Skip ahead if you must… Here’s the highlights from this episode you might be most interested in and their corresponding time stamps.

Crew Chief Brad: [00:00:00] Welcome to The Racers Roundtable, a podcast sponsored by the Eastern Museum of Motor Racing where history meets horsepower and legends live on each episode brings together voices from across the motor sports world, from grassroots heroes to seasoned veterans as they share stories, insights, and behind the scenes tales that shaped their racing journeys.

Whether you’re a diehard fan of dirt tracks, drag strips, or open wheel icons. The racers round table is your seat at the table for candid conversations and timeless memories from those who lived it. Strap in tight because it’s time to talk. Racing history one lap at a time.

Lynn Paxton: We always put the best up here first, and then this is the rest. Okay,

Jimmy Maguire: is this on? Can people hear me? Is this on?

Lynn Paxton: I hope not, but I think it is.

Jimmy Maguire: I can’t hear myself talking

Lynn Paxton: now. I’ve stuck enough [00:01:00] needles in him. I, I want Ron Lauer to work on him here a little bit. My best friend in racing with your, I know I sat side with your background.

I didn’t realize until I read your resume. Yeah, I think your daughter put it out. I don’t know. I, I knew you were, you know, a RDC racer and in one races, and I knew you were A RDC champion won race.

Stink.

Ron Lauer: That’s when you were old and done.

Lynn Paxton: Got a point there. Anyhow, I want you to work on him a little bit. I’m gonna step back from the, the microphone here a little bit.

Ron Lauer: I knew what this was all about. See, Lynn knows that in a three hour segment like this, Jimmy’s gotta take at least six or seven deep breaths and I’m here to fill the gap.

But that’s about it, right? Well, actually I didn’t know Jimmy when he was taking people out at her rides. I was, I was just a kid. And, uh, but when he [00:02:00] had his, uh, accident and came back in the TQS and N-A-R-D-C, I got to know Jimmy, and he really does have a great story. When you go through the whole thing, you just don’t have to hear it as many times.

That’s all know now, really the things you accomplished, I, I know you didn’t race as long with both arms as you did with one, and you won more races with one arm than you did with two.

Lynn Paxton: Yeah.

Ron Lauer: 52 rashes total. 21 with two

Jimmy Maguire: arms and three, one with one on them. Now how many guys have done that? Come on. A

Lynn Paxton: he?

Jimmy Maguire: Yeah. There you go. Yeah. But he had a hand, he just lost his hand. He just, he just lost his hand. I lost the hand. See that’s right here.

Ron Lauer: LER won 52 races two years in a row with one leg. One

Jimmy Maguire: leg. Yeah. And I ran, you are seeing, finished his fourth and points and won three race. And I had my whole leg in a cast on the right side.

When I drove for Harry D and the way I worked the gas pedal, they gave me a test. I took a hammer and I smashed the ball of the cast so I could work the work. The gas pedal, [00:03:00] they took two laps. I just kept the, the gas pedal to the floor. The first two blows went

Lynn Paxton: to the head though, I’ll tell you that.

Jimmy Maguire: Two, two laps around the racetrack, but my foot to the foot and say, okay, can run all way.

Some along in 62. I goes, my crutches. Get in the car and run the car. Won a couple of races, did good. Finish both points so you can run a car with one leg. He should

Ron Lauer: breathe soon. I’m ready. Okay, we’re up here. Lynn’s not up here, so I don’t know what in the world we’re gonna talk about. You wanna talk about it then, or.

About who? Lynn.

Audience Q&A: Oh. Oh,

Ron Lauer: Mr. McCabe has a question for him. What

Audience Q&A: was it like racing with Hank Rogers, Jr.

Jimmy Maguire: Oh, Hank was the buddy man. He sold mine. He sold, listen, his

Audience Q&A: father,

Jimmy Maguire: listen, let me tell you about Hank. I wanted him down here so I could refute it. We raced against each other. A great guy. He ran for Kalen for two years, didn’t win the race, right?

So I appeared on the scene. We were at the Check five pain club and he said, Hey, my, my car owner’s getting another car. Would you like to drive? Oh, I’d love to drive. I didn’t have a ride for a couple years. So he got me a ride with Kaylin. [00:04:00] So I got in and of course I set my own cars up. Kaylin doesn’t set ’em up, right?

And that’s why they never won. So any, and I’m telling you, this is what happened. Anyway, I set the car up and after a couple of races, I won a race. So after I won a race, he set Hank’s car up that way, and Hank started to win races. So all season long was back and forth. I’d went and go ahead and point. So finally I had a little alation one night at the race and some guy, uh.

Call me a bad name. So I punch him in the mouth that, that, uh, suspended me for two races. So then I was still up there and fighting for the championship, two races to go the end of the season, Hank’s about maybe 50 points ahead of me. So we’re going to two asphalt tracks. Thompson, I forget what the, but I was good in asphalt.

Hank wasn’t. So what does his father do? He fires me right at the racetrack. I couldn’t even get, I was with his father going to the racetrack and I had hitch a ride from somebody else to go home and we were three oh oh miles away from home. So anyway, Hank runs, I don’t know, whatever it was, he wins the championship.[00:05:00]

So of course the night of the championship, and I congratulate him, but I kid with ’em all the time because I took my average, what I got for every race I ran, an average every race that Hank got. And if I had to ran the whole season, I would’ve won the championship with the average. If, you know, that doesn’t always happen.

So anyways, father fired me and you know, I still stayed friends. That’s the way it was. You know, guy had this swing about him once in a while and they fire guys. We go to the banquet, congratulate Hank and congratulate everybody. He finished first the championship. I finished second, but I always tell Hank, Hank, you know, I know you’re the champion, but we were gonna make a decision.

We’ve put this before a judge, and I said, I made so many average points per race and I even had so many average points per race. If I ran the whole circuit, I’d beat you. Right. I said before court of law, I’d win the race, I’d win the championship. So I was, so this is a ongoing thing with Hank and I, but he’s officially the A RDC champ for that year, and I finished second, but we always get together and we river on that, you know?

So [00:06:00] anyway, that’s what we is, and it gets him fired up. That’s why I wanted him here today. Get him fired up and he couldn’t make it. Great friend. Great guy.

Lynn Paxton: When you bump Wednesday out of that ride, that was over 60 years ago. Do you realize that? I know

Jimmy Maguire: that, I know. It was 1962 and it’s 19 2 23. So it’s 60 years in 1 61 years.

Yeah. Yeah. And I’m still here, so I must have done something. Right before that, we had a racer, Richmond, Virginia. I blew the engine to Harry D’s car. So there was another guy that wrecked his car. So I said, Hey, can we change engines? Okay, we up at Williams Grove. It was a seven hour ride to Richmond. We rode up, cut to Williams Grove at seven o’clock next Sunday morning.

We changed it. Took the engine out of a bunch of guys, helped me. We had a two by four in the field. We had spectators watching. Two by four. We lifted the engine out, took the engine out of Brownie sky, went to put it in. I had an eight tooth spine on the transmission heat at 10th. By this time it was one o’clock in the afternoon.

There I ran the heat. Bill [00:07:00] hints ran like that was right. He ran the heat, whatever he finished. So anyway, we get up the next day, one o’clock we couldn’t do. I’m sitting there like this. The car owner from cys or whatever cys car that he was driving. The car owner came over personally and said to me, what are you gonna do now?

I said, well, I don’t have a ride. I’m out of, he said, well, I want you to run the car on the feature. I said, what happened to Cy? He said, I don’t want in my race car. So he said, I want a guy that stands on the gas pedal. I know this. Kyle, go Now what this car was, this was a USAC car, a good car. So I said, I said to him, yeah, I’m a race car driver.

So on the way over there, once he grabs me, he said, where you going? That’s my race car. I said, no, that guy owns the race car. You’re just a driver and he wants somebody that puts the foot to the floor. So all I know is that’s my reputation. So I get in the race car, I start last in the race because first time I’m driving the car and he qualified through the consolation race.

So I start back. So I stepped on the gas bar. Wow. The going down the straightaway passed three cars. I said, wow. Kept my foot to the floor. [00:08:00] Passed before, you know, in four, five laps. I was in second spot. So I said, wow. He said, good car. So all of a sudden they had a red flag. Big stop, crashed someplace. They restart the race cookie os out is on the pole.

Now in those days you didn’t start side by side, you start single file. So Cook, we go in the corner. I’m right behind Cookie Os out. He spins right in front of me. Well, when you spin, he lets the car roll up the racetrack. I’m trying to go around the outside of my left front wheel, hits his left rear wheel.

I do a series of Andover and flips, which made the front lane paper of the illustrated news. I end over and over and I land upside down. Fortunately, I was okay because I held myself in the car, in the robot, saved my life so I get outta the car. So once he comes over afterwards and says to me, see that you wrecked the car.

That was my ride. The car owner said, look boy, you’re gonna run the car next week for me. You fixed the car that was open and twisted. You fixed the car all up. The next week I ran the car at Abbot, stop the car. In those days, the beat [00:09:00] was the number 27, the Venetia car. That was the car on the East Coast to beat.

Here I am, I got through the Tri Baytown here. All of a sudden you see this guy in front of me. Wow. I got close to him and I didn’t win the race. They finished second, so the car was happy. So that ended my ride, that car because, uh, the season was ended for URC. The last race for URC was in Shelby, not Carolina work.

And I was auditioning for him. He said, do you wanna ride my car there? You don’t? Yeah, I’ll ride a car. Anyway, I go down there. I was four. I won the feature, sat in back, I won the feature. That was my first feature with URC in 1962. And I had the ride for the following year. So when the following year started, now all, all went along.

I was a single guy, so I ate at his house every night. I managed kids. We had a good time. I became part of John LAN’s family. So the season started about a week before USAC was gonna run Langhorn. He said to me, Jim, I’m not gonna put you in the car. You’re too close to the family. Langhorn is a killer racetrack in them days.

And he said, A lot of you young guys go [00:10:00] wacky down there. I was mad as heck. I got so mad at

Lynn Paxton: him. He put Bobby Marvin in. He put Bobby in

Jimmy Maguire: the car, same age as I was. He was a crazy guy, but he was from Ohio. Well, he gets in the car and kills himself. He hit one of the chuck holes that I probably would’ve hit.

Goes in over in car catches, fires in them days where he had no fuel cells. The car catches fire. And of course you can’t see the fire burning. And you know what they had for a fire crew back in those days? A truck with a one, one bottle on it to put the fire on. Well, by the time he got to the car, 15 minutes later, it was all burnt up and alcohol.

He couldn’t see the fire. Of course, he burned the dead. The cow was surround. So I went over and apologized that, John, thanks for not giving me a ride up. This was a Sunday afternoon, right? I get home nine o’clock, Sunday night, I get a call from Venetia. Here I am 21-year-old kid. He says to me, Jim McGuire, right?

I said, yeah. So I says, this is sad, Venetia. I said, are you the guy that owns that 27, the one that Hank Rogers senior drives? He said, yeah. He said, well, we weren’t very satisfied with laying on today. He [00:11:00] should have went faster. So we want a young guy like your charger. You were the one that gave us the most hot time passing.

That’s right. You

Lynn Paxton: got Hank Senior fired out of that car so you could get in it, right?

Jimmy Maguire: Is that true? No. He said to me, Uhhuh, he said to me, Hank’s not Hank’s getting old now, he should have been. Go do it. He was 50 years old. He was an old man. So, uh,

Lynn Paxton: his son still holds it against you.

Jimmy Maguire: He says, we want you to drive the car for us. You’re a hot charger. Okay, so the first time I rode the car was, are we gonna yank asphalt? Which I’m good on asphalt. That’s what I was brought up in. So Bobby caught Wright al qui fighting with each other and they won first and second. I finished third, but but easy was happy.

Finished third on asphalt. Hank Rogers senior never did good on asphalt. None of the old time dirt drivers. Never did good on asphalt, but I did good. So I was happy. So he says, you’ve got the ride. So the next race we go to Georgetown. I win that race and I won. Did pretty good as the season. Went on an asphalt track again in [00:12:00] Quebec, Canada.

I was leading the race, running good, I’m laughing. Dave Humphreys, the rear axle breaks, he goes out in front of me, hit the tire, flip end over, and I land on the wall up, upside down and the wall, the back of the race goes shit. Right.

Lynn Paxton: Seems to be a pattern here, doesn’t it? One

Jimmy Maguire: behind the robot. Well that’s what happens there guys.

It, I only knew one way to drive before, got the floor. And car owners do a lot of money like and you like extra car

Lynn Paxton: owner. I only

Jimmy Maguire: knew one way to drive car owners, like guys that put the floor to the floor. They didn’t care if they have to spend the money as long as they want. That’s the way it was really.

So that’s why a young age. I got quick. So anyway, uh, I landed upside down the wall. She had the race car off the back. Said there like half conscious. I said to sab, how’s the race car? Don’t worry about the race car. You gotta get better. So we go to the hospital. I spend a week in the hospital. I get outta the hospital, I fly down on Friday to Georgetown, Delaware.

The car’s waiting for me. They get all ready for me. I win the race down there in the Georgetown. I was back. The newspaper says my body, what

Lynn Paxton: were you in the hospital for? Mental illness or what was it?

Jimmy Maguire: They thought I broke my neck. They [00:13:00] thought I broke ’cause my neck was hurting and they hooked me x-rays.

You’d

Lynn Paxton: have been in trouble if you broke your jaw because you wouldn’t have been able to talk

Jimmy Maguire: anyway. Hey, once talked a long time. He said a lot of nice things. All right, come on. He still talked longer than I did.

Lynn Paxton: They were better stories. He was an extra at attraction. That’s he put first. You know what’s

Jimmy Maguire: great about we?

Lynn Paxton: I was listening to a loser.

Jimmy Maguire: That’s why I was listening. So that was it. I was a winner. That was the difference. And the car owners liked winners. That’s why I got a best ride. The best guy Wednesday.

Lynn Paxton: You never got your car upside down, right.

Billy Wentz Sr: Never did. Right. It is everybody

Lynn Paxton: else’s car. Right.

Billy Wentz Sr: How far? Never did.

Yeah. But, uh, I’ve been held the car, couple them over,

Lynn Paxton: not as many as Wonder Boy. Over here. I went over, okay, thank you. I went over

Jimmy Maguire: 15 times in my career.

Lynn Paxton: His percentages. There’s 14 pictures over there, right in that Jimmy McGuire, case 14. Which one did we miss?

Jimmy Maguire: I didn’t put any of my Ricks in there. I’m glad you didn’t put any of my Ricks in there.

I brought that to Well, I got,

Lynn Paxton: I got one of Vene Carl [00:14:00] tour to hell. Who did that? Uh, yeah. Where’s that? The guy that just went, uh, that’s

Jimmy Maguire: Dick. Yeah. But he told me, he said to me, don’t worry about it. We’ll fix up. We’ll get to the next race. The next race at one part. We’ll see. When you drove for Ezio, I was a young kid.

I thought you had to win every race when you drove for him. ’cause the driver, Hank Senior did a job. He won 12 races one year for him. And here’s another thing I did. Whenever we were young drivers and you got a car, car owners, you got in, you know, some guy would say, well, can you change this? You can change that.

