Lauderdale: Burning need for speed turns quiet Hardeeville man into homemade NASCAR racin' legend

The King of the Oglethorpe Speedway was laid to rest Thursday in Hardeeville.

David Into actually led the quiet life of an engineer behind his oversized glasses and tightly cropped beard. He was just as happy fishing in the Colleton River as he was kicking up dust on a dark, half-mile clay oval in Pooler, Ga.

But the quiet man was a hot rodder's hot rod who burned with the need for speed even as a child in the tiny Lowcountry town of Hardeeville.

When he passed away on April 20 at age 75, a NASCAR publication rattled off a legacy that shows why they called Into the king: 10 track championships in 12 years, and the 1984 Winston Racing Series National Championship.

Into won 23 races in 67 starts that year. The trophy almost reaches the ceiling in the "racing room" at the house on U.S. 321, north of town. Lou Ella Into stands on the checkered floor and takes out of a wooden box the big championship belt buckle that proves her husband's dream came true.

D.J. Into Jr., who everybody calls "DD," was his younger brother's partner, and the oil that made the team run. The money and engines came from the Fred Hughes family and their H&H Anheuser-Busch distributorship in Savannah.

But the drive to go fast was born in the wide yards of the place this family of lumbermen from Finland settled in the 19th century.

"We had the first go-cart in America," DD said.

MODEL A HOT ROD

The go-cart was wheels, a seat and a gasoline engine off an old washing machine.

Before Into was old enough to drive, which was all of 14 at that time in South Carolina, he and a couple of cousins and a friend built a race car from a tiny Crosley four-cylinder engine and transmission they bought off a junk truck. The frame was old 2-by-4's. It was an open-air vehicle with a steering wheel, a radiator and a front end and back end from two different cars.

Because four of them made it, Into always raced in the No. 4 car.

About the time he graduated from Hardeeville High School in 1957, Into made a muscle car out of a 1931 Model A. He replaced Henry Ford's practical 4-cylinder engine with an Oldsmobile V8 with a Hydramatic transmission.

"Oh, was it fast?" DD asks, smiling in his late brother's work shed, where cast nets hang by photos and trophies. "He outran '57 Plymouth Furys with it."

And then he dryly added: "We wanted to go as fast as you could."

Into served his country in the U.S. Army and studied at the University of South Carolina.

When he grew up, he was a draftsman with a Savannah architectural firm. One of the projects he worked on was the revitalization of Savannah's cobblestone riverfront into a tourism Mecca.

At heart, Into was a mechanical engineer, said C.E. Malphrus of Ridgeland. Into worked with Malphrus for a while at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers office in Savannah. Malphrus' wife, Cheryl, sang "Amazing Grace" a cappella at the funeral home.

"The reason David was successful on the race track is that he understood physics so well," said DD, who also had an important day job. For 27 years, he ran the Jasper County office of probation and parole.

"He knew the front-end geometry," DD said. "He knew how much the car could take, and if something went wrong with the car, he knew what to do."

THE FAST LANE

Into also knew how to flip a coin.

When the Into brothers built their first car for the Oglethorpe Speedway, David Into won the coin toss to see who would drive. That was in 1974, and they had souped up a 1962 Chevrolet Nova with a six-cylinder, 194-cubic-inch engine in it.

By the sixth race, Into was in Victory Lane. Two years later, they started running a 1969 Camaro with a 252-cubic-inch engine. And in 1978, they got the ride with the H&H team. Into stayed with them until he retired from racing in 1994.

The Intos worked on cars every Tuesday and Thursday night. They raced at Oglethorpe Speedway on Friday night and often in Summerville on Saturday night. It was life in the fast lane.

But as Martin Sauls eased the hearse down U.S. 17 to the Purrysburg Cemetery, most oncoming traffic came to a stop, even an 18-wheeler and a school bus.

The Rev. Allen Perry, retired battalion chief with Hilton Head Fire & Rescue, led the graveside service, assuring mourners sitting beneath the tent and the shade of a walnut tree that death was not the finish line for Into.

Close by the black hearse was a 1968 Pontiac Firebird painted hot Corvette yellow.

It belonged to Into's son, Hubert, who once beat the King of Oglethorpe Speedway.

Hubert bought the Firebird for $200. He and his dad promised they wouldn't turn it into a hot rod. Hubert cruised to the cemetery in a Firebird powered by an engine that came from his grandmother's rusted out 1976 Buick Skylark.

On this day, there was no need for speed.

Follow columnist and senior editor David Lauderdale at twitter.com/ThatsLauderdale and facebook.com/david.lauderdale.16.

This story was originally published April 23, 2015 at 6:09 PM with the headline "Lauderdale: Burning need for speed turns quiet Hardeeville man into homemade NASCAR racin' legend."