Nice Guys Finish First

Bristol’s Carl Moore looks back at his 80 years, memories of BMS and more

BRISTOL, Tenn. – It all started on a napkin.
Carl Moore sat in a long-gone restaurant along Bluff City Highway with a business partner, Larry Carrier. There, the pair grabbed a napkin and started to sketch.
They drew an oval – with dreams of building a racetrack similar to what they had just visited at Charlotte, N.C.
The pair figured they could plant that track between the hills of Sullivan County. And, at first, they talked about building their dream at Piney Flats.
But there was some opposition to that plan.
So the pair moved north, eventually landing at a farm along the banks of Beaver Creek in what is now the southern end of Bristol, Tenn.
And their track? Well, the one that began on a napkin would become today’s Bristol Motor Speedway.

‘BANK WENT BROKE’
Co-founding the famous NASCAR track has been just one achievement in a lifetime of milestones for Moore, a Bristol, Tenn., resident who turned 80 on Feb. 26.
Moore was born in the Wise County railroad town of Appalachia, Va., where his father worked at a bank.
“And the bank went broke the day I was born in 1930,” Moore said. “And he always blamed it on me.”
Moore grinned.
The man jokes often. Or, at least, when there’s a need.
“He’s always had a very balanced demeanor,” said Moore’s 50-year-old daughter Dana. “Whether things are going right or wrong, he has a very calm, sure demeanor about himself.”
That demeanor, for sure, has helped Moore’s long pursuit of politics, his real estate deals and his pleas to help save historic landmarks.

‘OF COURSE, I DID’
Coming to Bristol in 1955, Moore ultimately became intimately acquainted with the community of the Twin City.
His family had moved to Clinchport, Va., and, later, Kingsport, Tenn., where he graduated from Dobyns-Bennett High School in 1948. Moore attended the University of Alabama and later served in the U.S. Army at the time of the Korean War.
For a while, Moore entertained plans to move to Daytona Beach, Fla., and sell real estate. But he came to Bristol, instead, and served as the personnel manager for the Massengill Drug Co.
By the early 1960s, he had gotten started in politics – around the same time that the racetrack in Bristol was built.
In the mid-1970s, he served as vice chairman of the board of Sullins College, about the time that school had to be shut down.
About the same time, he also sold his interest in the racetrack.
And did he regret it?
“Of course, I did,” Moore said, grinning again.
Still, he remains a fan of the NASCAR scene.
“And what it’s done for Bristol and the community? It’s amazing,” Moore said.

MINISTERS AND MARIJUANA
The Democrat served in the Tennessee House of Representatives in the 1960s. Moore also served three terms in the Tennessee Senate in the 1970s and 1980s.
“Why a Democrat? My parents and grandparents were Democrats,” Moore said. “I’m a fiscal conservative and a liberal on social issues.”
For a while, Moore’s daughter, Dana, served with him: She was elected to the Tennessee House of Representatives while he served in the Senate. This unique situation won the Moores widespread publicity in the mid-1980s.
Even so, Carl Moore stayed focused on getting things accomplished.
Moore lent his support to a plan to four-lane a portion of U.S. Highway 421 in Sullivan County, leading from Bristol across Vinegar Hill to South Holston Lake.
For a while, too, he backed a bill that would help legalize marijuana for use in medicinal purposes.
He had much opposition: Some ministers, he said, thought Moore was trying to legalize all marijuana use.
“It was legal for four years,” Carl Moore said. “It helped glaucoma and cancer patients.”
But the year Moore left politics, in 1988, the bill was overturned. And use of the weed – even as medicine, Moore said – was off the books again.

‘TO BE NICE’
Married for 22 years to his wife, Elliott, Moore is the father of four children – Jan, Cindy, Dana and Randy – from a marriage to his previous wife, Elizabeth.
Since his days as a politician, this businessman has struggled to help save buildings in the Bristol region – most notably the Paramount Theatre, now known as the Paramount Center for the Arts.
Moore helped get funding to restore that 1931 structure on State Street, eliciting support from former Tennessee Gov. Ned McWherter.
Moore also helped save the Bristol Train Station, in securing a deal to purchase the structure from the late Arthur Slaughter and then helping guide its longtime restoration project.
Today, he keeps busy as a contract lobbyist in Nashville, going to the capital city each week and working on various issues. He’s also been an avid real estate investor in the Tri-Cities, building motels across the region.
Moore maintains an office on Bristol’s Sixth Street.
Above all, as Moore enters his 80s, he talks about the love of his family.
And they reciprocate.
“I’ll bet each one of us, growing up, we thought we were his favorite child,” Dana Moore said. “No father can have a favorite, but we thought each one of us was it.”
Dana Moore laughed.
“Carl Moore is someone who has always tried to help people in small ways or big ways,” she said. “I think what he taught me the most was to be a good neighbor. He taught me to be nice.”