If I told Mari this a long time ago. I said when you we’re young guys, when you get in a race guy, never complain that something’s wrong. Wait till you do good, then complain. So I get into an easiest guy. I said, man, everything’s perfect. I love this guy. After I won my first race, I said, you know, this should be this way.

So then after you win and do good for him, then they changed for you. You know? And that’s the way it was in them days. Because the cos, well, one way Carl said one thing in their mind. Right? It my way. When I went to Kinesio, I said, everything’s perfect. Everything. Even when I finished third, everything was perfect.

Everything was perfect. [00:15:00] They were happy with me when I won Georgetown and I changed things, but I had to win first before they’d listen to me. If you didn’t win, they put another charge in the car. Right? And I’m telling the truth, right, bill? That’s it. You gotta put the guy. Hey. That’s the first

Lynn Paxton: thing they’ve agreed on for a long time.

Okay? They both remembered the situation. One a little different than the other, but that’s okay.

Jimmy Maguire: Well, anyway,

Lynn Paxton: but I forgot about it. Hank, how you stealing that ride from him? I came,

Jimmy Maguire: wait a minute. When I came back, after my being in the hospital, I was down a few points. Now I was a point leader before that happened.

They had a couple of races. SAB gets to me sign. He says, you know Jim, you don’t have to win every race. I said, I thought I had to win every race. That’s why I try and I crash if I can win. He says, Jim, ’cause I’d crash, I’d win a race. I crashed. I win. I crashed. He said, Jim, just finish second or third if you have to.

I said, oh, okay. So then I started, I started racing. If I finished second, and if it was hard to race, I’d finish third, fourth. I had 52 races in my career. Right. There’s probably about another 25 that this year won [00:16:00] when I never won ’em. Like on a weekend, on a rough dirt track. I’d be leading the race and all of a sudden a guy would come to challenge me.

I’d back off a little bit because my arm, my left arm was so numb. I didn’t have full control of the wheel. So I just let the guy go by me and I didn’t want to have to fight him. So some other times they finished second and third. I had the lead at that time, but I was good. If we had 10 laps to go in the race, I was strong for 10 laps.

If we had like a 25 straight race to run my amud weekend, I have to back off a little bit. That’s an honest truth. So, and we get to the end of the season, right? Where at Shelby, North Carolina. So he says to me, Jim, you got the point lead. All you’re gotta do is finish in the top 10 and you win the championship.

And he said that guy’s, even if he wins, you finish the top 10, you win the championship. So I got down to North Carolina, I worked my way through travel. I’m up in second spot and Earl Hor is in front of me, the champion that year before. So I said, set up a gun. I can beat Earl. I remember what Cas Sam said.

Finished in the top 10 and you got the championship. I backed off. Earl helped me. He was an older guy. He helped me a lot. Him and Bobby. Kwright [00:17:00] really helped me a lot in my younger career. He

Lynn Paxton: helped

Jimmy Maguire: me too. He seriously, he helped me. Bobby Kwright gave me the name Magoo. It was the first time I ran against him.

He couldn’t, I’d give you a different name than

Lynn Paxton: that, but I couldn’t repeat it up here.

Jimmy Maguire: And the way I got the name Magoo was my first year at Binghamton, New York. That was my first year running Spencer in 61. When you run asphalt to New England, when you get the move over, fight, you move down on dirt, you move up to leave the guy.

I didn’t know that. So when they gave me the move over fight for Bobby Cutright leading the race. I pulled down, which I cut him off. He didn’t crash, but Earl went around the outside, he won the race ball. We finished second and that didn’t mean too much then. But when the season ended in 1962, they tied from the championship.

If he had a pass mate, he would’ve won the championship by five points. So they were the first coach champs in the only coach Champs in URC. And that was because I cut Bobby, cut right off. So after the race, he comes walking over to me. Now he’s an old man. He’s 35 years old, right? I’m a young kid,

Lynn Paxton: 20 years old.

We should be 35 again. [00:18:00]

Jimmy Maguire: He says, he sees me coming down and he says, what’s your name, kid? I said McGuire. Jim McGuire, he is my first sprint. He says to me, McGuire, we’re gonna call you Magoo. You don’t know where the hell you are going. So ironically, that name is stuck with me all the time. And of course it helped me be Bump.

I bumped in a few guys along my way. So every time they say, McGuire named you Magoo. So that, that name stuck with me.

Lynn Paxton: Ey, you sure you didn’t give that name? Magoo?

Billy Wentz Sr: I’ll tell you one thing, ever since that happened, I never walked away from my ride

Lynn Paxton: at a boy.

Billy Wentz Sr: I stayed right there all the time.

Jimmy Maguire: Vince soon was a great driver.

Don’t, don’t get me wrong, he was a great one. So wait a minute, what? I kissed his daughter in Victory Lane. When I beat Foot, I did. I kissed Bill’s daughter in Victory Lane. When I beat Foy. That was the girl on the trophy. Okay, go ahead. Wait a minute. I didn’t do that. Hey, no.

Lynn Paxton: Who got paid that night?

Jimmy Maguire: Foy.

Yeah. Wanted the trophy. And I said, no, that’s my trophy. Yeah,

Lynn Paxton: the trophy. And I pulled it away from the hand on it top, the big [00:19:00] trophy, except for one piece. Foy has that

Jimmy Maguire: he took. I said, I’m so serious. I said to Foy, you got the money, I’m gonna keep the trophy.

Lynn Paxton: Yep.

Jimmy Maguire: I worked out in Indy for five years after that, and every year I went on to say, where’s my trophy?

Where’s my trophy?

Ron Lauer: Ray. Ray McCabe was gonna bring this up because as I’m sitting here next to you, tell him about the time you went to Pocono on the three quarter mile and didn’t have any of their stuff with you, and you borrowed everything and what happened after you? Oh yeah, that was, well,

Jimmy Maguire: that was Boston.

I went up there with Hank and I, him a ride. You’re a good friend, Dan. We’re best friends. We’re still out, I think. Uh, although, you know what? He got me fired from my car. That’s why he won the championship. I wanted him here to tell him that he was afraid I was gonna beat Hank. And his, his wife had owned the car.

That’s the way it worked. And he didn’t want his wife winning the championship.

Lynn Paxton: Kalen told me I was a bunch of bullshit. Hank probably

Jimmy Maguire: did too. Yeah.

Ron Lauer: Anyway. Tell when you went to Pocono.

Jimmy Maguire: So I went to the Poconos. I had no ride. [00:20:00] So all of sudden, and a three

Ron Lauer: quarter mile track inside Pocot.

Jimmy Maguire: And what happened is, uh.

Blackie came down. He was supposed to be a driver, but the forecast from New England was, it was gonna rain in Poconos. So the driver never came to the racetrack. So they said, Hey, Blackie’s got the car. And I knew Blackie very personally from back home in Boston. So he said to me, uh, do you wanna run the car?

I said, okay. I don’t have any equipment. So I borrowed a uniform from somebody. I borrowed a helmet from oil and I borrowed everything from extra drivers. I get in the car and I go out in the heat to qualify and man, Blackie had an illegal engine. They let him run. It was a sco, really built big illegal engine that’s a fresh, it was an oversized Nova sized engine, but they let him go because the guy guys had in it weren’t drivers.

So they never competed hard against anybody. So I stepped in the gas filet. I passed three off. He, I, whoa. Anyway, I got up the second or third spot. And I said, wow, this car’s flying, and all of a sudden I passed the two Scon brothers on the outside and I says, this thing’s flying. Then all of a [00:21:00] sudden I go in the corner, I lose it.

I hit the wall, I flip in over and I lost mother one. Yeah. That was my time. I hit the wall. I over.

Ron Lauer: Yeah, but how about when you were in practice and you didn’t have your racing arm with you and your other one kind of left the steering wheel. Do you remember that?

Jimmy Maguire: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. I didn’t have my steering arm with my, had my regular artificial arm and Yeah, that’s right too.

That’s probably why I spun out. You’re right, right. By the way,

Lynn Paxton: we have his bag here. His one arm is hanging right there on the case, and the other one’s in the bag.

Jimmy Maguire: Well, the other one was a high, when you run heavy, that one I could run asphalt with. The other one, I had to run dirt because dirt was rough.

And when I ran this one on dirt, it broke in the elbow all the time. It was a rough dirt track. It was the one I run an asphalt. The other one, I took the screw off and screwed it in and it had quarter orange titanium rods on either side of it had all laminated so it wouldn’t break. And that’s the way I drove that one.

I drove on dirt and this one, I drove an asphalt. That’s why I had a big bag. I had a lot of things in my bag. [00:22:00]

Ron Lauer: Anyway, he came in after that warmup. He may not remember this, but somewhere along the line, his regular hook bounced off the wheel and his right arm was banging on the right rear tire. And he came in and there was rubber all over his hook.

And the guys on the track that didn’t know this was Jimmy McGuire, his arms bouncing on the back and they thought I lost every hand. And then you flip the guy’s car. You know, I was gonna bid on that neck brace they had. But it said on their living legend that I didn’t know you were still alive.

Jimmy Maguire: Well, you know, I thought it was, wait a minute, February 5th this year down in Daytona, I never had NASCAR in my life, but they made me a living legend along with Larry McReynolds, uh, Kyle Pit.

Oh, that’s right.

Lynn Paxton: That’s what this show’s all about, him being a living legend. I forgot about that.

Jimmy Maguire: And it says, and I got this February 5th. 2023. Honest to God, I was invited to come down. So Mario and Dirty sponsored three [00:23:00] tables because you know, I make friends easy. I cost eight. We’re gonna have

Lynn Paxton: Mario’s introduction for McGuire,

Jimmy Maguire: so, so $800 a table had cost these sponsors.

I had a good time. All my friend showed up. My daughter’s come down from Boston. One come, my daughters are there, and my grandsons were there. So a matter of fact, Mario gave me a tribute, which is on the wall. My grandson, 19 years old, gave me, he presented me the Hall of Fame down there and they said, and it’s all written on the wall then

Lynn Paxton: It’s not the bathroom wall, it’s the wall over there, Mario Speech

Jimmy Maguire: is on top and the grandsons on the bottom.

It’s got a picture of Mario and I together in 63 the year he finished Second Points with the A RDC and I won the championship in URC. So that’s all on the wall if you want to look at it. But anyway. I got pictures taken with Kyle Petty and all the other guys. But Larry Res was first getting, and he had to leave right away.

He had to be on TV the next day, so he left right away. So I never got a picture, but this year I’m planning to go up and I hope he’s there. I want, I get a picture taken with him. But that was quite, so I [00:24:00] got in there with those guys and those guys were real nascat guys. And I was just an outsider. You know what they call me?

They call me a Saturday night hero. And I guess that pissed me.

Lynn Paxton: They call

Jimmy Maguire: the award was a Saturday night hero.

Lynn Paxton: Saturday night special was always a gun to me. No

Jimmy Maguire: Saturday night, right? Didn’t I win the at A RDC at at Grandview because I was good with the fans. Right? Now you, Ernie Saxon had a favorite driver of roll water something every year, and I won six years in a row.

They finally ended it because nobody else could win it. And I was a ham. I was a ham. I’d get down an intermission, sit in the stands with all the fans, sign autographs.

Lynn Paxton: You ran second three times by the way.

Jimmy Maguire: So I’d get down to the fans, I talk with him, invite him up the trailer afterwards, and I was the only one that allowed to have the dog in the pistol thing.

He was on the trailer at Benjamin. And the kids would come around, I’d sign autographs with the kids that that bench. So I was kind of a, a happy fan, you know, with the fans. That’s why they voted for me. I guess I had a rule at Grand Grandview, whenever I wanna race, the kids had to all come in with me.

They weren’t allowed to give me the [00:25:00] presentation, take pictures, unless the kids were with me. So I have several pictures of me with all the kids when I went, they’d be in there and I hold a checkered flag and the kids would be in Victory Lane with me. That’s why I guess I got the most popular drive right.

I get the most That’s true. Yes.

Ron Lauer: You were very good with the fence.

Jimmy Maguire: And the promoters like me and the, the photographers like me. Why? Because every time the picture was taken with a hundred kids, how about the beauty queen down in

Lynn Paxton: Australia? Did she like it? Wait, wait a minute. We’re not getting in

Jimmy Maguire: Australia anymore.

That’s another story. So anyway, when I would, when I would, when I would get in the fans, hey five spin out, there’d be a hundred, there’d be a hundred kids in that picture, right? The next week the photographer there would sell the pictures. He made a ton of dope with me and Victory Lane. ’cause all the fans wanted that kid in that picture.

Take a breath, take a breath. I’ll keep, if

Lynn Paxton: you’re right, I don’t want to be, I’ll tell you that

Ron Lauer: now. That was pretty much all truth.

Jimmy Maguire: Pretty

Lynn Paxton: much, pretty much.

Jimmy Maguire: I exaggerate on a few things, like a talks about getting one more fish than you should want, [00:26:00] but I have fun.

Billy Wentz Sr: Hey Jim. I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow over again.

Ron Lauer: Not in the morning, I hope.

Jimmy Maguire: I’m not taking off till four o’clock tomorrow afternoon.

Ron Lauer: What type

Jimmy Maguire: of

Ron Lauer: car

Jimmy Maguire: did

Ron Lauer: you lose your

Jimmy Maguire: arm in? It was, it was a sprint car, and Bobby Marshman drove in. Usac. Now I was in USAC now, so he had a stock car race that day. So he called me up and because he was a former URC pupil, he said, do you want to drive it?

I didn’t have ride because my car owner, which I did good in, I, I ran a car that was owned by AJ Watson and I took a second and third to flight in my debut, and then I, so I wanted to go racing, so, uh, yeah, I said, I wanna go. It was, I was already living on Indianapolis. He said, you got my car if you want it.

So I got in it. And, uh, now normally if the car was owned eight cylinders, I would’ve qualified further. But the les that only had seven cylinders in it, I didn’t care. I went. So I qualified. Good. I qualified fourth fastest Les, when you have only seven cylinders, you don’t do the pickup. So I had to [00:27:00] go three.

Hes, before I qualified, I qualified ninth. Well with cylinders, but I worked my way up to fifth and that’s when the, he spun. Once you ran two laps over the end, the thing was built up, you know, the speed was built up and I caught guys, as long as the race went on, I pass guys and of course the guy spun out in front of me.

Chuck Booth spun in front of me and instead of staying there, he backed up the racetrack and I got pictures of it. He’s backing up and my left front wheel hits his left rear wheel and I, he did a barrel side rolls. And when you do it, no rinse, they, they’re wild looking into over rinse, but those are the best ones to take because only the front and the back of hitting, you’re in the race guy, you’re not hitting it.

When you are a side roll, you head hits the ground, you knocked out immediately and that’s when most drivers, you look back at K with side rolls because back in those days, because you didn’t do a side rail, you had hits, head hits the ground, you’re out like a light. So that’s what happened to me. But Bobby Martin in the car drove that and that’s, I lost Miami.

