Editor's note - Charles "Pee Wee" Poblettes was presented the prestigious 2001 "Saturday Night Hero" award by the Living Legends of Auto Racing in Daytona earlier this year. His driving career started in 1951 and continued for the next 15 years. During that time, he won 2 championships, including the 1952 points championship at Dorsey Speedway where he won 26 features that one season alone. Pee Wee could be found competing at tracks in Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

Pee Wee was kind enough to send us the story and photos that follow, written by Mike Bell for Vintage Motorsport a few years back, which pretty much tells the tale of this Living Legend. 

DZ - TVR Editor

"Pee Wee" By Mike Bell

     The Williams Grove Old Timers meet every year at the Williams Grove Speedway near Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. The cars vary greatly from a 2-seater big car with wire wheels to a 1957 Chevrolet 2 door sedan. There were over one hundred cars on hand. The majority of the cars registered year are old midgets and old sprint cars. There are a few flathead Ford and six-cylinder sportsman and even full blown modifieds. This year there was a new car at the meet. The car was not new to the track, but it had been a few years, almost a quarter of a century. Charles "Pee Wee" Poblettes of Randallstown, MD brought back his 1934 Chevrolet coupe "bug".

     "Pee Wee" was born in the Baltimore area and had gone to work in a garage as a teenager. Being so young and obviously the smallest in the garage, the older mechanics at the shop gave him the nickname that has stayed with him all these years. Although he did not grow to be big, he did not remain small enough to actually be a man worthy of the name "Pee Wee". He is an averaged size man of average build, but he was not an average man. He was, and always will be, a racer. His black hair is turning gray. He has gained a little weight around the middle and probably lost a little time in his reflexes, but he is still a racer. 

     The year 1949 was a very important year to Charlie (as his wife calls him). He went to work for Chesapeake Cadillac in Baltimore and married his first and only wife, Fern. But, Charlie became a racer two years later in 1951. He still works for that same Cadillac dealer even though the dealership changed hands. And even though his week is spent doing other things besides preparing the racecar, he is still a racer. He raced regularly at over fifteen tracks locally for over fifteen years, but he is retired now and he is still a racer.

     Charlie won only two championships in all those years, but he does not worry about that part of a racing career. He ran because he loved the sport and all the drivers he ran against. It was a kind of a family. 

     Family is very important to "Pee Wee". He has a wife, four daughters and a son. The son is in the middle of the four daughters - two older and two younger. Charlie also has nine grandchildren he takes pride in spoiling. All these people were involved in his racing. His wife rarely missed an event, and all the kids watched their father race as they grew up. Even today, all his children live right in his neighborhood and are involved with his vintage racer.

     Pee Wee ran nearly all the tracks in Maryland that existed during his time, whether they were asphalt or dirt. He ran several tracks in New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania and Virginia. He even made it to some special races in Concord, North Carolina. All in the days before interstates and trailers. At one time in his career, he flat towed his race car to Pitman, New Jersey on Friday night; towed back to Baltimore, Maryland (his home) and then back without a trailer to Vineland, New Jersey for Saturday night and back home again, and then to Wilmington, Delaware on Sunday. Until the sixties, he always towed the car without a trailer.

     Lou Stirn and Bud Schroeder were his first car owners, but Pee Wee quickly learned that to be safe in a ride he had to build his car along with his car owners, and did for the rest of his career. There were only two other instances where he drove for someone else, a single night in a modified stock for a renowned engine builder. Pee Wee led the feature until the motor quit. As he coasted into the pits, he wondered what the man would say. Pee Wee told him exactly what happened -"it just quit running," and the man said, "yeah, it does that." And that was that. Pee Wee expected a hassle, but it never came and he didn't drive the car anymore. The second, and last, instance was when Pee Wee's car was out of action, he drove someone else's "bug" (supermodified in other parts of the country). He felt the car was safe and fast. At least he thought it was safe. It looked safe, but when he returned to his own car, the next driver had a bad flip and the roll cage started to bend. If the car had flipped one more time, the cage probably would have collapsed. That was the absolute last time Pee Wee ever got into a car when he didn't know how it was built.

     Pee Wee raced with many drivers who later became stars of the sport. He feels he even helped a few through the years. In one instance, he was racing NASCAR modifieds. Joe Weatherly was running for the championship, and Joe's car couldn't make a special match race. Pee Wee let Joe drive his car in that race. Joe ran away from the rest of the field. It proved to Pee Wee that he built a really fast car.

     In the evolving years of the big bodied modifieds with flathead motors to smaller cars with small block Chevys, Pee Wee had a beautiful full bodied Ford sedan with a fuel injected Mercury overhead valve engine. He went to Lincoln Speedway outside of Hanover, just for the challenge. Roger Sowers was winning the feature as Pee Wee worked his way to the front. As he started to pass Roger, the rear end let go in Pee Wee's car. They told Roger they would be back next week and they would beat him. The next week came and Roger was leading again. As Pee Wee passed Roger for the lead and the win, he waved goodbye to Roger. Racers like to rub it in every now and then.

     But racers know moments like that don't happen every night. When Pee Wee was on a tear at Dorsey Speedway in Maryland, winning 26 features in one season, he made the mistake and ventured to Manassas, Virginia. Pee Wee always liked to try new competition, but he was on the other end of the stick that night. As they lined up for the feature with Pee Wee on the pole, the announcer kept talking about the "hot dog" from Dorsey Speedway. The fans were told about all the features Pee Wee was winning and how he was starting on the pole. Pee Wee said that almost everybody in the field passed him on the first lap before they even made it to the backstretch. Pee Wee vowed to himself to return and do better and he did. There was a challenge within a challenge. 

