Will The Real Drifter Please Suit Up?

C&W's immense increase in popularity during the past decade or so is measured by Marty's two Grammys for the best single of the year. El Paso was the first, in 1960, and he received his award through the mail. My Woman, My Woman, My Wife was his second, 10 years later, and he sang it to a national television audience from the stage of the Hollywood Palladium during the awards ceremony.

In the early 1960s, when Robbins was the far side of 35, he rediscovered automobile racing. In Phoenix he had marveled when the USAC midget racers came to town—Bill Vukovich, Jimmy Bryan and the gang—and except for the Robbins finances, might have gotten into the sport earlier. Now he began to sneak out to a quarter-mile dirt track north of Nashville and watch the special modifieds race, and the bug finally got him for good. He was in trim shape, his reflexes were sharp and he'd always liked motorcycles. So he had a car built, and he raced as anonymously as a Country and Western singing star could.

"I remember the first time I drove the car," Marty says. "I knew I had to storm around like a veteran on that dirt track, so I went down the straight and threw it into the corner just like a pro. I had a good time trial, but it scared me a little. When it came time for the heat race I didn't want to get into the middle of the pack because I was afraid I might mess somebody else up. It was one thing for me to wreck my own equipment, but those other boys were racing for a living. So I pretended there was something wrong with my car and started at the back of the pack. This lasted for three weeks, then they made me start where I had qualified. I didn't pass anyone—but nobody passed me either—and finally I just got used to running in traffic.

"Then one night I had the best time trial, won my heat and won the feature. Once I'd done that, it wasn't fun anymore."

Like any up-and-coming driver, Rob-bins jumped a notch to sportsmen and full modifieds at the Nashville Fairground Speedways, a part of the NASCAR subterranean minor leagues that produces the most competitive—and the most vicious—racing in America. But Robbins more than held his own, and even had good dices occasionally with such established Grand National regulars as Bobby Allison, Red Farmer and Coo Coo Marlin.

In October 1968 he made his big-track Grand National debut at Charlotte in the National 500 and finished a respectable 12th. Although he was 43, Robbins was now ready to indulge himself in racing as much as his well-paced singing schedule would permit.

But his next Grand National event was two years later.

Robbins, like most top country singers, toured a lot by bus, in his case an old Greyhound converted into a mobile home complete with beds, showers and a lively kitchen for the enjoyment of himself and his various sidemen.

"We were outside Toledo," Robbins says. "We'd just finished a fair date and we were on our way to an afternoon show near Cleveland when I felt the pain. I had it for about an hour and a half, and it kept getting worse. The first hospital we came to was about 40 miles outside Cleveland, and they gave me some tests. Then they told me I'd had a heart attack. But I knew better. I'd never abused my body and I knew it had to be indigestion or something, so I talked the doctor into releasing me from the hospital and giving me some pain-killers and told him I'd go to a hospital in Cleveland.

"As soon as I got out we headed for our date in Warren, and I put on the show. Man, I was feeling fine. Then the pills started wearing off and I said, 'Boys, I guess you'd better take me to another hospital.' "