And another thing would probably be Marshman car. Most robots are three or four inches behind. Behind your head. Bobby Marshman car [00:28:00] was right eve with your head. So of course when I started flipping with my arms when the car landed, the robot saved my life. But I took my arm off because the arm was between the roll bar on the ground and a message that was new Bernan, right?

And I didn’t wake up till two days later. So I didn’t feel anything. I didn’t know what the hell happened. All I know is I woke up, I could still see me waking up in the hospital. My dad was there, my girlfriend was there, which eventually became my wife, Henry Banks was there, all the big shots for insurance.

I was gonna act. I woke up and I said, whoa. I go, well on. I got. And I simply said, I got a new challenge in life. They all looked at each other and said, well this guy’s wacky. Said they all left. I had my one out. First thing I asked for was a pencil. ’cause I had to learn how to write with the left hand. And the whole six months I was in the hospital, I wrote, I learned how to write.

And you know what? If you ever talk to anybody that has lost a limb, when you learn how to write even with your other hand, by writing ’em the same thing as my right hand, you look at the signature, the only thing is it goes to the left. If I turn the paper sideways and I write, you can’t tell a my right hand or my left hand because you [00:29:00] learn.

Your brain only knows one way to write. You write slow. But it’s, I had to go back to drafting. My printing is the same as it was my right. You do it slower. Your brain only is one way. The right. So it goes back how I learn to write. ’cause I still have the feeling right now. I’m giving the finger to Paxton.

Lynn Paxton: If

Jimmy Maguire: I had this shirt off, you talk to your nerves are still, you have phip pain right now. If you looked at my arm off, you see a little nerve tch in there. That’s my little finger.

Lynn Paxton: Take a picture of that.

Ron Lauer: I’m glad you straightened that out.

Lynn Paxton: I’ve been told I’m number one. Before

Jimmy Maguire: when I laid in the hospital it hurt. I did not tell him, okay, I’m laying there and they said to me. Chuck Hal also. That was the number one driver for the Dean of Van Lion team. I was gonna take a test in the second car just to see if I could drive an Indy [00:30:00] car, but it never happened.

Sunday, I lost my arm. The next day I was supposed to sign my driver assist at Indy. So Wednesday I’m in the hospital, Jim Mcg again and Clint Brown and come in to see me. First they offered the ride to Roger Chop Penske. He said, no, I ain’t gonna drive any car. Me, I don’t want be killed. Roger Chop. Penske a nice guy, great for racing, but he drove sporty cars.

The ones that beat behind when they want to pass. That’s what he drove. I’m laying in the hospital of bed and they said, who are we gonna get for a driver? I said, well, did you ever hear of Andrei? He’s only, yeah, he’s a good midget driver. We read. But he’s the only 120 pounds and he only five foot four. I pointed to my foot in bed and I said, he’s got it there.

And I took my hand, I went, he’s got it here. Give him a shot at it. Jim, you don’t have any. And see Jim again. And I go to go up to Boston in the same racetracks. He was a mechanic and I was a driver. That’s how I knew him real good. He watched me as I was going through my career and he said, well, in the wintertime he said, we’ll give you a test.

And when I did good news act, he said, we’ll give you a test at, didn’t he? So it was all set up. I said to him, give Andre a shot. And I said, you don’t [00:31:00] have a driver. If you don’t like it, get rid of him. You don’t have a drive. Give him a shot and see what happens. Well, he gave him a shot and as the story goes, all the rest is history.

And he goes, well, let’s driving race here. And and another thing, he took a lot of flips. Did a lot of crashes, but that’s one of the reasons he never got hurt, except why he was so small. He was way inside the race car. So that’s it. That’s the story, my Andre. Now we get there.

Alison Kreitzer: So we do have this introduction to show you for Mario Andretti that he did for Mr.

McGuire, and we’ll play that here.

Jimmy Maguire: The awards, when I had the, uh, when I, when I got last February, I got the award for, uh, setting a hero for legends. So, uh, Mario gave a speech there for me and somebody videotaped it and the certificate speech, and I cried after I heard it. I called him up and I said, I wanna go back driving a restart again.

So I listened to the speech. It’s only a minute, nine seconds long.

Mario Andretti: And here we go. Hello everyone. I’m pleased you’re honoring Jim McGuire this evening. Our friendship goes back to [00:32:00] the early sixties when we were both carving our own way through our careers. He was really on his way to the top, no question about it.

What’s most impressive to me is after this accident, Jim showed you can’t keep a good man down. He reinvented himself by learning to write with his left hand and continuing work as a draft man, and designing and creating a system. There were allowed his prosthetic arm to connect with the steering wheel of a race car.

He was back on track racing again, but not just racing, winning, winning against the very best. So Jim, I congratulate you on this very special recognition and thank you for being such an inspiration to all of us.[00:33:00]

Jimmy Maguire: Call him up the next day and I said, buy me a race car. I’m spied. I want to go back. He said, when I go to a place and somebody talks about me, I feel like going back racing too. But we said we’re too old. I said, I agree with you. So glad you enjoy it. God, it was only, it was only a minute long, so that was it.

Good. So.

Ron Lauer: He knew your crash record. He wasn’t buying a car for you.

Jimmy Maguire: I get you. Smart ass boy. We got a lot of stories from Mario. Come here. We have a lot of stories. We may have to say a little, because we have a lot of stories. Mario, I Hey.

Lynn Paxton: You get some booze in him. You hear a lot of merrier stories.

Something you don’t wanna hear. I, I’ve heard

Ron Lauer: the, the Hershey and the Yeah, yeah. There you go. Yeah. You wanna talk about Hershey?

Jimmy Maguire: I didn’t

Lynn Paxton: think

Jimmy Maguire: so did you?

Ron Lauer: I heard you had a woman visit you in the camper.

Jimmy Maguire: I don’t drink anymore. And that’s one, that’s one of the reasons, yeah. The camp. Oh yeah. Heard that really?

Oh, you wanna hear that? Can I tell a story now? We gotta tell story. [00:34:00] No, no,

Lynn Paxton: it’s just a family show. Stay away from that story,

Jimmy Maguire: then you find out what we’re really doing to her show. Well, is anybody enjoying this talking here at all? What’s going on again, again, you gotta make the fans happy.

Ron Lauer: That’s what it’s

Jimmy Maguire: all

Ron Lauer: about.

I’d like to, but uh, I don’t have a chance. When you came back to the midgets, who did you drive for first? Not the TQ with, uh, Bob, but it was, uh, four Midgets, uh,

Jimmy Maguire: first race back. I was driving for Eddie Tow, really any out for a year. I drove for him. First time I drove for him was over to New Jersey and asphalt.

I finished nine. He was very happy with, because he just bought the car. He got the car and Ed clinic is taking care of the car, and I guess he recommended the driver. So I got in the car. Then as the time went on, I got better in the car and we had a Bobby Marshall Memorial at, uh, Hatfield, Pennsylvania.

That was the track that he, he promoted. A RDC and that was my kind track as I went there. In [00:35:00] sprint cars, I go in the counter, I take the lead in the first lap, 49 laps. I led that race, touch shape was right behind me, led the race. Just kept my foot to the floor. See a Hatfield if you’re in it good, you just kept your foot to the floor.

You were in right in the rim high bank. You didn’t have to take your foot outta the throttle. The last lap. I said, geez, I’m gonna win. I see the white. I’m gonna win this race. So I come off the bank, right? I come off the bank, come down, and Dutch Shaer goes right around the outside of me and wins the race.

I make more money than he did because I let every lap and then get front money. The fans pulled the hell outta him. He beat me, but he finished second and I told him Victory Land. I said to George, er, well, I wanted to win you your son’s memorial, because footy did for me after I lost my arm. ’cause I lost the arm in his sprint car that he drove.

He had a ride with a stock high that day. So he asked if I’d wanna run. So I ran it. But he F so he helped me out along the way with my rehabilitation. Touch Safer won the race. I made more money than, than I can say now. It took me seven times to run in the Bobby Marsh Memorial race. I finished second, third, fourth.

Every time I got in a car, I was leaving it. [00:36:00] I dropped back when I finally won it, when I bought a car, George just bought a race car finally. It had nothing to do for a year. He bought a race car, miss you. He was the sprint car owner, so he bought a car for him and we go up there with the Vene and Frank Jennings.

They brought the car up with him. We go up to Bloomberg, Pennsylvania. I’m sorry, bus Milwaukee was the car. See Jake Vago. Let me take the midget out. I was gonna run it during the month of May if I had passed my driver’s test. ’cause that in those days, every night across the street from the Speedway, they had a quarter mile track and they were in the track across the street from the speed all the drivers in practice, they go in the midget the night and eventually that went to Mario for the month of May.

But anyway, I was gonna drive it. Jake Vago gave me the car and I took it out there. So then when I wanted to run midget there, in fact get back in midgets, it was after the TQ season. I had done good. I won the hundred lap and I won the championship for Paulson. So I called him up and I said, Hey, can you bring the car up to, uh, Bloomsburg?

I’d like to run for you again. Yeah, okay. I’ll sit bus walkie with him. So bus walkie rides to the car. He was the type, [00:37:00] if anybody knows the name, bus walkie, obviously you know him. He was a mechanic, a big Indianapolis mechanic and a driver. And so he took the car up there. Anyway, I got in the car. I led the race for 24 laps, again, long, around 24 laps.

The same thing. I’m running good. It’s like I back off in the third and fourth turn ’cause I won, I won this race. Who goes around the outside of me? Bill Brown and, and Eddie Dar Scott wins the race. The fans booed the hell out of him, but again, he made only 600 bucks. Win the race. I made 850 because I got a lot money.

That’s what Gil Brown, I finally won that race with George Ey gave me a ride. I led the race, the whole race, and I won the race. And I think I got a picture there someplace with Frank Jennings, his son and, uh, me winning the race of Bloomsburg. I finally won the volume and I, and I had tears when I was up there on the stage with Mr.

Marshall. I was crying because I said it took me seven years to win this Bobby Marshall Memorial. So, and he was, he had tears in his eyes too because, you know, it was his son. And I always wanted to do that and [00:38:00] I always win that. Bobby Marshall Memorial took me seven races to win it, but I finally wanted, and, and like Far Gump says to the movie, and that’s all I got to say about the matter.

Ron Lauer: That’s funny. ’cause my first midget ride was with Ed Toth at Mahoning Valley in 1971. You were almost retired by then.

Jimmy Maguire: Yeah, I Did he tell you I won the first race with him?

Lynn Paxton: Yeah.

Jimmy Maguire: And I won the first race. I was first race on him. Then that year, after that year, then he went to, with Williams going, he bought a sprint car, I think.

Yeah.

Ron Lauer: I, I had something to do with that.

Jimmy Maguire: Oh, you did? Okay. You did you drive the sprint? Yeah, I

Ron Lauer: destroyed his midget, so I went sprint car. Oh, that’s, that’s he went,

Lynn Paxton: he went with Oz. Yes.

Ron Lauer: Ozzie built the cars

Jimmy Maguire: and drove. He was a good car. I he

Ron Lauer: a good guy. Yeah.

Jimmy Maguire: Did he get steering that sprint car? I don’t know if he had, I was gonna call him and see.

He had steering, but I was happy running mid. No, I was, he might have later on, but not at first. He did. Yeah. Right. Because I, if I had punched a guy, I would’ve talked to him and let me drive it. I had a good way with words with car owners. That was a good race. Car isn’t midget. Oh yeah. [00:39:00] Back in those days, they were all rigu sprint cars with Offie and Hickey took em care of most of the cars, you know, Offie, when I, when I ran for all the time, I had afi, just like Ferguson ran the five years I ran for Ferguson.

Fergu had office. Yeah. And you ran him with afi, but he ran No, I didn’t run an off. You didn’t have an off? What did you have? I ran a Sesco. Oh, you had a Sesco? Okay. Yeah, that was later on. Oh, then I was done. I Was that when you were in Caleb’s car? Yeah. Okay. That’s right. You were gonna win the championship.

Yeah. Right. Okay.

Lynn Paxton: But you didn’t win Williams Grove that day. I guarantee that.

Billy Wentz Sr: I wanna ask you a question. You have a guy by the name of Shark that comes here and his grandfather had a race car. Yes, yes. That I ball up at Lincoln. Did anybody? Oh, I didn’t know you tore sharks car up down there. Yeah, that’s a whole story.

Yeah. Well, you had come after me, then you’ll be, you’ll be at a retake. It didn’t have a safety there. It came out. I went up in the air. There’s no picture. Oh, you crashed too. Oh my God. Crash. I broke my back that day. [00:40:00] Broke your back from out on a race car like Superman. And I landed in the infield and it had it raining and it was like mud.

So when I landed, it was a soft landing, but my ass was sore and I had to drive home from Lincoln with a broken back and went to the hospital the next day and then got the operation. But sure when they got there, they didn’t have a driver. And they said, am I interested? I said, yeah. Hell yeah. And it was a rocket.

Had a good motor. I don’t know what that frame was made out of, but they said the back and the front fold together. If I’d have stayed that car, I’d have been drunk. So I came out of the car like, you think you’re better than junk right now? Well, I made it this far. All right. I not, and I’m not in the junk yard yet.

Thank you.

Ron Lauer: You all guys think you’re the only ones that crashed, right?

Lynn Paxton: Yeah. Well, he wanted finally to admit to come up and say he crashed. That was great. Well, I

Jimmy Maguire: had 15 [00:41:00] crashes in my career. Flips rather. I had a lot of crashes, but I had 15 flips. I probably had more than 15 crashes and one championship. I, but I always won.

I always won. I won more races. How many guys here won 52 races? Accident won 250. I’m sorry. And how many have done it with? 31 with one arm. And 22 with two ounce.

Lynn Paxton: I I wait to the fans for the other one.

Ron Lauer: I got the two covered.

Jimmy Maguire: I got a picture of me in Victory Lane. Now they beat foot before they took it

Lynn Paxton: away from me and I got the four foot trophy.

Hey Joe. Hold. Hold it up there. Explain it. Hold the mic at the same time we wanna watch.

Jimmy Maguire: Okay. That night I won. I got Bill’s daughter in one here, her mother’s right behind us, so it was all legal to see in the picture. And I’m holding her and giving her a big kiss for about a minute, and then everybody’s laughing like hell behind me, you can see in the picture.

And I got my, that time I had two arms. I’m holding a four foot trophy. Whenever my daughter shows that picture [00:42:00] to French, she says, oh, that’s my mother. That’s his wife. The daughter shows that. She says

Lynn Paxton: he kids’ wife. How about the queen down in, uh, Australia?

Jimmy Maguire: What about her? You weren’t there. You don’t know what went on.

Lynn Paxton: I read the paper.

Jimmy Maguire: I know. Well, what happened there? I, I went to Australia in 69. That was a nice deal. I had six races over there. Has anybody here ever been to Australia? Okay. It is about the same size as the United States. New York is is Sydney, Texas is Adelaide and Perth is California and I raced in all three places.

When you run to Australia a Holden, I won a Holden. A Holden is a Chevy two over there. They call ’em Holden’s. It was Chevy when I won races. Third and a win a hundred lap in Adelaide. I had an offie that was the caliber of the road, so I won with the roads a quarter mile track, and the guy was behind me the whole time.

