All of it, p.5
All of It, page 5
At the end of the 1976 season, I had a hernia that needed surgery and would require me to be out of commission for a few months. I underwent the surgery, but against the doctor’s orders, I was staying busy at the shop. I had to go to work and build racecars for the start of the next season.
At the start of the 1977 season, I drove with my family (Kathy, Matthew, our dog, and cat) in our mini motorhome down to Florida to compete at New Smyrna Speedway in the modified series’ World Series of Asphalt Racing in late February. Of the eight races held, we won three times, with some races having over thirty racers. The rest of that season, we went on to win more races at Thompson, Riverside Park Speedway (Agawam, Massachusetts), Dover International Speedway (Dover, Delaware), Stafford, and at many more modified race tracks up and down the East Coast.
My goal remained constant with our success at the modified level: I wanted to race against Richard Petty and compete at the highest level in NASCAR. I wanted to race in the Daytona 500 and win NASCAR’s biggest race.
Armstrong had a 1972 Monte Carlo built by Banjo Matthews with a Jack Tant engine, which Ray Hendrick had driven in several races. Because I was driving full-time for Armstrong and we were having a lot of success, he let me drive the superspeedway late model at Daytona and Talladega in 1978, the NASCAR Late Model Sportsman National Championship series, which eventually became what is now known as the Xfinity Series.
Driving stock cars at high speeds and on the high banks of the biggest tracks in the country was a light-bulb moment for me. Competing in those two races—and with a chance of winning Daytona with no brakes and finishing sixth—is when I realized that’s what I wanted to be doing—racing at big tracks with those kinds of racecars. Kathy was sacrificing a lot over that time for me to achieve my goal. While I was working on racecars, racing, and traveling to support our family, she was my biggest cheerleader in trying to make my dreams a reality. She was raising our son Matthew and our newly-born son Barry, making sure they had the best upbringing possible (gone off-and-on for a few years working).
The Dominance
in Modifieds
Nineteen seventy-eight, hands down, was my best season in the modifieds. That year, we won fifty-five races in eighty-four starts, and it seemed like we were winning all the time. I thought Richard Petty was going to retire and he would call me to take over, but the phone wasn’t ringing.
I know drivers and team owners were noticing our success in the modifieds, especially when we would race the companion event with the Winston Cup Series at Martinsville. Drivers would later tell me how they thought I would be a tough competitor in NASCAR’s top series because of the constant wins we were pulling off in the modifieds. Plus, we continued to receive a lot of press in the newspapers.
We won races at New Smyrna Speedway, Martinsville, Stafford, Utica Rome, and more. During a modified race in 1978 at Martinsville Speedway, a-list actress Elizabeth Taylor and her husband at the time, John Warner, came to the event. Warner was campaigning for a U. S. Senate seat. They were just going to stay for a little while, but they had fun. They got to drink beer and stay for the modified race, which I won.
At Martinsville, Victory Lane is on the frontstretch. They came down to Victory Lane, congratulated me, and hung out. They had so much fun. Elizabeth gave me a hug and a kiss and told me I should be an actor. I told her I was looking for a job. She then said she needed a limo driver.
“I don’t have a hat, and I don’t have a limo,” I said.
“I have a hat,” she said.
I won fifty-five races that year, but maybe getting to meet Elizabeth Taylor was win number fifty-six.
After the 1978 modified season was over, our family decided to move to North Carolina because that is where NASCAR late model racing was popular, and that would give me a great opportunity to show Winston Cup team owners that I could continue to race a car with fenders.
We found a home in Pleasant Garden, North Carolina, just south of Greensboro. We had friends in the area, and my NASCAR Winston Cup hero, Richard Petty, lived just fifteen miles away. If I was going to drive in the elite series of NASCAR, we had to be closer to the stock car racing hub.
