TVR: Do you remember when and where you saw your first race?
Bobby: I saw my first race in a bar room on TV from Westport. They use to run Westport Saturday nights and Diz Dean and Johnny Roberts were the two guys that caught my eye... through those guys is how I got interested in racing.

TVR: At what point did you know you wanted to get involved and how did you accomplish that?
Bobby: I was known as dirt on the highway. I got fine after fine. Ed Stewart, our township cop, everything I'd do wrong, he caught me. I'd go around the Jefferson square and make the tires holler... he knew it. 

When they started racing at Bowling Green, I went and bought a '41 Ford 5-passenger coupe and brought it up to the garage where my brother went. My brother and the guy that worked at the garage, cut the thing apart and got it opened up and got it ready as a race car. We got a brand new rebuilt flathead... 24 stud flathead I believe it was. 

I went to Bowling Green and started racing. The longer it went, the better it got. After a bit, I had guys asking me to drive. I got decent rides and I enjoyed doing what I was doing. And, I wasn't getting a ticket for doing it! That's what tickled me.

TVR: Prior to your competing in racing, who were the drivers that were your favorites?
Bobby: Like I said, when I first seen racing, I saw Johnny Roberts on TV... and Diz Dean, I knew him. That was my first two... Oh! And, Chris Miller. Those were the guys that sort of caught my eye and I wanted to get into it. 

I drove truck with Chris Miller and when you saw guys like that run, I got the itch and wanted to do it. You sort of build yourself up to it. 

TVR: Who do you feel were your biggest influences and mentors?
Bobby: Well, we really didn't know... Everybody else had a little education. Like Johnny Mackison... he won the first race he run down at Bowling Green in #104, a '37 Ford full-fendered coupe. When he had the know-how, he and Davey Brown, we didn't know doodley dirt! We just worked with what we had, or what we thought we knew... Everything we'd done, we learned from watching the racing the week before and try to get it done till the following week. We didn't have a sponsor, so it was just what we done ourselves. We didn't have a lot of money to do it and done the best we could. 

TVR: Who were some of the men you competed against?
Bobby: Chris Miller, Mike Wilhelm, Bobby Wolf, Buzzy Wilson, Johnny Mackison, Bud Rohrbaugh, Bill Smith... When I started to race, I got the #115. That was the lowest number I could get when I signed up. So, there was a lot of guys out there. I knew 90% of them... I can't remember all their names, but I knew 90% of them. 

TVR: Who do you feel were your closest competitors? 
Bobby: Well Johnny (Mackison) was my biggest. If I went to a race and Johnny wasn't there, I didn't feel like I had the competition I usually had. I knew how he run and I knew he had an excellent car. My car was next to the best car to his there was. He knew how I drove and we run together. We never had had no trouble. Me and Johnny only ever had trouble one time. The year he won 42 features, I had 32 2nd places in back of him, so you know we ran a couple laps together. I enjoyed running with Johnny because I knew he had the car. It was a good car and he was a decent guy, you could trust him.

TVR: Who do you feel were the most talented drivers you drove against?
Bobby: There again, I have to say Johnny and he had the best equipment money could buy and he knew what he was doing. You had Bill Smith... oh, there was a whole flock of good ones. You know when you have to take the number 115, you know there's a lot of good guys out there. 

TVR: Who do you feel were the most talented car builders and mechanics of your time?
Bobby: Well, I knew a couple of good mechanics. One of them was Sterl Baehler with the #115... Jerry Burkett on the #47... and Ralph Hall on the #39. There was a whole flock of boys that helped me, but he was the head man. He knew which way the wrenches should be turned. When I started driving for Trone, they knew how I drove and they knew what kind of car they had. They knew it was a winning car. It didn't always turn out to be a winning car, but things just worked out. 

TVR: Who do you feel were the most underrated drivers of your time?
Bobby: Oh, there's a whole flock of them out there. As far as names, I can't say. I can't remember the names, but there was a whole lot of them who were better chauffeurs than they had rides. Money, you didn't find it on the corners like they do today. Sponsors were just talk at that time. 

TVR: What were some of the tracks you competed at?
Bobby: My first track was Bowling Green. I ran Lincoln, Susquehanna... I ran Williams Grove, Port Royal... I ran Walnutdale up back of Carlisle, I ran Condon down in Sykesville, MD... I ran Dorsey down near Baltimore... Langhorne Speedway... Reading Speedway. I was high point man at Reading in 1960.