They had champion. But he couldn’t get by me ’cause I ran the car, I put the car sideways, I’d watch him, it was a small truck, and I’d watch him [00:43:00] shadows behind me. Wherever he’d go high with the shadow. I’d get in front of him when there was no shadow. I knew he was underneath me, so I’d cut him off and go high back and forth, back and forth.

That’s the way the whole race was won. And I got a picture going on the car to finish line. He’s right on my tail. Uh, did you ever drive a VW Power Plant car? Oh yeah. What are you talking about? With Eddie Dar, it was the first time I drove one and I got him. We’d run the Silver Dome and do it when I went on.

He, he wanted to go. So he hated my guts but he wanted to go because bench was gone. And I got the invite to go out there. ’cause Mario said he, the way we got to go out there, Mario said he was gonna be cheap and get another car. Of course he never showed up. But I got the ride out there and that was the first time a Volkswagen said, wow, it’s a good car.

And we didn’t do anything there. We made the race for, didn’t do anything. But then the next time I drove the car was when Hank Rogers was running a car. He won the championship but he had to do a wedding. So he called me up and he said, I talked to, I drove for Mike Chin once with an off hit and I won the race at IC Junction.

That was one of the very few times I’m the only driver ever to win the midget race at IC Junction on Friday. [00:44:00] And the next day I went, I won the sprint race. It was the easiest car. So I did drive for Mike. She, so he said, okay, let Jim drive it. I get in the car at Middletown, the York and Wow. I won the heat running good.

It rained out. The feature rained out. I never ran the car. And that was the only time I ever ran a Volkswagen that I, in the feature truck. I probably didn’t wanted it. It was fast, fast, race, car and, but that was the only time we had a Volkswagen. They were good. Yeah, I ran SESCO’s, but then when I got to, uh, Sydney, the guy who owned the car was an engineer, smart guy.

He had a fiat in there. And the fiat was a tough runner. And, and it’s still a tough runner in Formula One car, but he had a 600 of fiat in that. And of course he couldn’t run hard with, he just about made the race. When I got in it, first of all, all the guys, the beginning guys all raised 60 pounds inside weight.

When I got in the car to get in it for warmups, I couldn’t even lift the rear left rear tire. I took three turns outta the left. Dang. I put three turns the right way, and I got weight on the outside. Kyle was straight as an arrow. I went everything I wanted, the heat, the semi, the match [00:45:00] race, and I won the feature.

So when I went home, I said, that’s the way you gotta run the car. But he said, but the car was so straight under dirt, don’t you go sideways? And he said, no, that’s why I won everybody else’s sideways and I’m straight. So that’s, that’s what happened over there. They, they, they brought up heavyweight in the inside and all the race cars were sideways.

Everybody was side. And as long as the top guys run sideways, all the other guys do the same thing. Stare all running sideways. When you are run sideways, sure you look, you can win as long as everybody else is sideways. Well, when I went over, I kept my race car straight and every time I’m at the corner that’s how I’d pass.

I’d pass him on the inside. Coming off that picture over there, if you look at it, me and usac Mario was sideways. And I’m straight and narrow. And you win races when you’re straight. That’s how you get the whole bike. But the dangerous thing about that is when you hit a chuck hole, tips over much easier.

You just gotta make sure that the, the rear is over the hole and the front coast of the, and so I was lucky like that outside race is the place to go. When I ran asphalt, like down the wall stadium and I always had 30 pounds outside weight with an offie and I won down [00:46:00] there. And uh, always on asphalt, I ran outside weight, put a little more on asphalt.

But when I ran the dirt tracks, I ran 15 to 20 pounds outside weight. Remember the midges little smaller when you run a sprint car, I imagine like those guys, when you see kings with them guys, they had to run at least. 60, 70 pounds the outside weight. ’cause that’s why their right front tire lifted up, you know, and you ever see the sprint go on the probably 60, 80 pounds outside weight.

That’s how they keep their foot to the floor. When you give your foot to the floor, you take your foot out, the front end wants to push right away was the right front, so light. But all those will, and even now, Williams Grove, you see they keep the foot right to the floor. They took their foot outta the floor, the right front, and they’d go right to the wall.

But you gotta keep your foot to the floor. It makes that right front real light and, uh, you know, blah, blah, blah. I won four outta six races over there. I finished third and, uh, one of the, my first time over there, and then I crashed in the other one. What else? So anyway, uh,

Lynn Paxton: imagine something like that doesn’t matter.

Oh no. Wait a minute. I didn’t crash. They have a rule when I you driving on the wrong [00:47:00] side of the track. At Perth. At Perth,

Jimmy Maguire: what they do at Perth, they have a guy at each end of the corner and they have a white curb going on a six foot square curb. If you hit that curb, you disqualified. They, they say wife, they see a tire, so they watch it.

So I was on my second race, I was racing. I hit the curb. I didn’t know that was the rule. And I had black tie mark on. They dis, even though I won the race, they disqualified me ’cause I hit that tire. So I made sure the next time I didn’t do that, I stayed out and I did not, they had a white curb going around the racetrack and I said, boy, that nobody ever told me if you hit it, you’re disqualified.

So I got disqualified. Otherwise I would’ve won three races over there. But I won two races there and I came back to Adelaide. I took, I won a hundred lap there, then I went to Sydney and one there and, uh, how about the queen? Oh, now the queen. Okay, this is the queen that was in Adelaide. My wife was over.

We all go to the beach with the, the car owner, which was a rich guy who one the newspaper owned. Odd guy. He owned everything and he brought me over from the, he owned the racetrack. We ran Adelaide, owned that racetrack. [00:48:00] Finished third, my first time there. Then about six ladies, I’m back there on lap. Uh, we go to the beach and we’re at the beach.

During the week, nanny was taking care of the kids, boyfriend was there and everything else. We were all at the beach having a good time. She says to me, oh, Mr. Benign asked me to be the queen for Saturday night’s race. You know, this is like Wednesday or Thursday. I said, well, who’s gonna finish second? She says, what do you mean?

I said, well, if you’re gonna be the Queen, I’m gonna win the race. She says, why? She says, because in America we kiss girls when we win the race. So my boyfriend’s laughing, my wife’s laughing, and my wife would say, yeah, that’s right. When you win a race you kiss the queen. So, you know, that was just a joke.

Saturday night comes, I win the race. So anyway, I win the race. So as we’re going to victory circle over there, they don’t give trophies, they give coffee. Tea sets a big tray with four cups on it and a tea. Dang. So anyway, in the newspaper, as the article outcome comes out the next week. We could do the kissing.

I kiss her and all that stuff, but then I picked her up. Right now she only weighed about a hundred pounds by one arm. They picked her up. She was in a bikini. I walk all the way across the racetrack. They report [00:49:00] this in the racer paper. They say, I guess in America they take the trophy girl home with him, because Jim, Jim McGuire was seen leaving the racetrack, and I was born on the stands.

I sat her down beside her boyfriend and my wife was there too. And the whole crew, everybody’s laughing, all the fans are laughing. So that’s what happened. The newspaper didn’t know that. I carried it in the stand. They thought I took her home. They said, I guess, I guess in America they take the trophy home.

So that’s what’s in the race paper. So that was the joke.

Ron Lauer: How many times did you go back to Australia? To Australia? I don’t. They went again. I never went again. Never went again. They never invited. Well,

Jimmy Maguire: I wouldn’t go anyway because they wouldn’t let him back in. No, I never, I never went back again. I think what it was, I wanted more money.

That’s what it was. I wanted more money. See what they did, they, it was a good deal going over there. They paid your expenses, playing gift you going over, they gave you a certain amount of money no matter whether you win or loss. They gave you the same amount of money. In other words, I forget what it was, it was good money.

I mean, I made money outta it. I come home with a few thousand in my pocket. It was more money, but you get it guaranteed no matter whether you [00:50:00] crash the win or whatever. My name was the name. So the next year I went back, I knew it. I asked for a little bit more money and I wanted a percentage of the purse.

They said, no, I can’t do this because I had a good ride back in the United States. And uh, who was I driving by then at that time? So where here? Ferguson? I think it was Ferguson. Ferguson probably. Yeah. Yeah. And I had a better deal there with Ferguson. So you

Ron Lauer: had a deal with Ferguson? Oh yeah. I got 50%. Well, yeah, there was nobody else in the car when you got there.

’cause I tried that. So wait a minute. I only got

Lynn Paxton: 40% when I drove,

Jimmy Maguire: but when I went in, I, he gave me 50%, 50% and plus. He had a nice wife too.

Ron Lauer: I drove him for

Jimmy Maguire: five years.

Ron Lauer: He’s got a better midget record than you. He drove a midget once and won. That’s right.

Lynn Paxton: No, I drove twice. Twice.

Ron Lauer: Oh, okay.

Lynn Paxton: I ran sales because we probably could have won up there, but we kept popping. Right. Retire off.

Jimmy Maguire: Not a bad record. Did I run against you when you won that night?

Yeah. Oh, I did. Oh, I was in the other camp. You were in the camp car. I, I finished second. You’re right. No, you finished

Lynn Paxton: third.

Jimmy Maguire: Okay. Sorry. [00:51:00] To a guy like you, you had two, two guys in front of me drove with two arms. I had a handicap. I was the first handicapped. You had a

Lynn Paxton: handicap with two arms. I want to tell you

Jimmy Maguire: I was handicapped, so I figured I won the race with a handicap.

I was the best handicapped driver there. Yep. Now, does anybody wanna ask me a question? I’ve given you a lot of,

Audience Q&A: I got a question for you to ask Lynn. You have, you had 50 wins? 52. I want you to ask Lynn the truth. Stand low. And Smokey SBA told me that half a Lynn’s 250 winds were in a snowmobile come

Jimmy Maguire: race. Hey, wait a minute, I’m a race. Well, when is the wind? I ask the wind if he ran. That’s the

Lynn Paxton: first time he’s ever defended me in his life. Look,

Jimmy Maguire: house [00:52:00] for two days. Speak to me. His wife’s nice at night. Everybody’s nice. His kids at nice. I’m not gonna say him bad about him. What’s his name? Joe. Okay, Joe.

Lynn Paxton: On pitching, you know

Ron Lauer: where it’s going,

Lynn Paxton: but

Ron Lauer: on pitching.

I mean, like I said, I didn’t know you were still alive, so

you gotta be alive to be a living legend. Well, that’s why I’m a living legend. I’m

Jimmy Maguire: alive. That’s what you read. The what over there says, I’m a living. I didn’t make it up. All of a sudden, NASCO calls me up and says, I said, what? I never in Nasco in my life. He says, you’re a living legend. So you’re going in, you, you’ve been all over the country, know we had

Lynn Paxton: two choices.

Living or

Ron Lauer: dead. Who’s your PR person?

Jimmy Maguire: Nobody. I don’t know who. I know who it was. I dunno how they

Ron Lauer: got your name. Well,

Jimmy Maguire: I knew a few guys in nascar. They knew of me, I guess. I guess. I don’t know. They had some, but all I know is I was so surprised. I called Maya and I said, you have anything to do with, no, I didn’t have anything to do with this.

And he said, well, I said, and then I get the book and in the [00:53:00] book there. Now listen to, in the book, Ernie Saxon about 10 years ago, was a living legend. He’s in as a writer and Mario and was in there from back in the day when he was the world champion. So he, he’s in there too. So I guess. Maybe they ask guys, Hey, who do you know?

They wanna be a legend, so whatever. Somebody was good to me. Whatever. I have a legend shirt. We don’t wanna go there. I know. Well, I was gonna take it off, but the legend shirts, we see it. Did we see it? Hold it.

Lynn Paxton: You

Ron Lauer: had to do that, didn’t you?

Lynn Paxton: Don’t take two of them. What the hell are you doing?

Hold the black

Ron Lauer: one down. Hold the black one. Oh my

Lynn Paxton: God. He needs help. He does need help.

Jimmy Maguire: This is the one Daytona gave me, but it had only stock cars on it. NASCAR’s stuff. Oh, I didn’t know

Lynn Paxton: you drove stock

Jimmy Maguire: cars. I did. I I wanna erase it. Uh, AllBridge. And that’s one of those pictures you got in that book Shows me the stock car.

I cut that picture out [00:54:00] now. It’s in there. I saw it in there. That’s the one I took out the other day. I’ve never made the stock car. 26 Ford at I won the race center and the planet all put it back down.

Ron Lauer: Who sponsors your underwear? I

Jimmy Maguire: don’t wear.

Ron Lauer: Oh, thanks for telling me. We needed to know that. I’m ready for action all the time.

What else do you have to tell us?

Jimmy Maguire: How about the Pauls jack? Whoa. The Pul adjust. Yeah. Yeah. When I was in the hospital with my one arm, he came to Indianapolis. He always went to Indianapolis and he said to me, do you want to go back racing? I said, sure, I’d love to go back. He said, well, I got a tq. It’s for him, tall ones in the country.

And he said, uh, would like you to drive, give you a shot? I said, okay. So I got outta the hospital and get married. Matter of fact, we getting married, my, my head wasn’t right for about a year, married

Lynn Paxton: a year. So you, [00:55:00] crap,

Ron Lauer: you got a big.

Jimmy Maguire: So about six months after I get outta the hospital, I get married November 7th and my head didn’t clear till about April of March of the next year. So every once in a while, you know you have family arguments with either wife. I said to her, you know, I get in a no and I said my head wasn’t right then you shit at me, you still isn’t right.

They all laugh, go to bed. You happy with each other, but. That really happened. That really is one of the things that happened. I got married when my head in my head was still in a circle, and you know what? My wife disappeared. She died 17 years ago. I’m trying to get up there, but she doesn’t want me. They said, you don’t want me up here.

You wanna keep me down here on earth, bother everybody. But I, I told my goal is to be a hundred years old now at Paxton, and I told Ton how I get there. I take 32 vitamins a day. Six of ’em I took at Pax House this morning. First thing I had, his wife made me a bowl of cereal. I took my six vitamin pills in the afternoon.

I have a bottle of Boost, which is B-O-O-S-T. Got 27 vitamins in that. I’ve been taking that for like 30 years and that’s why I’m in good shape and [00:56:00] do everything. I play bce. As long

Lynn Paxton: as you stay alive till 5 55 tomorrow afternoon when I put you in the airplane. That’s all I,

Jimmy Maguire: so I recommend that Boost. I don’t get any money for that. Boost is great Liquid drink. It is a, you’ve probably seen it on the market. It’s the most popular nutrition drink on the market. That’s why it sells out. The minute it goes into Walmart or anybody sells it, sell sells out immediately. So anyway, June came the following year.

I got in the car playing Pleasant Pleasantville Racetrack. I won the heat, the semi in the feature, and my first racetrack. I went arm and I had the hook that night to put the hook around. You know, I, I used this spinning knob like, you’re buying a stove for 25 cents. And I put my hook around there and I put elastic band around the hook to keep it closed.

You went on a bumpy track, your own asphalt. So I won the race and you know who I passed in the last lap to the league. Hank Rogers, Jr. Was his first race. He was served that kind of four years. It was his first year back and he got in Lenny Boyd’s car. He was running, leading the race. And of course I beat him.

