Georgia Racing Legend Jimmy Mosteller Passes Away

Georgia Racing Hall of Famer Jimmy Mosteller doing what he did best – announcing auto racing and making friends. Mosteller passed away Wednesday afternoon. Photo courtesy Eddie Samples

Jimmy Mosteller, one of the key people in the establishment of the Georgia Racing Hall of Fame and himself a 2003 inductee, passed away Wednesday, July 4, in Austell, GA.

Mosteller, born in 1926 in Roswell, GA, was nothing less than a Georgia racing legend, despite never competing behind the wheel.  Mosteller started his career as an apprentice jockey in horse racing, then became a horse racing announcer.

At the same time, he began a long career with the Hav-A-Tampa cigar company, one that would parlay into his racing career into the future.

Mosteller became interested in auto racing by watching his friend and fellow Roswell resident Jack Smith.  His first job or announcing auto racing came at Boyd’s Speedway in Ringgold, GA around 1949.  From there, Mosteller would announce and help promote events all over the country, including at Atlanta’s famed Lakewood Speedway and the Peach Bowl Speedway, Athens, Toccoa, Jefco (now Gresham Motorsports Park), and Dixie Speedway, along with countless others.

Mosteller was asked about some of the tracks he worked at in a 2000 interview with historian Eddie Samples.

“If I named fifty, I would forget a hundred and fifty,” Mosteller said.  “We had A.I.R. (Atlanta International Raceway, now Atlanta Motor Speedway), Lakewood, Cedartown, Dallas, Oglethorpe, Boyds, Rome, Dixie, Albany, Morrow, Jasper, Blue Ridge, Gainesville, Banks County, Toccoa, Lanier, Road Atlanta, Dixie Southeastern Drag Strip, Dublin, Waycross, Elberton, Canton, Hickory Flat, Savannah, Tifton, Chatsworth, Warner Robbins, Macon, Albany and Looper Speedway in Gainesville, which incidentally is now under Lake Lanier.”

Mosteller worked for NASCAR for a period of time as well, calling events around the country.

“As far as racing itself goes, you always learned something from anyone you work with over the years,” Mosteller said in 2000.  “Three of the top would be Roy Shoemaker, Bill France and later Mickey Swims.   They all had good ideas on how to steer a show.  Very organized men.  You depend on your flagman to control the events without slowdown or confusion.
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“In the meantime it is my responsibility to work the crowd.  Every once in a while you might have a slow night and you need to keep the ball rolling.  Use your imagination.  Like, number four turn, number four turn, ladies and gentlemen, would you look at that!  Beautiful job of saving that automobile over in the fourth turn! Well, maybe nothing really happened that much in the fourth turn.  But everybody needs some excitement, a chance to stand and stretch and straighten out their britches.”

For thousands of race fans spanning generations, Jimmy Mosteller was the voice of racing.  He was their friend, their racing voice, their “little bitty buddy.”

“Let me tell you, forming a bond with all those fans out here makes you feel like part of their family,” said Mosteller in 2000.  “There is nothing like warming up a crowd and keeping the excitement going.  A good announcer helps the show move at a good pace.  So whether it’s 50 or 50,000, the people make you feel like somebody important, and I never looked back.”

Mosteller would bring dirt racing back to the forefront in the early 1990s, as he teamed with the United Dirt Track Racing Association and Hav-A-Tampa Corporation to form a racing series that put the sport in the spotlight, where it has stayed since.

In his later years, Mosteller worked tirelessly on the formation of the Georgia Racing Hall of Fame, as he sought to see the great racers from the state honored.  He stayed involved until his death, working as one of the voters for the inductees for the Hall of Fame.

“Let me tell you, anybody that drove a racecar deserves to be mentioned,” Mosteller said in 2000.

Jimmy Mosteller will be remembered for his friendship, his contributions to racing, and for his unending dedication to the sport and the friends he loved so much.