The Flocks are one of the families that aren’t talked about enough in NASCAR today. They made for some of the most interesting days in the early years of the sport courtesy of the three brothers Bob, Fonty, and Tim, who were all drivers in what is now the Cup Series. Together they won 62 races and Tim accounted for 39 of them. A strong aid in his success on the track was a co-pilot that was a monkey.
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The story begins on a fine day in Atlanta when Ted Chester, the owner of the Hudson Hornet that Tim drove, walked up to him. He told him that he had an African monkey in his possession and that it would ride alongside him in the car during the race. Tim was up for it. But he questioned how NASCAR was going to allow it and Chester had a simple answer.
They were going to hide the monkey in plain sight. They named it Jocko Flocko and created seat belts, a race suit, and a helmet to suit its tiny size.
Tim ran eight races with his little friend in the passenger seat and even won one (Hickory, N.C.). The tricky part was not letting the officials suspect anything. For his part, Jocko Flocko did his best to distract other drivers and put them off their game.
Tim narrated the experience to NASCAR decades later, “I’ll never forget how much trouble we went through trying to hide Jocko in the infield. Man, when they threw the flag, I’m going down the backstretch doing the race, and here’s a monkey sitting in the passenger’s side … Here’s a monkey grinning at him and they’d almost run into the wall.” It was all quite fun for Jocko.
Why Jocko had to be removed from the car after eight races
NASCAR was in a weird age during the 1950s. None could draw an upper limit on what absurdity could be seen on a race weekend. But they all began and shut in frequent intervals. Jocko’s stint too came to an end eventually. The Raleigh 300 that was raced in May 1953 was his final race.
He’d somehow escaped his seatbelts and jumped down to the floorboard of the car. He’d previously noticed Tim opening the board to check the status of the tires on the car and did the same out of curiosity. Unfortunately for him, a pebble on the track hit him in the face when he did so.
The little guy yelped in pain and shrieked as he ran around the car. Unable to control him, Tim drove to the pits and handed him over to the crew. But enough damage was done and the driver had to settle for third place from a point of certain victory.
He says, “Cost me 750 dollars because that was the difference between second and third. But it’s the only time in NASCAR history that a Grand National car had to come into the pits to put a live monkey out.” Just one of the many out of the world incidents in the sport’s history.