And of course I didn’t really [00:57:00] know him till after the race. But then as time went on. He was the one that got me a ride to be a teammate with him, to Midt. And I also took the, even though he took my father’s ride, he said, I want you to be my teammate. He said, great

Lynn Paxton: Hank’s father. Did he send you Christmas

Jimmy Maguire: cards?

No, he never sent me anything.

Lynn Paxton: Oh, okay. Thank you.

Jimmy Maguire: Race drivers usually don’t send Christmas cards to each other. Oh, that’s a dig. In other words, uh, in Indian interviews when we talk about it, we kidding around with a driver. We say, well, he doesn’t send me Christmas cards anyway. You know, that’s the thing of I’m not gonna send you a Christmas card.

Or they’re the thing, you know what? They used to write about me when I was going to the USC championship. Yeah. They used to say, we’re gotta send McGuire Christmas cards in August because he’s not gonna be here. The way I used to drive, I mean that’s the way it was. I just was one of ’em guys to get my foot to the floor.

You see in all these young guys, they drive crazy and hard and you know you wanna run and look at the young guys that went in. That’s the way it works. You gotta move guys. Order, get out of the way. That’s the way it is and that’s the way I was. But I was young. I wanted to go fast and after about 15 times on my head, I slowed down a [00:58:00] little bit.

What happened when you fell off the bicycle? Oh, that’s another crash. I forgot I had another foot when I come down here. Now listen to this. This is something I come down here, I get in this over 55 group down here, right? I arrived the first Senate. And when they had trivia night, right? I go in the hall and I see a tape, all these guys sitting with yellow shirts at the table and they, they says, easy ride around ’em.

I said, this must be a motorcycle crew. So I said, do you have, can I sit in this chair? I went, yeah, sit down there. So I sit down there, I passed that night. The next week comes over and I ride at the table. Now I’m friendly with these guys. I said, listen, uh, what kind of bikes do you guys ride? He said, motorcycles.

He said, we don’t ride motorcycles, we ride bikes. Oh. So I said, well, can I join the club? Yeah. Trouble is I can’t ride a bike. I fell about five or six years before Riz. You couldn’t

Lynn Paxton: drive race car. But that didn’t stop.

Jimmy Maguire: Well, they said, I, what happened is I fell, I fell in my driveway and hit my head, and I got a bad concussion riding up with my two wheel bike.

That was about five years before. So I said, well, I said, you got anything against the three [00:59:00] wheeler? No. So I got a three, a nine speed, three wheeler, and I joined the club. And every, what we do is Monday, Wednesday and Friday we ride to a restaurant five or six miles one way. And then we ride home and we do about 10 miles a day every other day.

So I joined the bike club. That’s what I do. I, it’s part of my exercise. About three or four months after the three wheeler, we have a rule in the club. Stay six foot apart for each. Don’t ride vania. This one guy wanted to talk to me racing. So he pulls up beside me, right? And he’s got a regular two wheel brake.

My bike is wide. The three wheeler, if anybody rides it, his handlebar hits my handlebar. He calls my wheeler, go in, I flip in over in, oh, crash. I’m unconscious for half hour, right in front of one of the developments. They call the ambulance. I wake up, I’m in the ambulance. Where the hell are we going? He says, you had a crash on the bike.

What? Three weeks in the Holmes Hospital in in Melbourne for three weeks getting rehabilitated for a concussion. I broke three ribs on my left side. I got my side all scraped up. I had a helmet on, but you know that one of those cheap helmets from Walmart, it cracked. I got a inch and a half cash in my [01:00:00] head.

I had four stitches in my head. Anyway, I spent three, three weeks in the hospital and I got out and uh, I was okay. And here I am, crashed on a bike. Can you imagine that three wheel bike? What’s next? Nothing. I, I still ride the bike, but what I did is all the guys had these regular bike helmets. You see ’em, it’s just a flat thing, top of your head.

And they all wear that, but they didn’t have a crack. When I crashed, I did it. I split my head wide open. So you know what I did? I bought another helmet. I bought a full racing helmet. So when we’re all riding, I get the full racing helmet completely

Lynn Paxton: closed,

Jimmy Maguire: and they say, what you got? I said, I’m riding with this.

So everybody’s got the regular bike hats and I got a regular full helmet with flames on and everything else. And so I looked a little out of place. I’m riding with him, but that’s what I’m gonna ride with.

Ron Lauer: I told Lynn one time after you gave him your arm, I said, I’ll give you a helmet and a uniform, but you ain’t getting an arm from me.

Okay, so yours is the only one in here.

Jimmy Maguire: That’s right. I’m telling you interesting. I may not be millionaire like Mario, but uh, I do. Okay. Done a lot. [01:01:00] Other accomplishments, I guess, you know, I got a lot of friends in racing. A lot of people have been good to me. Like here, even though I get busted once in a while, guys like Len and, and uh, bill Wentz.

But it is all part of the game. It’s all like race drivers. We all exaggerate a little bit.

Ron Lauer: Yeah. We’ve heard everything else. How’s your level? Well, I was, I was

Jimmy Maguire: very good, you know. How far are you going with it? We’ve been in the movies a couple of times together and she’s 82, 81 years old. I’m 83. So the guys in the club say, ’cause she’s at the apartment next door.

She put a door from your apartment. Her, the condo says, she said wouldn’t approve that. But we’re all the same age. The oldest guy in my club, and he plays bocce. He’s 97 years old. The second oldest is 95, third oldest is 92. And they play bocce. You know, we have to hand him the blow, you know, and they can’t pick it up.

You know, we’re all full of pep and we do the things and I ride a bike and we swim. I swim six lap. Every other day and ’cause I hate to be outdone and when I see somebody older than me doing it, do it. You have any

Lynn Paxton: accidents with a bocce ball?

Jimmy Maguire: No. Nobody threw at you? No, not yet. I dropped it on my foot [01:02:00] times coming, I dropped it on my foot a couple of times, but, uh,

Lynn Paxton: yeah.

Jimmy Maguire: Do you wear, do you wear your helmet to play

Ron Lauer: bocce? None. Only when I ride the bike. I’m glad I asked that last question there a red line, 7,000 movie. Did you hear that question? Were you in a red line? 7,000 movie? There was a one arm driver in that movie. Oh. Hm. I thought it was, I

Lynn Paxton: thought she did a movie.

Didn’t you do excerpts for a movie? Well, I did a, yeah, I did a movie talking to the microphone. That’s did, I

Jimmy Maguire: did a movie, but I didn’t to drive race car. Was that a movie with a race

Lynn Paxton: guy?

Jimmy Maguire: It was a one arm driver. I, I did, made a movie, it’s called Baren Wolf Game on Trips, the worst movie that was ever made.

And they hired me to be a, a stunt driver. Lou Timon asked me, he was a radio announcer and the weatherman, they knew he was a race driver, so they needed stunt drivers to make this movie. So he called me as a stunt driver, and me and him were gonna be doing crazy things in race, in cars, regular cars called race and stuff like that.

But then when they, [01:03:00] when I appeared on set, the guy says to me, man, you could be a sto. See they had two stooges, STO number one and STO number two. And I was stu number one in the movie. That was my nanny. What we did is you were number one and two both. And when I, when I did the stunts, I had to wear a beard because they didn’t want me to look the same.

So I did a couple stunts wearing a beard. When I did in the movie, they had me go to a hairdresser, so they made hair all curly. They curled me hair up to look battalion and they gave me a suit and they made me hook 12 inches in diameter and put a little, and then they put a thing on the steering wheel and I drove a Cadillac.

We did crazy things on the road crashing here and there. One of the things these I did was my boss was a gangster and he had lent money to this guy to make a movie and he couldn’t pay my boss back. So we had to go after him. And that’s what the theme of the survey was, trying to get the money from this guy.

All the movies were made at night. We went to Brooklyn, right? We went to the Brooklyn Bridge and I got the guy and we want that money so he wouldn’t pay the money. So what we did is we took the hook, pushed him off, and [01:04:00] we hung him down with a rope on the Roosevelt Parkway and he’s traffic’s going, mine, he’s hanging by this rope.

That was one scene. Pull him back up. And through the whole movie, we’re trying to catch this guy to get the money. Catch this guy. It finally ended this way. We’re in Little Italy, right? And we’re at the counter like this, and I’m in the counter. You see my hook and my boss is sitting at the table with this guy.

So this guy, the bad guy, the good guy, and he’s starting to get the, he takes a fork and he sticks it in. My boss’s throat was sitting at the table in an Italian restaurant, and we had seven. We did this seven times. Every time he sucked the thing and bud would come all over the white jacket. But what the scene was, you saw the arm going forward, back in the studio, they had a guy there with a fake throat sticking the fork in it.

Bud skirt all over his jacket. So every time you did seen about seven scenes, they did the actual bleeding in the uh, studio. So you thought this guy was getting the throat stuck in him. So when this happened. The guy runs out. I run out after him and I get in the Cadillac, he gets [01:05:00] in, he gets in a sports car and I’m chasing him down the highway, right?

This is the way the movie ended. He lock some drink spin around, hits towards me, right? I, the last thing you see in the movie is me going, oh shit. He hits head on. There’s a big sport, big explosion in the movie. We both, we all get killed in the movie The boss is dead for, but I get killed from the head on collision and the last thing you see is me saying, oh shit, big explosion.

It was a canned explosion. Fire goes up like this. Then the curtain score across the screen, that movie couldn’t sell. It didn’t sell. So it went on private star and you know who was in the movie with us? She was the mama Do, no, we don’t wanna know. Joan Ell was the star. She was a mama do. And she ran Ahoe house.

This what. House. House would refused. And the hero was one. She, he went there all the time. So that’s where went, she’s in the movie running, doing something. I wasn’t even in that scene, but she was in the movie and a lot of [01:06:00] other stars were in the movie who made the movie. So the guys who made Shaft one, two, and three, they made this movie.

So anyway, how long, how long was that movie? It lasted about an hour. I, it was horrible. It was a horrible, when I saw the whole movie, you even, and they showed it, one of the guys from the Retirement Village I in, they found it on the, it’s on the, if you look on the Joan but ELs movie, it’s called Going to Netflix.

It’s on the Barn. Wolf one came, he found it and showed it at the clubhouse. It was horrible. We all laughed like hell at it. And they showed it at the Clubhouse in Florida and horrible. But you can get it if you go on Netflix. And go under Joan Mantel’s movies and read down a credits when you get Tover and Wolf Main trips.

I’m in that movie and, and you went to the Academy Awards? No, no. It’s a horror movie, but I made $3,500 because I had to join the Actors Guild. As long as you show up in the city, you get paid. I made 3,500 bucks for three weeks work, so I didn’t laugh at that. So I had a lot of, a lot of [01:07:00] memories in here.

Somebody told me, my lawyer told me, they said, you know, we should write a book. We probably make a few bucks. I said. Well, why don’t we wait till I’m a hundred years old? Because I mean, there might be a lot of things happening. You know how when you write a book, you sit down in a column with a writer and he pulls things outta you?

Lynn Paxton: Well, if you’re gonna write with your right hand, I’m quitting right now.

Jimmy Maguire: You know? That’s how writers sue. They sit down with the, with the victim or whoever you are, and they pull things outta you, and you say, yeah, that’s right too. I did that. I forgot that. And they read about your scrapbook and they say, what about, look, I’ve had a scrapbook for what, 60 years.

There’s a lot of things in there. I’m gonna sit, I’ve won 52 races, I only remember about 30. Who knows how many races I could have won, but I’m happy I’m alive. I had a lot of fun. I’m remembered I’m in Hall of Fame here and there and blah, blah, blah. And here I am here. But I, I gotta read the, read about it.

I say, oh geez, I wanna race there. I wanna race there. And I gave a lot of my trophies away. I got about maybe down in Florida, I got about 20 trophies. The big ones I got, I gave some to my father, my brother, you know, when I was single. Like the guy I stayed with for two years in Jersey, when I went to [01:08:00] race, I always gave him the trophies.

I was staying at his house, you know? So I just looked him there.

Ron Lauer: When you left Jersey to move to Florida, did you dig up all those cans in the yard with money in them? Yeah. I dig those. I thought you would I dig all those. That’s how I,

Jimmy Maguire: that’s how I paid cash for everything. I went to Florida. There you go.

You all had cash. I said, wow. What I did, I had four, two cars and I used to park my antique cos in the backyard. And my money was all, I was a ground guy. I put everything, I didn’t put anything in the bank or stocks or anything else. I put all my money in the ground. I used to tell the guys this. I had a metal plate.

I parked the antique pedal with the metal plate and, and the guys wouldn’t believe me, the guys I backed all the cars, that one, they lifted the metal plates up. One hit twenties and one hit tens and one hit fifties in and they were all filled up with money and I didn’t know how much was in there.

Finally, when I came to Florida, took on all and the guys believed me and they didn’t believe me when they said, wow. So all my antique cars, I parked a car on top of ’em. They had to steal the antique car to get the money, but everybody knew that. But nobody did anything. ’cause see, I knew all the crooks in town.

That was the secret.

Lynn Paxton: Hey, I don’t want you to let all your nuggets out. Now save [01:09:00] some of them. You don’t see pizza very often, but there it is. The only

Jimmy Maguire: reason I come up here is to look at this. It pretty spies me when I come up here. Thank you all. Thank

Lynn Paxton: you. Thank you everybody. Your water, your water’s down.

Crew Chief Brad: We hope you enjoyed this journey through racing history and the personal stories that keep the spirit of motorsports alive. The Eastern Museum of Motor Racing is a premier destination for motor racing enthusiasts, showcasing a vast collection of historic racing cars, artifacts, and memorabilia. To learn more about the EMMR or to be a part of the next in-person Racers Roundtable, you can plan your visit or support the museum’s mission to preserve and celebrate the legacy of racing by heading to www dotr.org.

Follow them on social media for the latest news, upcoming events, and exclusive content. Until next time, keep the engines running and the memories alive.[01:10:00]

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Crew Chief Brad: [00:00:00] Welcome to The Racers Roundtable, a podcast sponsored by the Eastern Museum of Motor Racing where history meets horsepower and legends live on each episode brings together voices from across the motor sports world, from grassroots heroes to seasoned veterans as they share stories, insights, and behind the scenes tales that shaped their racing journeys.

Whether you’re a diehard fan of dirt tracks, drag strips, or open wheel icons. The racers round table is your seat at the table for candid conversations and timeless memories from those who lived it. Strap in tight because it’s time to talk racing history one lap at a time.

Lynn Paxton: And I’m sorry to say, here’s my ears, so you gotta put up with me today. I know you’re all disappointed, but that’s tough. Shit. That’s the way it’s gonna be. Anyhow, before we get into our subject matter for today, I had a guy I thought was worth coming up here. [00:01:00] Billy wins.

Billy Wentz Sr: Billy, I know you guys. Uh. Glad to be here.

This is very impressive him. And, uh, thank you for all the work you guys did you put this thing together?

Lynn Paxton: Billy delivered parts from Bethlem over here to me today, and I offered to go pick him up now Billy, 96 years old and, uh, I, uh, I raced with him a little bit. Uh, he drove for SCAT team for I think eight years, something like that.

