Where Are They Now?: Jerry Coley

National Dragster, Mar 18, 2005 by Jodauga, John

Yesterday

Jerry Coley made his mark in drag racing as a competitive Modified campaigner and as one of the hardest-working, more prolific track promoters in the southeastern United States. His racing exploits included multiple Division 2 Modified championships, and he was the guiding force behind the success of many dragstrips, especially Phenix Dragway in Phenix City, Ala.

Coley's involvement with drag racing began in 1954, when he raced his parents' '54 Ford at a small track in Montgomery, Ala.

"I had just gotten my driver's license the year before when I turned. 16, and, of course, my parents had no idea that I was racing their car that weekend," said Coley. "We ran in stock classes because that's about all they had back then."

Near the end of the 1950s, Coley became more involved with the sport and began organizing a track in Alabama.

"I was in charge of everything, from taking the money at the gate to organizing the staging lanes and selling sandwiches and Cokes," he said. "Some members of a car club from, Columbus, Ga., were at the track one weekend, and after the race they asked me to come over and work at Phenix Dragway."

Coley eventually took over the Phenix facility in 1963 with Bobby Watson, a Pontiac Super Stock, racer from Columbus, as his partner. The move led Coley to become involved with more tracks, and he developed a very close working relationship with then Division 2 Director Buster Couch.

"I also became a partner at Warner Robins Dragway in Georgia and the Dixie-Southland Drag Strip in Montgomery," said Coley. "At one time I was involved in one way or anotlier with all of the tracks on the entire Division 2 points race schedule. Buster and I worked well together, and we managed to get through all kinds of situations that developed in those early days. We even had a Division 2 points race run on the city streets in Montgomery. The local Kiwanis Club was looking for ways to increase its revenue, so I put together a package in which we put on a race in an abandoned area of town. We had to do extra paving to make our temporary track 60 feet wide, and we added guardrails and everything else to make It legal and safe. I'll never forget the reaction that we got when Raymond Godman fired up his Tennessee Bo Weevil Top Fuel car on Saturday night."

During the late 1960s, Coley also served as the project coordinator for the East Coast Ford Drag team, which was the primary sponsor for Hubert Platt.

In 1973, Coley, who had bought out his Phenix Dragway partner, sold the track to begin a career as a Sportsman racer. He began with his Golden Goose '69 Camaro that ran in D/MP, F/G, and other Modified classes. The highlight of Coley's racing career came at the 1974 Gatornationals, where he runner-upped to Bob Seibert's N/G Vega. Seibert took advantage of the handicap head start and held off Coley's fast-closing 10.62 (a national record) from his new D/MP with a 12.31 for the victory. It was also in the mid-1970s that Coley worked as the industrial representative for the state of Alabama during the administration of Governor George Wallace.

Coley later raced a series of Corvettes, which he campaigned with much success until he retired from drag racing in November 1983.

Today

Near the end of his racing career, Coley worked at the headquarters of Romaco, a company that ran a number of convenience stores and self-service gasoline centers. In 1985, Coley founded a truck-driver and heavy-equipment school in Montgomery, working with the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs. He switched careers again 1991 when he teamed with Detroit's Al Carpenter, best known as the founder of the U.S. Drag Racing Team (for Pro Stockers) in the early 1970s.

Said Coley, "I was the general manager for his company, which was an outsource contractor for Ford, GM, and Chrysler in the field of testing cars. We tested drivetrain components for GM and Ford and did 'real world' tests for Chrysler, in which we'd put 100,000 miles on a Car in 90 days by driving it on the open roads."

Coley left Carpenter in 1996 to begin a similar business.

"We tested cars using ethanol mixed with gasoline and checked out the effects of this type of fuel on all components of the car," said Coley, who left the operation in 1998 to enter "total retirement."

"I still do a bit of consulting work with my daughter, who has her own marketing and promotions company, but most of the time I play a lot of golf," said Coley. "I play on the Michelob Lite tour and was the points leader and top money winner last year."

Coley has attended several NHRA national events and reunions since he quit racing.

"I'm glad that I had a chance to race in that particular era," said Coley. "It didn't cost much to race back then, and we were fortunate to at least make the semi's, if not score a win or runner-up, in most of the Division 2 races that we ran. We also helped establish the bracket racing format in the South when we began a program at Phenix City, which eliminated any of the cheating all at once. Buster and his wife Ann and, of course, Wally Parks had a very positive influence on my career, as did Steve Gibbs and all of the other division directors of that era, like Dale Ham, Darrell Zimmerman, Bernie Partridge, Darwin Doll, and Bob Daniels and his wife Eileen. I couldn't have had a better time if I had written the script." - John Jodauga