Gary Lewallen was born and raised in Archdale, a small town nestled in the Piedmont Triad region of North Carolina just southwest of Greensboro.

His family had always been in that area and it only seemed natural for Lewallen to devote himself to the small town life. He just recently retired from his position as Police Chief with the Archdale Police Department after 34 years of law enforcement service.

“This is where I grew up and I was the fourth police chief the city ever had,” he explained. “I went from paper boy to police chief.”

Lewallen had big aspirations despite his small town heritage. He even managed to earn his college degree while serving as Police Chief. He graduated Summa Cum Laude from Western Carolina University.

Then, he made a movie.

You see, Lewallen’s family was not your average provincial, rural life family. They had higher aspirations, as well. Actually, they were faster aspirations. They were a racing family.

Lewallen’s father, Jimmie Lewallen, was a moonshine-runner turned racecar driver.

“Dad was racing before NASCAR was ever formed,” Lewallen said of his father. “He started in 1938, racing motorcycles. Course he was in that genre of hauling white liquor as well, like the rest of those boys… He raced up until the war started.”

World War II called Lewallen to serve his country and he made her proud. He fought in numerous battles, the Normandy landings among them, and earned himself multiple medals including a Bronze Star. He was wounded twice but as soon as he got back to the States, he strapped back into his race car.

“He started racing again and he raced all the local circuits, he raced at Daytona Beach on the beach course, he run convertibles, he run strictly stock, he run sportsman, modified, and what’s referred to as Cup now, Grand National then.”

Gary Lewallen’s life revolved around his father’s racing.

“I was born while he was racing in the Southern 500 in 1954 on Labor Day. He was running a ’54 Mercury car number 5 driving for Joe Blair, who was related to the Blair family, Bill Blair… When I come along and dad quit running the regular circuit in 1960, he ran local tracks from Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, and South Carolina up until 1972, dirt and asphalt tracks. The most of my time I was with him at these tracks (while he was) running late models or modifieds. I was a helper and whatever I needed to do, a lot of times he put me out there before I was 16 years old warming the car up out on the track so he didn’t have to.”

Jimmie raced against the best in the business every weekend, including Curtis Turner, the Flock brothers and Lee Petty, during those early years of NASCAR. In fact, Lewallen was one of a handful of people at the original meeting with “Big Bill” France when the organization of NASCAR was first formed.

Lewallen’s racing career, and the effect it had on his family, is the storyline behind the movie “Red Dirt Rising”, a film that pays homage to the men who truly created auto racing.

“I actually contacted a lady (Kathleen Bobak) that I had a name for in Jacksonville, F.L. who worked on the movie Titanic and the Last of the Mohicans,” Lewallen said. “She was a director on those movies and I got in contact with her and set up a meeting and we finally got together about six months or so after we first talked on the phone. Her and another director by the name of James Suttles out of Asheville, N.C. came down and met with us and it was me and another lady that was co-producer on this project. We set down with them and had a discussion and ultimately we came to an agreement to make the movie and I raised all the funding for it, about $600,000. I raised it all out of people that I know and brought all the folks to the table and we did 98-99% of the filming right here in the local community. We even built race tracks here.”

The small town he loves so much embraced Lewallen’s project and jumped on board.

“It was a lot of work and a lot of community support. We couldn’t have done it without all the people that came to the table.”

The stars of the film include Brad Yoder, Burgess Jenkins who was in “Remember The Titans” and more recently the television show “Army Wives”, Ashley Payne, Quentin Kerr, Mark Joy and Brett Rice.

Quite an undertaking for a small town man like Lewallen.

But, despite getting a taste of Hollywood-style movie making, Gary remains the same college-degree holding, retired Police Chief and former paperboy that he always has been; the rural living, big dreaming guy who has now added a movie to the long list of his accomplishments.

“Never done nothing like that before so I said ‘might as well do it one time in your life’, and we did… But I’m still just a guy around the corner that has to get out and mow the yard every now and again.”

MORE NASCAR NEWS