I know he is got one story when he had a good sprint car race. Do you want to tell us that story about how you run third in the heat race or feeling the car out? I to roll? Yes. Yeah.

Billy Wentz Sr: I can tell you a better story. I stand correct. URC had a race at William. Well. And we would invite all the people as long as they conform to our rules.

That means Kenny, well, Jan, I from Mitch Smith, whoever wanted to come in and I’ll tell you what, those [00:02:00] guys were just awesome. There was no contest. Well, we drew. We drew for spot starting spots. I got the full position. Wow. And guess who was outside Kenny Weld In Whiter car. So I thought, well, this is, this is gonna be no contest.

It was a Sunday afternoon. And the, and the, the cars couldn’t grab that track at all. It was slick as could be. It was just right. I had a 3 27, I was half wore out and I looked at, I heard that whiter car next to me. I thought, this is gonna be fun. It comes down for the green flag. All I heard was buzzing on his, on outside, and I grabbed the racetrack and I took off.

This went on. We had four restarts and every restart, I beat him to the punch. I come off first, but by the time I got going good, they got pictures of it. The front shocks went out and one frame, this wheel was up. The other frame, that wheel was up and it was so much for me to hold on [00:03:00] to. Went down in one and two, and I spun the car.

But. I kept going and I thought, well, I come out about 10th or 11th from first, and I thought, well, I’ll, I’m still in the race. So I came about and they give me the black flag that can’t be for me. So Louis Ks was, was the starter that day, and I refused to come in. They almost had to come out there and yank me out of that car.

I come in and I was so goddamn mad for him doing, I said, I didn’t spend and stop. I just spun. He says, well, the guy in the corner with a yellow flag, he hung it up. He said, had no choice. I said, well, at least I give him a little bit of a run for money. But, uh, to start alongside a Kenny welder in any car, it was a thrill for me.

I would go to the Grove every chance I get. And we always had underpowered cars that just for scratching, no chess With scratching? Yeah, with scratching cars. Well, they were always underpowered. They had, yeah, probably [00:04:00] we, we did pretty good. We qualified and I guess one year we got a seventh or eighth out of it and it wasn’t too bad.

Just the idea going out and competing with these guys. It was just awesome.

Lynn Paxton: But I’m talking about 1962. You had a, a ride you were gonna go to Florida with, and you got Oh yeah. Okay.

Billy Wentz Sr: I got a call one day, it was in the winter time, and it was a guy by the name of JJ Smith from Straton said, bill, do you want to go to Tampa?

Drive my car? Uh, I had to think that one over. I said, hell yeah. Yeah, I’ll be there now. I didn’t know if I could get time off, but I was going no matter what. So we made arrangements. He said, I want you come up to the garage, get fitted in the car. We’ll talk about the arrangements about how to get the car down.

You’re gonna have to take it down. He worked for the railroad, so he just rode the railroad. So now I’m all pumped up. I’m going to go to Tampa. I have my bags packed, everything ready. A week before I was ready [00:05:00] to leave, I got a phone call from his kid. He said, Hey, um, my dad fell and broke his heart. I said, really glad, I’m sorry to hear that.

He said, we won’t be going to Florida. I said, well, the car is ready to go, isn’t it? He said, yeah, but that car don’t go unless the old man goes. I. So you could travel with a broken arm. It ain’t that bad. He says he’s not going to take the car down. And I thought, oh shit. You don’t know how pumped I was. He said, listen, in a couple months it’ll be nice and the The Grove will be open.

So you’ll have the rides for the grove. Well, I guess I had to wait for the grove finally came around. Race day. I’m ready. I’m pumped. So I go out there. It was a pretty good race car that had a flathead board. They ran pretty good and it was a decent ride. I go out there, I get fitted in the car, we go out warmups.

The car felt. We got a fourth. I’m taking an easy field in the car out. I thought, ah, good. Now [00:06:00] we’re all set for the future. I figured I think I could eat a hot dog. So I went down to the stand. I got a hot dog and a Coke, and I’m talking to my buddies down there. Oh, i’s getting feature time. I better get back up there again.

So I walk up the. I looked at the car, somebody’s sitting in my car. I felt like the three bears. Somebody’s in my bed. Who might that a bit? I don’t know. I don’t. I looked at it, says McGuire. Gimme McGuire. What the hell are you doing in my whatcha doing in my seat? He says, I’m driving a car. I said, the hell you are?

He said, I’m driving the car. I said, how’d that happen? And the owner didn’t even want to talk to me. He was embarrassed. So I finally collared him. I says, Hey, what’s going on? I drove the car. He said, listen, bill, I’m gonna pay you for the heat. I said, you paid $10. He said, I’ll pay you for the heat, but Jimmy’s gonna drive the car in the future.

I said, why? I qualified the car. He said, well, Jimmy says you don’t have the [00:07:00] experience he has and he could do a much better job if this none of a bitch can drive. Like he talk like he talks, he’s gonna win the feature today. Well, you wanna hear the end of the story? Yes, we do. It was kind of sweet to me, but not the reach.

To wish anybody bad luck. He fold it up in the feature and, uh, loading it up on a trailer, I walked over, I said, you know what? I could have done that myself.

Lynn Paxton: Now, McGuire, you’re gonna allow to rebut that later on. Not right now, but later on. Okay. Anyhow, I remember the first picture I seen of him was in an old number three. It was in NARA, it would’ve been in the fifties. It was a basket case looking and he was just a young pup in there. But tell him what car that was and who helped you put that together.

Billy Wentz Sr: Well, you know, I used to hang out at a hill to shop [00:08:00] and I’d go down there. Any fact, a tavern, I’ll hang out down there. Any place there was a race bar or or drivers, I would be there. I wanted so much to be a part of it. We had an old car. It wasn’t much to talk about, but it was an introduction to racing.

So I walked behind Hill at the shop and I saw there’s an old frame there. It was a two frame, and I thought, my God, it’s all busted up. I’ll bet you I could buy this from fire. So I went in there and said to hire him. I. I wanna buy that car back there. He says, it’s not a car. It’s only pieces. It’s junk.

It’s not for sale. He says, that’s a car that Ley Campbell got killed in. And he says, I don’t want to sell it to anybody. Well, I, I went back the next day and the next day and the next day he got tired of seeing, he says, what the hell are you gonna do with it? I said, I need the tubing. I’m building a race bar.

I said, that’s called Molly. I need some of that tubing. He said, but if you make a car out of this thing and something happens, it’s gonna make me look [00:09:00] bad. I said, I promise I won’t make a car out of it. I lied. I took it home. I didn’t have a garage. I didn’t have any tools. I didn’t have a welder. I had had nothing.

All he had an idea that I was going to be a race car driver. Somehow I took this down in the basement, took a carpenter square, and made a a rectangle out of it and start laying the pieces out. I thought, well, how am I gonna do this? I don’t have the facility, the faculty to do these things. If I go over to Sketch, he’s gonna kill me.

I’ll take it down to Frank Murray. Now, Frank Murray was building his own shop, his own body shop at the time by hand, digging the foundation, putting the blocks in and everything. So there were three of us. I took my other two buddies in with me under the condition that this is our car, not my car, it’s our car.

We were all three of us in it. But guess what? I’m the driver. I don’t care what you guys do. I’m going to drive this thing, no matter how it turns out. So [00:10:00] I finally convinced him. We took it down to Frank Murray. His wife says, get that thing the hell out of here. We’re trying to build a shop and I don’t want you to waste Frank’s time.

They said, listen, mark, stop and think of it. He’s over there with a shovel taking a foundation. One person, he can be working on our race car, and there’s three of us with three shovels doing three times the work. You know, backhoe would’ve been a lot better. Saw the bus that for a while, he says, okay, so Frank took it over.

No, we had the pad, just the, the, the concrete pad to start with. And he took it over. He had a couple rings in there and a jack and he welded that that thing straightened that thing out. They used a stainless steel wire to put it together. We’ve got all four parts. Whatever it stock is two wheel mechanical brakes.

Terrible thing you bought for 50 bucks. Well then I had $50 on my pocket. I went over to huffing junk yard. I said, I got 50 bucks. I want buy a motor for a race car. You get the hell outta here. [00:11:00] I said, well, this is what I got. And one of his helpers said, Hey, that Ford six that came in here in 1954, it was on fire.

He says, I’ll bet that you could make a good race car engine out of that thing. I went down and took a look at it and said, how much you want? He said, 75 bucks. I got 50. That’s what I’ll give you. So we went back and forth, took the 50, we loaded up, took it home. We fitted that thing in. Long story short, we didn’t have all the money to put it together the right way, so we bought flexible tubing and we used that for an exhaust pipe, and we went around the track.

It was at least a whistle, and it was so unique to hear it. You could hear that thing. Whistle. Was that you whistling or the car? No, the car with was, I was just smiling. All I was happy Went at to Lee Height for the first race up there and I won. There was 10 cars, shows up, 10 cars with a national, all the Racing Association, 10 cars show up and I won the feature.

Guess how much I [00:12:00] got? Nothing. We didn’t have enough money to pay everybody until the guys from out of town get to town at 10 and $15. I said, forget about it. I know I won. That’s all I need to know. Who built the body for the car? The body was there. He just straightened it out. He didn’t straighten it.

Very good. Look like a refugee from, we went to Hy Hill and he had a guy by the name of Drum Hiller. We, man. Yeah, yeah. And he made up a, a hood and a cow for that was 75 bucks. That was the most expensive thing on the car. But we got it together and we went racing with it. It didn’t go very fast. The only people scared was the driver.

So as far as tires go, we go to Charlie Sacks and buy his tires when the knobs were off for five bucks, and we use them tires on every surface. Guess how fast we were? Mm-hmm. It was experience, that’s all it was. You weren’t the guy that put ’em on the front, were you? No. Oh, okay. So I [00:13:00] finally got a couple rides here and there and I made my way to, Scott’s asked me to drive for him and that was a big thing for me.

And I drove for Scotts for eight hours, eight years. And he was the best person I ever met in racing in or outer racing. He was a hell of a man. I have to say. I quit him one day. He said that You can’t quit me. I said, why? He said, I had Mario in my car. I had everybody, all the good drivers I had in my car.

The only guy I ever put in my car was McGuire. I said, well, I don’t know how you missed that, how you missed that race, didn’t you? You, he didn’t have a good enough car. No. That’s Say you the only guy that did, he offered, he offered me driving the car, but he

Lynn Paxton: said, bill, what’s describing it? I said, I don’t want.

Jimmy Maguire: I’m,

if he’s driving that, I don’t wanna drive.

Billy Wentz Sr: He said he

couldn’t afford you.

Jimmy Maguire: That’s right, that’s right. Well,

I, I

required 50% whenever I drove any, anybody,

Billy Wentz Sr: but I, I drove for him for, uh, quite a while and I, him, he was there to play, [00:14:00] didn’t want getting his daughter though, so I was out of there. I got hooked up with Pete Sach and it was much better for me.

But as far as the person goes. You couldn’t beat Scot. He was just amazing, man. How about, tell me a bit about Scott, about your association with Stan Lopez. Well, I met Stan out at the shop, down s Scott’s shop. He’s another guy, you know, I used to go up there for the, for the banquets for this party a lot.

He was just amazing. One day he said, uh, I wanna show you something. When said, took me over to his, one of his Quo Hus and he said, I have your first race car. I said, the hell you do. I said, you couldn’t have it. He said, I have your first race car. And he showed it to me and I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe that he had that first one.

The body was made from an old Coca-Cola side. It was crude as you can be. We had a pull it with a rope. That’s how we started. We didn’t have a bumper for him the hard way. That’s the way I had the hard way, but had a lot of fun. Had a lot [00:15:00] of fun. Has

Lynn Paxton: anybody got any questions? I mean, he’s seen it all. He precedes me by a whole lot, and that’s hard to say, but he does.

Audience: Did you ever think in your lifetime you’d see a sprint car race? Pay a million dollars to win? A million to win What Eldora did this year?

Lynn Paxton: This year paid a million dollars to win the race. Bobby Allen’s car won it.

Billy Wentz Sr: Oh my God. Yeah. Million. A million

Lynn Paxton: dollars. A million bucks. One race. Damn. I raced my whole

career.

Didn’t make that kind

of money. They made it one night.

Billy Wentz Sr: If I ever got a hundred dollars, I thought I’d win the lottery, but you know, it wasn’t about money. I want to have enough money so I could keep raising, put the money back in the car, which I never did and never paid for until. I’m borrowing a little bit out a paycheck once in a while.

Lynn Paxton: Take

food

off the table for the family.

Billy Wentz Sr: Yeah, working two extra jobs. It was tough to keep it together. Then finally, when I and I, I never turned my old car over when I drove for other people. Yes. [00:16:00]

Lynn Paxton: Was that intentional?

Billy Wentz Sr: No. No. It does not. It just happen

that way.

That’s built in.

Lynn Paxton: Anybody else? You

got a chance here.

Audience: Did you ever run Lang?

Billy Wentz Sr: It was one of my long desires. I’ve always wanted to go there because it was a, to me, when I seen those guys run down there, that was the extreme test. I never got to run. Not lying horn, but I did run the mile and eight at Nazareth and Syracuse. I love Nazareth. Nazareth Track was great.

I drove a, a car for, uh, Jimmy up there one time and it was a lot of fun.

Audience: Did McGuire ever get any good?

Billy Wentz Sr: I can’t say he not. He’s not smiling over there looking. Come on Jimmy Smile.

Jimmy Maguire: I take three hours. Can I do that?

Lynn Paxton: No, you can’t.

Billy Wentz Sr: What do you want me to do?

Lynn Paxton: I can’t have you both [00:17:00] up here at the same time. You know why? There’d be a hell of a fist fight and your nose would be on the other side hand.

Billy Wentz Sr: You gotta gimme a hand getting down.

Lynn Paxton: We thank you very much. He was hand, we only had pay him a hundred bucks to come, so that wasn’t bad.

Jimmy Maguire: I’m here for No, you’ll put me up. You know I’m making money with you. That’s good. I’m giving it back to you.

Lynn Paxton: Anyhow. Anyhow, what can I say now? You heard how you cut him out of a ride and he told the story pretty good.

I thought, is there a rebuttal to the story?

Jimmy Maguire: Of course there is.

It was

I

a lie.

Lynn Paxton: It didn’t happen that way

Jimmy Maguire: half a lot.

Good ride. I’m gonna, I’m gonna see if I can lie better.

Crew Chief Brad: We hope you enjoyed this journey through racing history and the personal stories that keep the spirit of motor sports alive. The Eastern Museum of Motor Racing is a premier destination for motor [00:18:00] racing enthusiasts, showcasing a vast collection of historic racing cars, artifacts, and memorabilia.

To learn more about the EMMR or to be a part of the next in-person racers Roundtable, you can plan your visit or support the museum’s mission to preserve and celebrate the legacy of racing by heading to www dotr.org. Follow them on social media for the latest news, upcoming events, and exclusive content.

Until next time, keep the engines running and the memories alive.