The move to North Carolina was in November of 1978, and we hired one of my modified competitors, Ronnie Bouchard, whose family had a moving company out of Fitchburg, Massachusetts, to move us to Pleasant Garden. While my family was adjusting to a new life in North Carolina, I was spending a lot of time in Connecticut to work with the team in preparation for the 1979 NASCAR Winston Cup season. The situation was not easy because our family was apart a lot during that time. Kathy and I had the same goals as me, and she wanted to see me race in Daytona someday. She was doing whatever it took to help me get there.
Before the move to North Carolina, I had secured a ride with a Winston Cup Series team out of Connecticut owned by Jack Beebe. Satch Worley, a friend of mine and a modified competitor, had run some races for the team during the 1978 season. Jack was looking to go full-time racing in 1979, but it was something that Satch did not want to do. Satch told me that the team was looking for a full-time driver and that I should call Jack and tell him I was available.
Not only did I get the opportunity to race in the Daytona 500 in 1979, but I soaked in each and every moment. The journey to this point was only making the burning desire to race among the best ignite that much more. I continued to do so each Daytona 500 throughout my career.
Part 2
A Dream Short-Lived
The Daytona 500 came and went. As fast as everything came together, it ended in the blink of an eye. We took the car back to the shop in Connecticut and started to get ready for our next race on the schedule. At the snap of my fingers, it was time for Jack Beebe and I’s second race together, tackling the high banks of Rockingham Speedway.
Our Oldsmobile had decent speed in qualifying, and I started the race from the twenty-third position. I was running really well in the race until the racecar started to fall apart on us. The car was having issues with the wheel studs all weekend. Wheel studs serve as fasteners that hold the wheels on a car. The wheels were not lining up right, which was causing the wheel studs to break. About a hundred laps into the 492-lap race at this tight and high-banked mile track, I came off Turn 2, and the right-rear tire beat me to Turn 3. Our race weekend was a disaster. The team put new wheel studs in the right-rear hub. I went out and ran a few more laps before they broke again. I dropped out of the race and finished twenty-second, more than 200 laps down. Our team’s next Winston Cup event would be at the 1.522-mile Atlanta International Raceway two weeks later.
Determined to minimize the chances of mechanical issues, Birdy, our team mechanic, and I worked on the Atlanta racecar back at the team shop once we all returned from the Rockingham race. Atlanta practice started on Wednesday. Birdy and I worked on the car through practice on Wednesday and Thursday. We found a respectable, driveable setup for the track, which was a 1.522-mile back then.
Crew chief Bob Johnson was not happy that Birdy and I were leaving him out of the chassis setup at the track. Jack Beebe told me to take care of the driving responsibilities while Bob would take care of the chassis setup on the racecar. Bob decided he would make changes that he felt would be best for the car. The racecar was being taken apart, and I asked Bob to write down what they were doing so that if his setup didn’t work, it could be put back in the event their changes wouldn’t work. Come race morning on Sunday, Bob and the crew were using torches and welders to work on the undercarriage of the car.
I asked Bob what they were doing, and he said he figured out what was wrong and they were making changes to make it better. I was frustrated with the situation. I ended up talking with Harry Hyde, crew chief for Winston Cup driver Tighe Scott at the time, and team owner Leonard Wood about the changes my team was making to the car to see what they would recommend for the situation.
“Boy, just hang on; it’s not going to be good,” Harry told me.
The race began, and I was holding on, trying not to crash the car. It was driving awful.
I was in the way. I was falling laps down. If I kept going, I was going to wreck somebody. It was embarrassing.
I drove the car onto pit road and to the garage area, telling my team over the radio that they needed to come to the garage and make adjustments to the car. No one showed up, and as I continued to wait, sitting in the parked racecar inside the garage stall, Jack’s son finally came over to tell me everyone had left because they were mad. I didn’t return to the race, and I was credited with a thirty-fifth-place finish in the race, completing just sixty-six laps.
Jack and I spoke the following day, and we both decided Bob Johnson and I couldn’t work together any longer. Jack was a man of his word. We had an agreement about my salary working with the team. Even though I wasn’t driving, Jack honored that agreement for the next three months.