     Then there are the fun parts of racing. You've heard of mud wrestling, bear wrestling, donkey basketball - how about camel racing? Pee Wee and Lou Thomas agreed to race camels. The worse part wasn't getting on or even riding. Pee Wee's camel walked through the pits to the entrance to the track surface and stopped, and no matter what they did, that camel wouldn't budge. Not only that, Pee Wee was really bowlegged for a few days.

     When Pee Wee drove for someone else for a while, one of the promoters got the idea of running the car without a paint job and the driver in a mask. They billed it as the "Masked Marvel" in the "Grey Ghost." The papers ran several stories on it. The fans loved it. Pee Wee used a mask he had left over from the service. His wife dyed a tee shirt black with some black pants. Pee Wee played the part to the hilt. So much so that Pee Wee raced as the "Masked Marvel" for three weeks. Racing was a lot of competition, but family fun also. This was important to Pee Wee at that time and it still is important. His family proudly displays his car on golf-style shirts made especially for the family members.

     He originally built the "bug" pictured here in 1962. The original car had a rail frame with bent tube roll bars, a Halibrand championship rear end with Model A springs, a 1939 Ford car front axle with 1932 Ford springs, a Pontiac motor with Algon fuel injection (specially made for the Pontiac engine), a Pontiac transmission and clutch, stainless steel hand-made gas tank and a cut down 1934 Chevy coupe body. A unique feature of the car is the hood. It is a 1653 Pontiac Chieftain hood, highly altered to fit the bug, but retains the Chieftain hood ornament completed with the Indian head that lights up.

     Pee Wee retied this car and built a new one. It was about this time that several of Pee Wee's fellow drivers retired and some were permanently marred by the sport. Johnny Roberts, Bobby Hersh and Clem Lemaster are just a few in the area that either lost their life or were permanently damaged. Pee Wee's wife, who had always been concerned for Charlie's safety, asked him to retire. He did, reluctantly. Charlie always felt safe in his own car, but he felt the fun of weekend racing was over. Pee wee owned cars for other drivers to race after his retirement, but his driving days were over.

     He doesn't regret quitting; only that he didn't keep more of his cars. One was the championship car from Dorsey; another was a Willys coupe and another was a Ford Coach. The one he did save was the first bug he built. He stored the car in his brother's barn for well over a decade. When his brother sold the property, Pee Wee moved the car to an area behind his garage. There it sat until last fall. The body was in fine shape, but the frame was questionable to the safety conscious Pee Wee. Since he had fabricated the frame the first time, he decided to fabricate a new one. With the help of his long time friend and pit crewman, Joe Simmers, doing the welding, a new frame was constructed. It matched the first one down to the mounting of the front axle, rear springs, engine mount, and even the side bars inside the door to protect the driver during a T-bone crash.

     Pee Wee mounted a 1939 Ford Car axle with 1932 Ford springs "suicide" style just as before. Dual shocks on the right front help with all the left hand turns.

     The rear end is a little different than before. The original car had a Halibrand Championship rear, but Pee Wee substituted a Frankland quick change rear end housing with Halibrand gears in it. A Model A Ford rear spring set was used in mounting the rear end.

     The highly altered 1934 Chevy coupe body was in fine shape considering all the years it just sat around. Pee Wee had to clean all the pigeon bombs collected in the car from all those years in his brother's barn. But he had to find a new hood ornament with the Pontiac Chief. Pee Wee had to canvas several flea markets before he found a replacement. Now the body and hood are as they were when the car was raced during the early sixties.

     The braking system is as important now to Pee Wee as it was then. He found two old safety hubs matched to early 60's Buick drums. They were used nationwide because they were aluminum and finned for better cooling. But, he needed four for the car. Two had to be fabricated for the complete restoration along with Buick backing plates.

     During all this work and fun, Pee Wee had been looking for a 421 cubic inch Pontiac engine as well as a set of fuel injectors. He even contemplated a compromise with a Chevrolet engine. But once again, an old friend came through. Sam Glover and his wife, Virginia, of Luthersville had always been there when needed before. One time when Pee Wee blew an engine, Sam and Virginia drove from Maryland to the factory in Michigan and back to Maryland with the parts in time to be ready for the next race. Sam owned the sponsor of the original car and came through once again with a big bore Pontiac engine for the restored racer. It is not a 421 nor does it have fuel injectors, but Pee Wee has that part of his dream to fulfill later. But Sam, who passed ownership of Chieftain Pontiac in Towson, Maryland to his son, Sam Glover, Jr., found Pee Wee a 400 cubic inch Pontiac in a wrecked 1978 Trans Am. They left the four barrel carburetor on the big motor and ran gas instead of alcohol. Pee Wee only changed the camshaft to a high performance and the distributor to a magneto. They made the engine run like a true racer's engine.

     Pee Wee has few regrets in his racing career and his restoration of "Chief Widetrack." For fourteen years, Pee Wee went to Langhorne, Pennsylvania, for the National Championships for modifieds. There were years when Pee Wee's car didn't make the feature and when he did, his racing luck had already gone south for the winter. The families always made an outing of it and Sam Glover was always there not only as a sponsor but as a true fan and friend. In restoring "Chief Widetrack, " Pee Wee wishes he could have found a real 421 and some injectors. But a big Pontiac engine can be found; Langhorne is gone forever. But Charles "Pee Wee" Poblettes is a real vintage racer and he will find a new challenge and. as always, hew will meet that challenge. 

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Tracks where Pee Wee Poblettes raced.

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