TVR: What track was your best or favorite track?
Bobby: I got two there that's kinda hard for me to say which was the best. The Grove and Lincoln, I could get around them two ovals. I don't care which way the parade went, I could get around them tracks. The Grove and Lincoln, if something wasn't quite right, I could still get the car around there. I kinda enjoyed running them tracks.

TVR: What track was your worst or least favorite track?
Bobby: Port Royal! I couldn't get around that God-dern track! I could not get around that track. Why? I don't have no idea. I run with guys that... In fact, I ran with one of the guys that was the best chauffeur in the world, he was champ up there for a lot of years. That was Frankie Thompson. I'd go up there and they'd blow me off like I didn't know which way the parade was going. I'd tell the guys, "I'm going home!" I couldn't handle that. I couldn't drive that racetrack. It was the only track in the world I couldn't drive.

TVR: What was the most memorable or proudest moment of your career?
Bobby: The night that tickles me the most was the time I lost my oil pressure in the #39 one night during warm-ups at the Grove. I'd taken the car back in the pits and told the guys about it. I knew it was a new motor, but something cut the oil pressure off. I'd seen the gauge and I stopped it and brought it in. We were running two features that night, one was a rained out feature. Pee Wee's car was there, but he was in the hospital. I went and asked the guys if I could drive the car because it was qualified and could run. They said I could run it. 

I run it. I demolished it on the first lap. I was in the emergency room and the guys came in the door and said, "How are you?" I said, "I'm alright. How's my car?" They said the car was ready if I was, so I got out of the hospital, crawled in the car and I started dead last in the first feature. I went on and won that. I came back in, they checked the car over, went out in the heat and won that. Checked it out, filled it up again... I went back out in the second feature and won that! Two features in one night! That was the proudest moment I ever had. 

That night at the Grove, I demolished Pee Wee's car and came back in my own car and win two features, that really tore the crowd up. When I demolished that thing, I could see out over the top of that bridge. They never thought they were gonna see me under that checkered flag that time. I won two of them on the same night. 

TVR: I remember that crash. You really had that car in the air.
Bobby:  Roger Sowers was on the outside and I was on the inside. I don't know if I shocked him or what, but I came up the inside like a bat out of hell... he comes across and plants me one. I went end over end over end and went into the (bridge) steps, rails and pipes and stuff there... higher than that bridge. When I was up in the air, I could see out over the top of that bridge. That ain't no pleasant god-danged... <laughs> That's all I know.

TVR: What was the most disappointing moment of your career?
Bobby:  I always wanted to win Langhorne. I led Langhorne one time for 83 laps, I believe it was. I had 13 laps to go and the right front tire blew. I'd taken about 100 foot of fence off in the 1 & 2 corner. That spun my wheels. That tore me up. That was, I guess, the hardest one I ever had to put away. 

TVR: Who were your closest friends during your racing career?
Bobby: Well, when I drove for Jerry Burkett... he was the best friend I ever had at a race track. You couldn't ask for... <long pause to fight back tears> Sterl Baehler was a good guy. I never had a bad owner. Ray Trone was a good guy too. Sometimes its kinda hard to get hooked up with a good guy out there. Most of them just want you to do the job and they don't give you... I enjoyed all my owners. 

TVR: If you could pick a list of the greatest drivers ever (including yourself) from any point in history, from any venue in racing, and could magically bring them through a time machine to compete together in a race, who would they be? 
Bobby: Well, I'd want Johnny Mackison for sure... Dizzy Dean... Roger Sowers, even though he did demolish a car for me, he's still a good boy and he could drive a car. It's a lot of them out there... Gene Goodling was a guy that was out of this world. He'd do anything for you. I'll tell you who I'd like to run with and never got to run with and that was Kenny Weld and Jan Opperman. Man, I use to love them guys. I would have liked to go to Lincoln or Williams Grove anytime and blowed their doors off. And I could of done it too! I know I could have. They didn't drive like I drove. That would have tickled the dirt out of me. 

TVR: What changes do you think could, or should be made in racing today that would improve the sport most?
Bobby: Today it costs so much money to build a decent car and to sponsor a decent car. I can't answer that because I'm not in the thing. Money's the name of the game today. I don't care if its NASCAR, modifieds, or what it is, money's the name of the game. If you don't have the big bucks, you're not going to be in the parade. That's the way it goes. If you do get it the parade, its purely accidental, its not because its supposed to be. 