I was back in North Carolina without a job, but I was not out of work for too long. Those were uncertain times, but my wife never complained, and she continued to support me as I tried to figure out what we were going to do next.
I got a phone call from Lee Allard, a team owner and businessman in New Hampshire. He had a couple of Maynard Troyer’s modifieds. He wanted to pay me to come up to the area and help him change the suspensions in his racecars. When I was driving for Armstrong, our racecars had a three-link suspension, while the racecars I was going to work on had leaf-spring suspensions in the rear. This was all to make the car faster, and the beneficiary of the better car was none other than my buddy Satch Worley, the racer who hooked me up with my first Winston Cup Series ride.
I made my way up to New Hampshire and started working on one of the racecars because I had no choice but to support my family. After the three-link suspension was put in one of the racecars, the next step was to take it for a test.
We set our sights on Seekonk Speedway in Massachusetts, otherwise known as The Concrete Palace. The track is a one-fourth mile circle track, and the racecar had a big-block engine and my newly installed three-link suspension. People were laughing and saying we wouldn’t be able to get around the track because we had the big-block engine. But we kicked the competition’s butt. No one was able to keep up with us!
Allard’s other racecar had a small-block engine, so we swapped out the suspension in favor of the three-link setup again and tested it out at Oswego Speedway in New York, right near where I grew up, the next week. We smoked the competition again. The three-link suspension was the trick.
I was settling into life in Hudson, New Hampshire. Allard and his wife built a log cabin and had a garage underneath where he could fit two cars. I was living with the Allards and working in the garage, making a living maintaining their racecars and racing, all while my family was in North Carolina. Lee told me to pick which car I wanted to drive, and Satch would drive the other.
“No, let Satch pick the car he wants, and I’ll drive the other,” I said.
Satch picked the small-block car, which left the big-block car to me.
While Kathy and I couldn’t see each other every day or pick up the smartphone to FaceTime—because that technology wasn’t even close to being invented—we would make it a point to talk on the phone as much as possible. I would use the phone in the garage and, at times, use pay phones (remember those?) so I could talk to my wife and sons. It wasn’t easy on our family, with me being gone all the time.
Opportunity
Knocks Again
About three weeks later, the NASCAR Late Model Sportsman division (better known as the Xfinity Series today) was going to be racing at South Boston Speedway in Virginia. While I spent a rare weekend home with my family in Pleasant Garden, I went to the track in South Boston to see if any rides were possibly available.
Emmanuel Zervakis was fielding a car for the great late model racer Sonny Hutchens, who owned a restaurant in Richmond, Virginia, where Emmanuel was from. Sonny was getting older and didn’t want to be racing full-time. At the track, he introduced me to Emmanuel, and we put a deal together where I would race full-time for him in the Sportsman division.
So there I was, on the road again, taking my mini-motor home to Richmond to start racing for another team owner and giving this another go. Over the course of the next couple of years, I raced for Zervakis in the NASCAR Late Model Sportsman division, and he was very willing to let me try to make adjustments to the suspension of the late models we were racing.
Zervakis and I tore up the sportsman’s late-model circuit in 1980 and 1981. The first racecar his sons and I built, we put in power steering, and the results were showing on the tack. Everywhere we took our No. 99 “White Tornado” to the track, we were contenders. In our first race together over the summer of 1979, we finished second at South Boston, and the next night, with the same car and tires, we won at Langley Field. We won races throughout 1980 and 1981 at South Boston, Langley Field, Southside Speedway, Hickory Motor Speedway, Martinsville, Asheboro Speedway, and Oxford Speedway.
Zervakis hadn’t fielded a Winston Cup car since 1974, but he wanted to get back, and so did I. My fan club raised some funds to help us build a Cup car to race again in the Winston Cup Series, today known as the NASCAR Cup Series.
The car we built was awesome—a white 1981 Buick Regal with a big 01 slapped on its sides—but the unfortunate part is that I only got to run it three times in 1981. We had some engine troubles each time with it. However, I did pick up my first career top-10 finish with Zervakis at Charlotte. Not only did I lead eleven laps at Charlotte that October, but we took home a seventh-place finish.