Crew Chief Eric: This episode has been brought to you by Grand Touring Motorsports as part of our Motoring Podcast network. For more episodes like this, tune in each week for more exciting and educational content from organizations like The Exotic Car Marketplace, the Motoring Historian, break Fix, and many others. If you’d like to support Grand Touring Motorsports and the Motoring Podcast Network, sign up for one of our many sponsorship tiers at www.patreon.com/gt [00:19:00] Motorsports.

Please note that the content, opinions and materials presented and expressed in this episode are those of its creator, and this episode has been published with their consent. If you have any inquiries about this program, please contact the creators of this episode via email or social media as mentioned in the episode.

Skip ahead if you must… Here’s the highlights from this episode you might be most interested in and their corresponding time stamps.

Crew Chief Brad: [00:00:00] Welcome to The Racers Roundtable, a podcast sponsored by the Eastern Museum of Motor Racing where history meets horsepower and legends live on each episode brings together voices from across the motor sports world, from grassroots heroes to seasoned veterans as they share stories, insights, and behind the scenes tales that shaped their racing journeys.

Whether you’re a diehard fan of dirt tracks, drag strips, or open wheel icons. The racers round table is your seat at the table for candid conversations and timeless memories from those who lived it. Strap in tight because it’s time to talk. Racing history, one lap at a time.

Alison Kreitzer: Hi everyone. Welcome to the Eastern Museum of Motor Racing. We’re gonna get started. My name is Allison Kreitzer and I’m the executive director here at the museum. We’re so thrilled to have Jimmy Spencer here with us today. I know we’re gonna have a very exciting round table. Thank you again for coming.

If you wanna know more about our events, you can [00:01:00] always check us out on the website emr.org, and I’m so thrilled to have Dave Hare here today to be our mc. So I’ll turn it over to him. Please give Dave and Jimmy a big round of applause.

Dave Hare: Thank you, Allison, and we certainly appreciate the fine work. Allison is our executive director and her staff are doing here at the Eastern Museum of Motor Racing, and once again, it is primarily a staff of volunteers that give their time and efforts in heart to make this facility what it is.

Today’s guest won his first late model race at Port Royal Speedway in 1976. He’s a multi-time NASCAR modified champion. Spent two decades competing in NASCAR’s top divisions where he has won of 41 drivers to win a race in Cup Xfinity and Truck series competition. He would eventually forge a career as a NASCAR media darling.

And of course, he is the founder of the Burwick School of Etiquette, which rose to prominence following the enrollment of Mr. Kurt Bush. Please welcome [00:02:00] to the Eastern Museum of Motor Racing, the pride of Burwick, Pennsylvania. Mr. Excitement, Jimmy Spencer,

Jimmy Spencer: thank you. It is working. Thanks everybody.

Dave Hare: Mr. Paxton, I see you pulling with the microphone over there. Is there, is there there something? Oh no, don’t

Jimmy Spencer: give him a mic.

Dave Hare: I’m sorry, but we’re there.

Jimmy Spencer: He knows too much stuff.

Lynn Paxton: Spencer. Spencer just shut up a little bit. Once they heard Spencer was coming, we’ve got a lot of people that he competed with.

Big Slim was back here. The renter. Family’s back here. I’m sorry, Butch can’t be with us. I invited Charlie Wman, but he said, this building’s not big enough for a Spencer and a Wman, so you take it from there.

Jimmy Spencer: You know, growing up I wanted to run sprint cars and I, and I loved Bobby Allen and Lynn Paxton and I, I would watch those guys race and then Bob weer with the sprint and I wanted to race a sprint car.

I told Paxton, and one night I was at Seals Grove, first year of dirt racing and Paxton challenged me. I got in the sprint car down there his, that ended [00:03:00] my career in dirt racing. True story. He won at Port Royal and I won a Port Royal. I passed Jim Nave on the last corner of the last lap. Never touched him.

And Jim Nave and his wife were fantastic people from near Bedford. Somebody threw a beer bottle. A lot of people threw stuff that night and they hit my wife, my girlfriend in the head, and I said, listen, you son of a bitches, you’ll never see me in a dirt car again. And I never got back in a dirt car. I said that was it because my dad had a reputation, but my dad won lots and lots of races and I wanted to race sprint cars, and I decided I was gonna go asphalt racing.

That’s that set my career in that way, but I definitely wanted to go Indy car racing. I know I wasn’t as big at the time, and I met AJ Foot, became friends with him, Marianne Andretti. And fortunately enough in my career, I even became bigger friends with them as we became cup drivers. And boy am I

Lynn Paxton: glad you went nascar.

Jimmy Spencer: We had a lot of good friends. Old Hogan used to bust his butt all the time. Hogan [00:04:00] Fogarty, he’s a prankster. Just so you guys know that Paxton is a piece of work. Uh, love, I love Lynn. I got with Schrader and oh man, we talk about Paxton all the time and I, I gotta tell you something guys. First time here won’t be my last.

Absolutely incredible what you guys have done here. The motors, the freaking history. Stevie Smith. I go down the list. Slim double best right up. There he is. That’s the car I tried to pass, slim on the outside at Lincoln. I got up on the top and I said I got enough room. I was a rookie first year and bam, I hit the wall.

My brother said, damn slim, put you in the wall. He says, no he didn’t. I said, he gave me enough room. I was dumb enough to run into the wall, but I was telling slim the story. Slim’s good to see at renters. Oh Jesus, my. I gotta tell you a quick story about Butch. Me and Butch, we were racing at Clearfield Sunday evening race.

It was dark and I can’t recall the car, but there was a pretty bad wreck. And Butch and I running together, we got involved in it. The motor hit roof of my car [00:05:00] and butch caught the rear end and the whole freaking car busted the apart. And me and Butch are there and we’re looking and we said, Butch, I think I killed the son of a bitch.

And that was Butch. Finally, he got out of the rest of his car. You remember Michael Waltrip’s incident at Bristol? I, it was blocky Watt’s car. It was a convertible, but it was incredible. You meet people in your lifetime, Paxton’s, one of ’em, Barry Klein a lot more calmer. Uh, but Butch is a guy you never forgot.

And I was telling his wife, I still think the world of Butch and his whole family. So it means a lot to be invited here and see the old people,

see all these beautiful faces.

Dave Hare: Oh, nice recovery, nice recovery. See what he learned when he did television. He’s so polished now.

Jimmy Spencer: Race, religion, and politics.

Dave Hare: Never. After this is done, I want you to tell me about Barry Klein dance when he was not calm, because I’ve never known that part. So you and we can talk later.

Jimmy Spencer: No, I, I [00:06:00] don’t know about Barry taught me a lot. Okay. First time with Barry Klein dance. My dad was winning lots of races and he saw the boys coming up, my brother, ed and me. I raced, go-karts. Dad said, I think I’m selling my car. So we, he sold the car about July or August. Like, what the hell did he do that for?

Well, we didn’t know at the time, but he didn’t want us racing. We’re bored as heck. We don’t know what we’re gonna do on a Friday or Saturday night. So we see a car somewhere near Clearfield for sale for 3,500 bucks or something like that. So it says, I wanna race dad. Dad says, well, go ahead. So we went and got it, brought it home.

Uh, I can’t show you because his first night at Seals Grove, his legs were shaking so bad and my dad said, eh, and you okay? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m okay. Well, he proceeded to go out and finish dead last. He said, this car’s a piece of crap. Dad says, all right, well, we’ll work on it and we’ll see what we got. So the next week we go to the racetrack.

He says, dad, you need to get in and see if it’s any good. He goes out, what does he do? Starts in the rear, wins the race. I said,

Music: yes.

Jimmy Spencer: [00:07:00] There was three races to go in the season. The guy wanted to buy the car so that my dad sells him the car. My dad says, good, we’re done racing. That’s the first time I met Barry.

Barry Klein dance has a car. Uh, I’ll never forget that was my first ever race car 64 Chevelle. My dad raced it, won the Chuck Championship, Williams Grove Seals Grove, both the oh man. And that’s who became friends with Barry. And when I walked in his shop, he had a old pipe. Calm, never spoke a whole lot, but boy, he could build a damn engine.

And he could do anything. And my dad and him won lots of races together. So that’s my first time meeting Barry. And then I had the opportunity, Barry worked for me and my Bush team. He took care of Dick Trickles motors and stuff like that. Pretty long time relationship. Barry

Dave Hare: doesn’t talk about himself that much.

Jimmy Spencer: That’s Barry. Yeah.

Dave Hare: Well Jimmy got here at nine and the story started at 9 0 1 and they have not stopped. And there’s plenty yet to be told. So I’m not gonna get in the way of that. But I did wanna just bring something up real quickly, and I know we’re out of alignment here chronologically, but my buddy Paul Shuck is here and he reminded me [00:08:00] that he said it was this weekend, wasn’t sure what year it was, but on this weekend you would want a Bush race in Vegas.

Well,

Jimmy Spencer: it wouldn’t have been this weekend. No, not Vegas. That was the spring race because I, I went there the year earlier. Okay. I went there the year earlier in spring.

Music: Yep.

Jimmy Spencer: Was leading the race and the motor blow up, pissed me off. Went back the second time. This is on Friday ’cause I met Ernest Borg nine.

That day, Ernest Boite come in and he says, I love the looks of your race car. And I loved Ernest Boite and I didn’t ever seen the movie The Theon Adventure, and I loved Ernest Boite on McHale’s Navy. I mean, that was just, anyway, been very fortunate to meet a lot of people and he came that Saturday morning, he said, look what I found heads up.

I said, well tape it to the dash, said you’re gonna win today. We won 92 grand, we won. So that was pretty special and that was, uh, one of my biggest paydays ever. And, uh, good memories

Dave Hare: you talked about, well, your dad was such an influence in your life. He was a force.

Jimmy Spencer: You know, I tell Barry, my dad raised seven kids and my mom never went to the [00:09:00] races.

Now she did go to the races with me when I was got into the Cup series at Nationwide series, Bush series at the time. But, uh, mom would sit home when dad was racing. She was sitting at rocking chair, rocking man. We’d come home from Ceiling Grove wherever we were at. She bobbled the head count. The heads said, okay, go to bed.

Now, that was mom. God bless her, but dad, he had a temper and attacks him. He said, if you pushed him, he gonna push you back twice as hard. That’s the way he was. And me and Earnhardt used to talk a lot about my dad because he loved my dad. I’ve became really good friends with Dale Earnhardt. Every week he would come by the Hollerer and, Hey, pop, how you doing?

He, he, he told me, he says Ralph, his dad, Ralph. He says, every time I talked to your dad, he reminds me of my dad. He said, wish my dad was still here like yours. And he billed the Taj Mahal and the whole nine yards. And he comes to the hauler. He goes, Spence. He goes, Jimmy, is your dad here? He says, no, he’s coming in tomorrow.

It was a Charlotte weekend. He says, okay, next day, here comes Earnhart Pop. I want you to come to my shop Monday after the race. So we did. And I go over there with dad. [00:10:00] Earnhart pushes me away. He says, get hell away. He said, I’m gonna show your dad the shop. So Earnhart showed us the shop, and I’ll never forget as long as I live, but.

Yeah, we are all off track.

Dave Hare: Oh no, there’s nothing off track either. And

Jimmy Spencer: uh,

Dave Hare: just run.

Jimmy Spencer: I got my first shot with Buddy Baker and back when we were racing, my dad never really liked to race on Sundays. ’cause of my mom would take all of us to church and then we’d get our candy and all that stuff and come home, we’d eat.

And dad, he was tough. But we built a race track. It was called iosh, international Race of Shitheads. And my dad built the racetrack down at the junkyard. We had a junkyard, the racetrack is still there. My dad invited Buddy Baker and Earnhardt and them all. Oh my God. People would pay big money for the tape if I could find it.

So we were racing that night, big corn roast and the wind got out. So we had to call the state troopers and block all the people from coming. We were racing there. And Earnhardt has. Broke. We’ve done almost run outta cars. And Buddy Baker’s still out there running to me and earn, earn, says, [00:11:00] Spencer, I need a car.

I need a car. So I said, well jump in. He, hey, he jumped in. He jumped in the other side and pushed me over. So he’s driving the car around because he had busted his ball joint. And I says, baker, I said, put him in the damn soupy hole. Over in the third turn, we get a hold of Baker and he push that son of a bitch, run our keys, pushing him.

A baker’s going, whoa. You have to know buddy. He, he, even my first cup run, I was driving for Buddy at the time, and buddy’s out there in the mud hole and he can’t get out. He opens the door. Holy cow. Long story short here. We’re up there having a corn roast and everybody’s eating it. Buddy could always tell a story and buddy always would say, oh God damn.

Oh God damn. But anyway, he says all at once, he says, I know I’m stuck in the soupy hole down there in the mud hole. And he says, I see Godzilla coming. My brother had a big cat. It was dark, it was nine o’clock at nine 30 at night. Two big eyes on it, you know, two lights. And he come. He says, buddy, I’ll get you out of there.

And he put buddy up. Buddy would tell that story to everybody, but Earnhart was there. We got pictures of [00:12:00] him hugging. My mom and dad put his head next to my daddy, his head. It’s illegal to have this much fun. He, he came back the following year and then we had to stop it ’cause it got outta control ’cause of the people and stuff.

But, but six months later he, my dad, he says, Hey, let’s go over the farm. I’m gonna show you something. He said, I wanna build a track like you got. And my dad says, let me teach you something buddy. He says, you don’t have a junkyard. Dale says, you’re right here. Won’t do it. He why just come up there and race when you have it.

But we were good friends. Earnhart was a pretty special person. It hurt the day that we lost him. I rush, I ask what? Shithead?

Dave Hare: Yeah. I’m thinking there’s an entire line of apparel there somewhere. Just waiting to be,

Jimmy Spencer: Hey man, you gotta listen. Tony Stewart, Richard Childers, I’ve got another Richard Childers in this pilot riding around.

They run outta cars now. My mom was a cleaning fanatic. My mom has a laundry car and in the back seat is two laundry baskets. Childre says that thing’s got the keys in it.

Child’s [00:13:00] cousin jumps in the seat. He says to the pilot, come on, get, let’s go. We got a car. You can tell Richard. He’ll tell you the story. And my mom goes, Richard, that’s my damn laundry car. Where you going? I’ll bring piece.

And he proceeded to go around. And who hits him? Earnhardt right in the fricking door. And he goes to the pilot. Pilot says, that’s some bitch is crazy. He says, yeah, but he says he really pissed me off. ’cause he says now he knocked the radio out. The radio ain’t working. But oh the I, if I had it on film, it was just incredible stuff.

Tony Stewart wanted to do it every fricking week. He brought helmets. Oh smoke was there And the best one was Robbie Gordon comes up. So we’re about outta cars. That stupid son of a bee goes and takes his rental car. He’s out there and he knocks the hell out of it. And he says to the guy, he said, did you put your shirts on that?

He said, I hope so. And he did. He knocked it. You can’t prove the damage he did to the car. Oh, those are good memories.[00:14:00]

Dave Hare: So you started out in, in the late model rag.

Jimmy Spencer: Yep. Like one year,

Dave Hare: right around 79. Then you went to the modifieds.

