Carroll Hynson: Not giving up the chase ; Lifelong competitor raced through racial barriers

Carroll Hynson Jr. can be best understood behind the wheel of a souped-up Chevy Impala in the 1960s. On a hill overlooking a drive- in where he couldn't eat - because of his race - he would the bait cocky white kids gathered below to race him.

He would let a gullible driver win the first heat before taking him - and a bigger pool of money - in the second. In a good week, he earned $300.

Hynson discovered two things about himself: He loved to take risks and he loved an audience - a golden combination that would take him from breaking racing records to breaking racial barriers.

"My passion for racing echoes my competitive nature and my desire to win if I must play the game," Hynson said.

Not many who know Hynson today knew Hynson then. He was a rarity when he became a professional racer and solicited sponsors for his cars.

And he found one in Harvey Blonder, who owned the Seabrook Car Wash before he went on to buy Buddy's Crab House and Yellowfin.

Hynson "had an A-plus personality," Blonder said. "We knew he was going to win."

Hynson won 25 trophies for Blonder, then another 175 before he retired from racing in 1972. He was inducted into the East Coast Drag Racing Hall of Fame in 2006.

The Hynson family came to Annapolis in 1919. Carroll Sr. was a bellman at the old Carvel Hall Hotel. Although the family lived on Clay Street, just blocks from the Anne Arundel General Hospital, his mother had to travel to an African-American hospital in Washington, D.C., to deliver Carroll Jr. in 1936.

Then the Hynsons began to break color barriers.

Although Carroll Sr. had only a sixth-grade education, he became the county's first African-American bail bondsman in 1945. Carroll said his dad was successful because those who needed bail money were fooled by the name.

"People didn't know my father was black," he says. "We had a monopoly for 10 years."

He also sold insurance and was one of the county's first African- American licensed real estate brokers and developers.

The elder Hynson used his savings to buy up distressed Annapolis properties - $50 down and $100 a month - and then rent them to African-Americans white property owners "didn't want to mess with." Hynson Jr. still rents those properties.

"I got my business genes from my father."

He is CEO of Image Power Inc., which includes marketing, public relations and the maintenance of 32 percent of the state's slot machines. He still operates the bail bond and real estate businesses.

Hynson grew up in a racially segregated city where African- Americans mingled more with Jews and Greeks than with other whites.

On weekends his mother drove to New York City to attend college because no Maryland college would enroll her. The only restaurant where he could eat was the Royal Restaurant on West Street, owned by the family of current Annapolis Mayor Mike Pantelides.

He grew fond of entertaining at age 14, when he amused children with his puppet theater. While attending Penn State University, he sang in the Chapel Meditation Choir and was a member of the award- winning drill team. In the early 1950s he sang for two rhythm-and- blues groups.

Hynson's ear for music and his love of jazz lead him to produce records for Chuck Brown, a guitarist called the "godfather of go- go," and The Fuzz, a female trio from Washington.

Hynson found his way into radio - first in 1963 for WANN in Annapolis when owner Morris Blum took a liking to him. Blum, well- respected in the African-American community, would become one of Hynson's mentors.

Although radio station owners told him he had a terrible radio voice, Hynson worked his way into jobs where he met touring singers, including Aretha Franklin. Today, "Mr. C" hosts a Saturday show for WHUR called "The Time Tunnel."

Hynson was a "late bloomer" in settling on a career. When he was 41, he asked his father for a job as a bail bondsman, but the elder Hynson said Carroll Jr. wasn't ready.

"He was right," Hynson says.

So he went to work in public relations for the late Leonard Blackshear and got a job as vice president at Provident Hospital in Baltimore. After three years there, he was hired as the marketing director at Baltimore-Washington International Airport when its reputation as a regional air terminal was growing.

"I could do anything I liked, creatively speaking."

The man who once baited overconfident drivers into racing him had lost none of his brashness. Hynson had crews put fliers on cars parked at competing airports: "If you had flown from BWI, you'd be home now."

The Black Caucus urged him to seek the marketing post in the Maryland Lottery office. It felt that a gaming operation that drew heavily from African-American customers should be represented by an African-American.

So in 1983, with the urging of Gov. Harry Hughes, Hynson became the first African-American to be deputy of sales. He retired after 14 years.

"I liked breaking the color barrier," he says, "because I paved the way, hopefully, for other people."

Today, the 77-year-old is on the board of the Community Foundation of Anne Arundel County and contributes to his two churches - Asbury United Methodist Church in Annapolis, and Fresh Start Church in Glen Burnie - and many charities. He is also known to have helped countless African-Americans in financial need.

"I'm a soft touch," he says, "but I'm not a fool."

With his street racing days all but memories, he sold a prized, high-performance 1999 Corvette convertible, featured in Vette magazine, and bought a more economical black 2014 Stingray he drives for show.

He has slowed down in life too. He is recovering from an operation to repair a torn rotator cup. Still, retirement isn't in the cards, he says.

He has had three wives and has fathered four children who dote on him. When he turned 60, he had an earring put in his left earlobe - as if he needed one more reason for women to like him besides his flashy car and fearlessness.

Carroll Hynson isn't ready to give up the chase.