I was tired of living in my small mini-motor home in the parking lot of Emmanuel’s shop in Richmond. The constant smell of the nearby tobacco factories was sickening to my stomach. Plus, the only time I would see my family was during the weekends at the racetrack. So I chose to be with my family rather than Richmond, Virginia, building and racing cars with Emmanuel. I appreciate all of the opportunities he gave me, but I loved my family and just needed to be closer to them. I started the 1982 race season without a ride.
From Rag-Tag
to Riches
The word got out I was leaving Zervakis Racing, and a young race mechanic who worked for Frank Plessinger, nicknamed “Fat Boy,” got in touch with me and told me that Frank had a late-model car and needed a driver. I got in touch with Frank; we put a deal together to run the late-model Daytona race and as many races after that as we could.
He was just a good racer; he knew how to drive. He could run with the best.
Frank Plessinger
The team did not have the resources you would expect a multi-million dollar race operation to have. When I say our team was a rag-tag operation, I say it with the utmost respect for Frank and what we accomplished that season. We had a single racecar in the inventory out of our small shop in Maryland and just a couple of guys who were working with the team whenever possible.
We started the season qualifying second in Daytona and finished fifth, not a bad way to start the season. We followed up Daytona with two DNFs at Richmond and Bristol. I earned the pole at the fourth race of the year at Martinsville, leading twenty-six laps before finishing in fourth place. It was a good but not great start to the year. The next race on the schedule was Darlington Raceway. Darlington is one of NASCAR’s oldest tracks located in northern South Carolina. The track has a reputation for being tough on rookie drivers because of its long straightaways and narrow, tight turns. I had previously raced there in the sportsman division, but this year, I had a good feeling our small team could make some big noise.
I started in third place for the race, right behind Harry Gant and NASCAR legend David Pearson. Dale Earnhardt was also going to be in the race. I didn’t have a lot of experience, and I recognized how difficult the track was. I said to myself that I was just going to follow David, knowing he was one of the all-time best in the sport and had won Grand National races at the track, to learn how to race it, manage traffic, and not hit the wall. I followed him around, and he was really careful when passing cars. He showed me the racing groove, but most of all, he showed me the patience you need to have at Darlington. The track is so narrow and fast that one mistake can earn you a Darlington Stripe—where the right side of your racecar makes contact with the outside wall and leaves a stripe of paint along the wall because the car easily slides right into it with the high banking—or even more; a crash that could end the day.
As the race went on, I was schooled by the great David Pearson; later in the race, I took the lead and won the race! It was a true underdog story, with our team beating one of the best, David Pearson, in our sport’s history. That day, and every time I talk about it, I give David credit for showing me how to run Darlington. He showed me how to be patient at the track, and by starting directly behind him, David was a great teacher that day. After all, he was a ten-time winner at Darlington in the Winston Cup Series.
Two days after the victory, I got a call from Cliff Stewart, who owned the No. 50 car in the Cup Series.
“I saw what you did at Darlington,” Cliff told me. “If you can win Darlington, you can win anywhere. Come on down to the shop, and let’s talk.”
Cliff Stewart owned a furniture plant in High Point, North Carolina, where his team shop was located. After talking with Cliff and crew chief Darrell Bryant, he shook hands and had a deal to race together.
I had a decision to make. Frank and I had just taken the points lead in the series, but now I was presented with a great opportunity to go racing in NASCAR’s elite series. What was I supposed to do? I had to dig deep inside my mind to do some soul-searching and really figure out what the best route for me was. After praying over it and talking it over with Kathy, the decision was a no-brainer: I needed to get back to Winston Cup to have a shot at winning Daytona someday, and here was a chance to return to racing on Sundays. I raced one more time for Frank, and he graciously agreed that I should take the opportunity to drive the rest of the season for Cliff in the Winston Cup Series. Thank you, Frank!
