Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Artimus Pyle, A Cool Cat With 9 Lives, Rocks Daytona

Drummer Artimus Pyle is one cool cat. And, like a cat, he has 9 lives, possibly extra. Remember the notorious 1977 airplane crash that killed members of his rock group, Lynyrd Skynyrd, together with Ronnie Van Zant. Pyle survived that. He’s additionally survived two different plane crashes, most cancers, a coronary heart attack – plus wrecked his bike, and greater than as soon as. One of these bike crashes almost cost him his left leg, which was damaged in 21 locations.

So when Pyle arrived at Daytona International Speedway this previous weekend to take a six-lap thrill trip with me in a NASCAR Racing Experience inventory automobile, I wasn’t nervous. He’d been by hell and again, so what might I probably do to harm him? Even if we crashed at excessive velocity, and we weren’t going to if I might assist it, I had little question that he’d survive. Me? At 170 mph, in all probability, however who is aware of?

Pyle had performed the earlier night time in Largo, Florida, then ridden in his tour bus three hours from the gig to Daytona. When the group he at present fronts – The Artimus Pyle Band – arrived on the observe, you could possibly inform they have been considerably ragged. A number of pots of espresso, or a shot of adrenaline in a race automobile, was wanted to wake them up.

Pyle, a 2006 inductee into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, is a part of my “Celebrities In Race Cars With Adrenaline” collection for Forbes. In the previous, I’d given rides to an astronaut (Sian Proctor), a two-time Daytona 500 winner (Michael Waltrip), an NHRA Funny Car champ (Ron Capps) and a Top-Fuel Dragster champ (Antron Brown), a former Miss Texas (Whitney Miller), two different southern rockers (William Lee Golden, John McEuen), a U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds air present pilot (Michael “Thorny” Brewer) and the primary person to go to area, the highest of Mt. Everest and the deepest level on Earth (Victor Vescovo).

As the NRE crew strapped the 75-year-old Pyle tightly into the passenger seat of my #7 automobile with a five-point harness system – uncomfortably comfy, as we wish to say – I glanced over, instantly noticing he had on the trademark fight boots he wears onstage whereas drumming. Later, I realized that the boots usually are not for present, however to guard his toes from the accidents he had sustained within the bike crash.

I gunned the engine, we did a fast fist bump after which I roared by 4 gears out of pit lane to mix onto the front-straight. We accelerated by Turn 1 and Turn 2, banked at a formidable 31 levels, onto the lengthy backstretch, and barreled full velocity into Turn 3. That’s when most riders take severe discover. The radius of the flip isn’t far more than that of a freeway exit ramp. Most people are used to possibly 50 mph tops on these ramps of their passenger vehicles, and we have been doing properly over thrice that.

As we circled the two.5-mile-long oval at lower than a minute per lap, I took him low, close to the yellow line on the backside of the observe; up excessive, close to the skin retaining wall, and mid-track, all to point out him how properly the automobile dealt with. I couldn’t inform how he was reacting as I used to be too centered on the asphalt forward – plus the roar of the engine made it unattainable to speak. After six laps, I pulled again onto pit highway, shut down the engine and regarded over. Well?

“It hit me once you got through the gears and into that first turn that this was going to be a serious ride, because you were all business,” stated Pyle. “It was like you were in a race, and I was just a fly on the wall. You pushed us up there, near the wall, and I felt the G-forces. You weren’t slowing down, either, and I realized that this is what I signed up for, so just hang on and enjoy it. I knew I was in good hands.”

After his trip, Pyle took a one-hour NRE driving class with teacher Darrell Johnson, then went out in automobile #22 by himself, as a pupil, with solely a spotter, Doug Baron, within the grandstands giving him steering across the observe by way of a helmet radio. At the top of his eight-minute session, Pyle was awarded a certificates that credited him with a 146-mph high velocity.

How did his driving expertise examine to the ride-along? Says Pyle: “On my first lap, it was hard for me to just jump up on the track over the yellow line like you did. Was there another car coming around me? But my spotter always let me know when a faster car was approaching, and kept me down low. Once I got used to it, driving by myself was the most fun you could have with your clothes on. I didn’t want it to end.”

Before he left the observe on his tour bus, Pyle was gracious sufficient to autograph a one-of-a-kind hand-painted Lynyrd Skynyrd jean jacket memorializing Ronnie Van Zant. Over the years, NRE’s Bob Fox had amassed on it the signatures of a number of authentic band members, together with Johnny Van Zant, Gary Rossington, Billy Powell and Leon Wilkeson.

When Pyle first noticed the jacket, he waxed nostalgic. He pointed to the sky, presumably to heaven, the place different members of the band reside now – Pyle is the final standing – and gently ran his hand over the Skynyrd emblem. He was clearly moved.

Would Pyle come again for an additional expertise at Daytona? You wager. But subsequent time he desires to up the velocity when he drives by himself. As he informed me, laughing, he didn’t like the truth that I had handed him within the trip automobile, thrice.