I enjoyed doing... If I had my life to live over and knew this was gonna happen, what happened to me, happened to me... I can't do more than what I can. I'd still go ahead and do it because I enjoyed doing what I done. I'm not really sorry... I'm not happy about what happened to me, but I'm not sorry because I enjoyed what I done. I enjoyed every lap I run. I enjoyed everything I done. If you don't enjoy what you're doing... it's just like a job. If you go to a job that you don't like, you might as well stay home. You can't do a job if you don't like it. I loved to do what I done and Goddamn I could do it!

TVR: Do you mind talking about what happened that day in the accident? 
Bobby: Nah. The problem is the accident happened to me and I have no idea what happened. I remember going up the backstretch. Something happened going into turn 3. I don't know if the throttle stuck or if something broke or what. I went in there full bore and I'm sure I never touched no brakes or slid the wheels or nothing. It hit that fence, the car flipped and the car landed. I remember the guys coming to get me out. I told them my legs hurt. As they were getting me out of the car my lights went out. 

The next damn thing I know, I'm laying there in Harrisburg in a bed. There was a Christmas tree sitting there on the window. It was 97 days later. I couldn't believe it when I saw that tree and I could see the (Susquehanna) river outside. I couldn't imagine what was going on or where I was. Why was I next to a river? I didn't know. I had an awful time getting that through my head. I had to ask the nurse... I guess I sounded like a dum-dum, but I didn't know where I was. I couldn't think where there was a racetrack near a river. Racing was in my mind, I knew that, but I couldn't remember where it happened. That river and that Christmas tree really messed me up. 

My left leg was all busted, splintered up. They never fixed it up. That's why I am the way I am today. I had a fractured skull. They had to drill holes in my head. I had 3 holes in the top of my head, each about the size of a quarter. There was nothing there but skin over it when I came to, like a baby's head. <laughs> I said I was afraid they'd hit the sawdust pile in there and mess things up. 

Again, I enjoyed everything I done. If I knew this was going to happen and had my life to live over, I'd still do because I enjoyed doing what I was doing. When somebody said I couldn't do something, that's when I showed I could do it. This old Dutchman was gonna do it!  

TVR: What advice would you give to a young man or woman who was thinking about starting a career in racing?
Bobby: Well, you'd better be a corner driver. If you can't run a corner you might as well throw your helmet away right off the bat because corners are where you whip another car. You don't beat a car on the straightaway. Anyone can drive a straightaway. It takes a driver to drive a corner. Its four corners and two straightaways. Its not a drag strip, its a racetrack. That's the only advice I'd ever give anybody. If you ain't planning to be a "corner driver", don't even plan on going out there. You don't prove nothing beating a guy down the straightaway. You beat 'em in the corner, you proved something there. 

That's the only thing I'd tell them. I'd give anybody any information I could to help. I'm not a smart man. I never was an intelligent guy who could use big words and express things the best way, but that's the only knowledge I could give anybody. That's my opinion.

TVR: What was Bobby Hersh's driving style? 
Bobby: If I couldn't run that corner wide open, I wasn't happy. One guy I drove for, Sterl Baehler... I'd come in... my gas pedal would hit the floor boards and it would leave a shiny mark down there. He use to stick his head in the car after I came in. For kicks, if the car wasn't running right he'd say, "Hey! There's a rusty spot under that gas pedal!" <laughs>       

TVR: What is it about Bobby Hersh and your racing career you'd most like to be remembered for?
Bobby: I guess my corner driving. That's all I can say. My guys built a good, decent car, but we didn't have an ungodly fast car. We just had a car that handled good. I did my winning in the corners. I didn't win on straightaways. If you don't have a car that corners, you ain't even in the parade. The widest tire I ever drove on was a 13 inch tire. Today, they have 21 inch rubber. If I'd of had that kind of rubber, I believe I'd of scared myself! I wouldn't even have to think about lifting that pedal! 

TVR: What racing do you follow today? 
Bobby: NASCAR. My favorite NASCAR drivers use to be Richard Petty and Bobby Allison. Today, I don't really have any favorites, I just like to watch and see how they operate. Today it ain't a racing game. Its who's got the biggest pocketbook. That's all it is. They don't out drive each other, their cars out run each other. I'll tell you who I'm proud of right now... Mark Martin. That little guy... he just won a million dollars. He's made some money for that "little old man" (Jack Roush) and that little old man's a pretty good guy.     

Previous Page  Top of page    Next Page

Who were your favorites? If you'd like information on how 
to contribute stories and/or photos to TVR, click here!

Home   About TVR    EMMR    Pit Road    News    Tributes    Contact TVR    Free Classifieds    Links