire life. His first major race was Daytona in 1960 at the tender age of 19, and he won his first AMA National three years later, in 1963. Now 65 years old, he hasn’t lost any of his affinity for the sport. “The nice thing is meeting the racer dudes, like (Thruxton Cup racer) Steve Atlas. I run into some cool dudes, which is neat.”
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Nixon had his share of on track accidents during his heyday, and he built a reputation for toughness, riding for three seasons with a stainless steel rod holding his left leg together after stuffing a Triumph dirt tracker into a post in 1969. “For me, the ankle doesn’t work and the knee doesn’t work. It’s not like it was in 1970. I ain’t going as fast as I did back then, so I’m trying to make it a little more comfortable. But f***, it hurts. At Daytona I was kind of realizing it’s just the legs. The upper body’s okay.”
Watching Nixon race, you’d never suspect he’s ever taken a fall. With precise control, Nixon makes every turn and every pass on the track look easy. “He’s never dropped it,” Liggett says. “He’s slid it around and gotten it a little sideways here and there, but that’s it.”
Nixon didn’t put a wheel wrong at Barber, grabbing first place on Saturday’s race after Springsteen dropped out with ignition problems, and nabbing the series on Sunday following a heated dual with Springsteen. “Springer (Springsteen) was keeping me going that last lap, he wasn’t gonna give it to me,” Nixon says. “He shifted, got ahead of me, I shifted, got ahead of him, and it was just my time. It was good to get number one after all them years.”
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