When he was a student at Martinsville High School in the 1970s, and with the promise of free food and 15 minutes of fame, Danny Turner cajoled a group of classmates into twice performing feats that gained inclusion into the “Guinness Book of World Records.”
Five decades later the former Martinsville city councilman and ex-mayor — who never missed a day of school in his life — has lobbied his way onto the doorstep of another distinction for the books.
Monday morning, Franklin County native and lifelong motorsports maestro Joey Arrington will headline a delegation from Southside Virginia including Turner as they attempt to set a new land-speed record for a stock car at the Kennedy Space Center’s Shuttle Landing Facility in Brevard County, Florida.
Arrington, whose father Buddy Arrington had a 25-year career as a NASCAR Cup driver, built the engine that Russ “Speedking” Wicks used to set the existing record of 244.9 mph in 2007 at Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah…