The Finish Line
IN MEMORIAM:
Terry “Fuzzy” Carter

A brief remembrance by Chris Martin

There have been times when I can’t believe I am writing what I’m writing and this is one of them. Former Eddie Hill crew chief Terry “Fuzzy” Carter, age 41, died from cancer May 17 at his home in Big Spring, Texas.

Hoped-for pertinent sentences pop in and out of view much like the predictions in a child’s eight-ball. A funny guy. Good-natured. The man could take care of himself. Nobody worked any harder. S’gotta be terrible for his wife Jana and Eddie & Ercie Hill. He looked a little older than 41; must’ve crammed a lot of living into that time.

I guess that’s where I’ll jump in. He did not get shortchanged in life. Anybody who rode with Eddie Hill through his fuel boat days and Top Fuel career didn’t yawn much. In his time here he lived as much, and probably more than people twice his age. Before and during his time with Hill, the red-headed, bearded Texan even worked as a truck driver and a rodeo clown. Odd, but looking at Fuzzy’s life, I feel sorry for the convenience store clerks of this world.

It was my pleasure to have sat around with him and a number of other racer crew guys many times after an event and swapped stories and drank beer. Because Fuzzy hung with a championship car and crew, he was as common a fixture at the races as a jukebox in a bar — you saw him all the time.

He and his wife Jana were just great people and for a Southern California wiseass like myself, I couldn’t get enough of their unaffected, friendly Texan ways. During the summer of the season, a post-race gabfest with him and others always jacked me up to go on to the next race and whatever toil awaited me.

One of the smartest men I have ever read is the late British poet W.H. Auden. In a series of small two-line haikus called “Marginalia,” he wrote on death. “What is death? A larger life disintegrating into several smaller ones.”

Physically, it’s still the best description on the subject I’ve ever read, but at a time like this, for a nice guy like Fuzzy Carter, it just seems the wrong answer. Way wrong, in fact.

The Fuzzy Carter Medical Fund has been established to cover his expenses. Donations and condolences can be sent to:

P.O. Box 1423
Big Spring, TX 79721-1423.