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Despite Misfortunes, Aleck Alford Excited to Make 5 Flags Debut with Southern Vintage Racing Association

By Chuck Corder

There’s little that’s subtle about Aleck Alford.

From the cowboy hat to his 6-foot, 280-pound frame, the 27 year old former Pace High School football star stands out from the crowd.

Almost as much as the 1932 two-door Chevy coupe Alford drives whenever the Southern Vintage Racing Association convenes.

Bearing the No. 7 — a number, traditionally, associated with good fortunes — dressed with a lucky, lime-green trim and sporting a horseshoe on the front end, a casual observer might think Alford has yet to lose this season.

A casual observer could not be more wrong, though. From a scorched hand, courtesy of a radiator cap, to an emergency appendectomy to his rear-end being a magnet for opponents, Alford is desperate to break the pattern of misfortune.

“If we didn’t have bad luck, I guarantee you, we’d have none,� said Alford, who has already gone through four rear ends in 2014.

The mechanic/technician by day, Alford hopes to adjust his luck come Friday when the Southern Vintage Racing Association returns to Five Flags Speedway for a 20-lap feature.

The Association shares the marquee with the Allen Turner Pro Late Models and their split-feature format (20-/30-lappers), Beef “O� Brady’s Sportsmen (25) and Butler U-Pull-It Bombers (20).

Practice begins at 5 p.m. Friday, qualifying at 6:30 with the green flag for the opening feature poised to drop at 8. Admissions is $15 for adults; $12 for seniors, students and military; $5 for children ages 6 to 11; and free for kids 5 and under.

Alford, running his first full season with the Southern Vintage Racing Association, is eager to make his driving debut at the famed half-mile asphalt oval.

He knows the butterflies will be fluttering in his belly.

“Every time I strap into the car to go out for those first hot laps, I get the jitters,� Alford said. “If a racecar driver gets into a car and they tell you they’re not nervous about what could happen, they’re not telling you the truth. You can go from first place to dead last to upside down.

“But as soon as I lay the throttle down and I know everything’s good to go, I strap my seatbelts on tighter and get ready for the green flag to drop.�

Would you believe, Alford has encountered most of his rotten luck this season after exiting the ’32 Chevy?

The appendectomy was precipitated while Alford was inspecting and dissecting damage from a head-on collision the night before.

“My appendix decided to go out on me,� Alford said bluntly. “I spent the next 2 weeks tinkering with the car and getting it back ready.�

The third-degree burns to the palm of his hand? Sustained while working as a crew member during a Super Stocks feature at Five Flags earlier this season.

As the crew attempted mid-race adjustments, the radiator cap peeled off. Attempting to protect fellow team members from harm’s way, Alford — working without gloves, mind you — snagged the cap and twisted it back on.

“By the end of the night, I probably had a bubble (blister) as big as my fist,� he remembered. “I had to go to a burn unit in Mobile, but on Monday I was back at work — with a glove on. A couple of days after that, I was back in the racecar.

“I admit that I do a lotta crazy things, but I get right back in my car.�

It has been that way for most of Alford’s life.

With the help of his father Tommy Alford, who assists on the vintage car today, Aleck Alford spent his childhood racing go-karts out on Old Corry Field Road before maturing to dirt tracks in his early teen years.

“It got to a point where me and my dad would go to the track,� Alford said, “knowing that we might not eat if we didn’t win, but we just had to go race.�

But Friday nights in high school were spent far from asphalt and on a gridiron instead, as Alford played football.

When those glory days ended, life began moving faster. The highlight came 7 years ago with the birth of daughter Alyssa.

“I went from driving fast to slowing down and becoming a daddy,� he said with immense pride.

“It wasn’t a hard decision to get out of it. And it wasn’t something I was pushed to get back into. But once I was helping guys, that bug started getting a little bigger and bigger. And then, bam, it’s gotcha. You get back into it and don’t wanna stop.�

With his father and fiancée “Dee� as his crew, Alford has raced six times with the Southern Vintage Racing Association this year. His best feature finish was fourth in 2013 and he’s won a handful of heat races in his one-plus seasons.

He has dedicated the rest of 2014 to the memory of Evelyn Alford, his grandmother who after conquering breast cancer recently succumbed to brain cancer.

Aleck painted pink the back hatch on his fuel door, a span of 18 inches by 10 inches, to honor her and others fighting diseases.

“I can raise hell, cuss, kick,� he said, “but when I look at it, there are a lotta people fighting a whole lot bigger battles than I am when I’m setting a racecar up.�

Alford does acknowledge the challenges of driving an old short car with a short wheel base on 8-inch tires. He recognizes that identifying the perfect amount of horsepower can be painstakingly frustrating.

But the bug has sank its teeth into him. And, truth be told, Alford wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I’ll always be involved with racing,� he said. “When it comes down to it, I eat and sleep cars.�

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