Jimmy Spencer: First year 79 incident was a port royal.

Dave Hare: Yeah. That prompted your, that prompted

Jimmy Spencer: it. And, uh, I actually went to Maryland Beltsville. It wasn’t Bush cars, it was Grand Nationals. I went down there, I met with Emanuels of Wakus.

I was gonna go dirt racing because I loved dirt. So I went up, Dave Aniel, did all my rear ends and stuff in my, I became good friends with Dave after Dave had built cars. He won Syracuse and stuff. But anyway, Dave said, you don’t want to do this. He said, you’re too good for this. He says, you need a asphalt racing.

And NASCAR was starting a touring series, and the most instrumental one was Jack Johnson. Jack said, I, I’ve heard about you dirt racing and your daddy. He says, no. He says, you want to go asphalt racing? He says, as young as you are, you don’t need to be doing this dirt, man. That’s what I did.

Dave Hare: So you would’ve been think

Jimmy Spencer: 20.

Yeah. 20 years old. Not even.

Dave Hare: Yeah. Somewhere around there.

Jimmy Spencer: Yeah. Got, I think I got my first cup right. Late twenties and now they’re doing it when they’re 16.

Dave Hare: Right? Lon Rookie of the year.

Jimmy Spencer: Yeah. [00:15:00] 79.

Dave Hare: Yep.

Jimmy Spencer: Gail Clark, he built my motors. That guy taught me a lot about racing. When I first went to Barry’s shop, I was impressed how clean it was.

When I went to Gail Clark’s, he would not let you touch the bearings with your fingers, the acid on your fingers. He says, no, you have to have rubber whatever. Gloves chewed my head off. I says, oh no, don’t touch them. No. Oh, whoa. And Gail was actually the crew chief for Jeff Bodine.

Dave Hare: Okay.

Jimmy Spencer: And, uh, that’s how I became known Gail.

And Gail was the one who told me, he says, you’re pretty damn good at what you do, buddy. You know, it’s like Lynn and I were talking before about younger drivers. We wanna help ’em. You wanna see a young driver do good. And so many young drivers today are afraid to ask you.

Music: Really?

Jimmy Spencer: Yeah, you, you see it a lot.

I think the internet is changing them, but there’s still a lot. I was very fortunate when I moved south to race a couple times against Richard Petty, Bobby Allison. They teach me a lot

Dave Hare: different times. 82 and 83. Shangrila, nascar, Winston Racing Series track titles there. That was

Jimmy Spencer: my first, I, uh, bought a car from Rich.

And I didn’t like it. Richie Evans? [00:16:00] Yeah. My dad actually bought it and I was selling tires at Evergreen, still trying to make money. Race Plus had a car lot. I knew we were doing good ’cause we were winning races. But I remember Ga Clark telling me, you need to go buy a trailer. Car me your Troy. I said, you know what, I’ll call ’em up until I got to lose.

So I was broke. My wife Pat and my sister go on a cruise ’cause I was supposed to go on a cruise. And I said, we’ll take, take Chrissy. So they were on a cruise. I stayed home and I sold 13 cars that week at the car lot. And I says, yeah, good idea to buy a race car route about now. So thirsty come called Maynard up, I says, Hey Maynard, I want a new car.

I said, listen, I want Chrome on it. I want it nice. He says, it’d be about 9,200 bucks. I says, all right, I’ll send you a deposit. He says, no, I’ll just build you one. Don’t worry about it. And about a week or so he says, I’ll have it almost done. He says, then send me half the money. So I did. So you know, pat says, what’s that check outta that account for?

He says, raised car. I knew it. She was very supportive and so was my dad. But we bought a tour car and I ended up becoming the house driver. And Maynard said, [00:17:00] as as good as you are at a Wego New York, you can go anywhere and win. He said, when you can master Shangri Law Wego, you can. And he was right. I’ve been fortunate to, in every modified race strike I’ve been at.

Dave Hare: So you transitioned to the ings and you’re looking at the asphalt end of things. At what point then are you moving toward the Bush series?

Jimmy Spencer: You know, Richie Evans and I were good friends. We end, we didn’t end up real good friends, but. Because you raced the first championships in 84. I did, but he said to me, I says, Richie, I says, how come you never went?

Cup racing goes hell. He went down there. Do you remember when the built the modifieds? He went down there to Daytona on Friday with the NASCAR modifieds.

Music: Okay.

Jimmy Spencer: He kicked their ass. Richie was very good. He beat Darryl Waltrip, Bobby Allison, all of them. He goes, I make more money driving modifieds than you do Raven Nasco.

Because he had b Dubt is the sponsor the whole nine yards. So in 84, I raced Richie and I went broke. I, I, I literally went broke again. I said, well, time to go south in 84. I started, I started selling a lot of cars and stuff [00:18:00] and met some great people. I drove for Art Murray out of Rhode Island. I drove for Eddie Mke.

I drove for Renie Garland, not Char Garland outta Canada. And was very fortunate. They paid me good money and I, I won for him. I went to Westboro, went to a lot of these races and you know, I became fairly good friends with Richie and he said, whatcha gonna do next year? And I said, I’m going south. I got a phone call my buddy, you ain’t gonna believe what happened today.

And I says, shit, no, you know, Richie gets killed. And then, uh, you know, a month goes by and Hunter calls me up and he says, gene DeWit wants you to drive his car modified. I said, okay. So that sounds like a good deal. And, uh, that would’ve been 80, 86. So over the winter, everything’s going good. I ordered two brand new Toyota cars.

That was a dream because I was gonna have a Goodyear Tire deal. I was gonna have a motor deal and a credit card. I never had that. And uh, that was pretty cool. And I said, man, I can make some money doing modify it. So. Gene DeWitt’s son says to [00:19:00] Mr. Dewitt, we can’t have him drive. He’s from Pennsylvania. We have to have a New York driver, gene dewitt concrete company.

So Hutter called me about on and he said, listen. He says, Gene’s son’s saying you can’t drive his cars. I says, well, that’s great. I says A month ago, and we gotta be at the circuit. He goes, well, Frank Cece asked me you could drive his cars. So I said, okay. So I went up, Frank had his car sitting there. I go to the Shangrila the first night, a week in New York, and I’m leading the race, and George Kent passes me.

George Kent’s driving for BEI duet my brother. Ed says he does not get passed. So something’s wrong with that car. Well, the crew chief is pissed off and all. My brother Ed says, hang on a second. We pulled over it said jack it up. So we jack it up. He takes the rear wheels off and the rear end’s bent and said the damn rear end’s bent in that car.

Frank, get the hell outta here. It’s a brand new rear end. Well, Ronnie Kent said to Frank, get used to it because that’s what’s gonna happen to you every race. Frank said, I got news for you, son of a bitch. You guys are in a lot of trouble because they pissed him off. So Frank says, whatever you need, [00:20:00] go. We had George Kent two races to go in the season.

We had to lock the championship up. So Frank Cece was very instrumental in me winning those races. But the moral of the story for me was the best story ever. I was at a Wigga, New York, and Mr. Dewitt was a fantastic man with a cane. Wigga, New York had the best hotdog in the world. I said, bats. Anyway, I’m standing there and he goes, I’ll get that.

I look Mr. Dewitt. He says, Jimmy, come over. I wanna talk to you. So I go over there and I sit down there by him and he goes, congratulations. I said, what’s that, Mr. Dewett? He says, oh, you, you won this championship. He says, you’re 10 times the driver I got. And he said, Richie always told me that I just wanna take congratulations.

He said, I made a big mistake. I says, is never too late. He says, no, I’m done. He said My last year. And, uh, we won the championship and he quit sponsoring NASCAR modified. Then we went on one second time again with Frank, and then we decided to go south racing. Pretty cool. The good memories.

Dave Hare: Tell us about that decision in the move south because it’s hard.

Yeah. I mean, we’re talking 35 years [00:21:00] ago or so. Yeah, and it basically, it was a different world then. I mean, that’s a different culture.

Jimmy Spencer: You know, NASCAR didn’t care. I was at Stafford Springs, Connecticut about 19 82, 19 83. It was Spring Sizzler. I went out there and they’d implemented a Hoosier Tire rule.

Tires were junk. They blew right off the beads. Well, I blew three of ’em out that

Lynn Paxton: day

Jimmy Spencer: and I lost my front brakes. So when I lost my front brakes, I went in to fix ’em. And NASCAR says, you’re done for the day. So, Jim Hunter at Stafford, you have to understand this is the grand stands, and this was the back of the grandstand.

Okay. And I was parked right there, and Hunter is out there and he goes, so he’s making weight. Mike Joy’s there. That’s how I got Mr. Excitement. So I said, so that was it? Yeah, that’s what got me, Mr. Excitement. So I started to rear field Quebec that second.

Dave Hare: Okay.

Jimmy Spencer: The fans were pounding, right? Yeah. So anyway, Eddie Young ended up coming to me after the race over.

They said, we told you not. I said, listen, when I pulled out to that tower and that guy had the chain there, I didn’t run a chain down. I said to him, I said, you two options, you either drop [00:22:00] the chain or I run it over. I said he took the smart option. I said he dropped the chain, let me go through. So I said it wasn’t my fault.

They said that, don’t be a smart Alec. But anyway, that’s them guys. That was at Ed Root and Eddie Yarrington. So they were gonna find me two grand. I call nascar, I get the letter. I called Bill France and Bill France goes, hello? I said, Mr. France, you heard what happened Sunday at Stafford. Uh, yeah, I think I did hear about that.

He goes, uh, why did you disobey the officials? I says, man, Mr. France, Jim Hunter was on the back of the damn grand stands waving for me to come on here. He was on speakerphone, France. He goes, no, no, no. I wasn’t telling you to come back on the track. I was giving you the thumbs up that you have done a good job.

I said, you sons of bitches, France says, you just keep doing what you’re doing. I said, what about this flying? He says, what? Flying? [00:23:00] So I knew where the strings were pulled down. That became Mr. Excitement and then from there became pretty successful,

Dave Hare: not arguing that full season with the Bush series. Uh, you end up, I think this is 1988, seventh in the point standings in the 34 car, you had five top fives, 13 top tens.

Pretty solid.

Jimmy Spencer: Yeah. We were sitting out as in the spring, 89 and I was sitting in the garage with me and two other guys working on the car and the phone rings and we’re in this little shop. Herb nabs, man, we were hurting for money. Phone rings, they’re underneath the car working. Hello? Yeah, this is Buddy Baker.

Is Jimmy there? I says, yeah, and if you’re F-ing buddy, b I’m the president of the United States. And I hung the phone up so we didn’t have cell phones at the time. So anyway, I go back out in the garage and Al goes, who was that? Some asshole said he was Buddy Baker and he wanted me to drive his car. Do you know Buddy Baker fired Greg Sack yesterday.

I said, what? He goes, [00:24:00] they fired Greg Sack yesterday. Jesus Christ. I. Stupid. Well, we go back to work. About 10, 50 minutes later, the phone rings again. I I run in there as quick as I can. Is is Jimmy there? I I, God Jimmy, you there? This is Jimmy. He said This is Buddy Baker. Do you wanna drive my goddamn race car, don’t you?

I said I’ll be over immediately. Bring a seat. Not supposed, my mom never used God’s name of name, but that’s what Buddy was. Anyway, drove over to the garage, put the car seat in the car, and went to Dover. That was my first cup race with Buddy, 1989. Gave me my break.

Dave Hare: You almost missed it.

Jimmy Spencer: Can you believe that?

Dave Hare: Unbelievable.

Jimmy Spencer: Drove for Bobby Allison. I was. I was very fortunate.

Dave Hare: You talked about, uh, your relationship with Dale. I’ve heard you tell a story about time Dale asked you to test a car for him at Indy. Oh

Jimmy Spencer: yeah. I got one before that.

Dave Hare: Yeah. Yeah. Whatever you got, bring it on.

Jimmy Spencer: Nobody knew Earnhardt, like he really was Earnhardt.

He was a hell race car driver, but he was special. Like every one of us. If you needed something, he’d help you. But his [00:25:00] persona at the races was different. We would go to Isabella’s to eat lunch every so often. About once a week we were driving to Isabella’s and I was sitting in the passenger seat, I guess it was about 92, maybe 93 maybe.

We’re driving down Linwood Road and he sees these two black guys over there working the church. He spins his truck around, he says, Hey boys, what you doing? Ah, you know, the old preacher says, we need to get this here leveled out. Get in the truck. He says, I’m gonna buy you boys lunch. So they jump in the truck.

He has the pack phone. Remember the old pack phone? They blast you out. Yeah. I forget who the guy was. He says, Hey, tell Blue Max to send a load of two B gravel over here to Glenwood Road and Zion Church. And he says, get the bobcat and get your ass up there and level that great, all that driveway for him.

Parking area. So we go to Isabella’s about that time, about an hour. ’cause they’re in our, he loves sweet tea and talk. And he loves Sundrop. He, oh, he loves Sundrop. And we sat there and talked to this two guys. We were just super guys and they were up in age and we, we learned a lot about them and their church and stuff.

And we stopped on the way [00:26:00] back and it is all level out. And he says, I know who you be now, man. I, I, I know who you be. And that’s Southern, that’s typical. Earnhart goes, you don’t worry about it. You just don’t owe me nothing. We are gonna pray for you and earn. He says, Earnhart believed in the Lord. I, I believe Dale’s in a better place.

He was saved. Daryl Waltrip, his wife, Stevie Waltrip was big into that. Not preacher, but make sure you were saved and stuff. So I think Earnhardt’s. But that’s the stuff that he did. I, uh, had two kids and my wife was living in Ville and I promised Pat that I would take her and the kids that weekend. We were gonna take a weekend off and we’re gonna go to Carol’s.

So about a month before that, Earnhart says, Jimmy, I need to come outta shop. Alright, so I go to the shop, he says, sit that car. He had an old 40 con line seat. I sat in the seat and everything else and I says, wow. I said, uh, these are comfortable. I see why you like him. He says, you’re driving this thing at Indy for me?

And I says, oh no, I’m not. Ain’t gonna happen. He says, that’s our off weekend. You’re driving for me. I says, I am not driving this car. I am not going to [00:27:00] Indianapolis. He goes, yay, you are. I said, I’m not. I left. Following weekend, we go to the cup race. He comes over and he says, you’re driving that damn car. I says, Dale, I promised Pat that I was taking them kids to Carolyn’s on Sunday.

He says, I promise you, I mean you will be back Saturday night at all costs to have them kids at Carolyn’s, I promise you. And I go, what if it rains? He says, Mike, call you, fly You home the. I said, okay, I’ll do it. And I was hurting for money at the time. And one thing led to another. It was one of the greatest days, one of the greatest weekends.

I says, babe, I’ll be back Saturday night. I mean, he promised me she’s okay, but, and I think he’s gonna gimme a couple grand. I could use the money. So I drive up to Tony U, senior and junior. What a great time. Get my own motel room. I can’t believe this crap. And I, I don’t know why earns doing what he’s doing, because he could have got some other people to do it.

I realized after I did it, why he did. ’cause I was winning some Bush races and he trusted me. So I, I said to him, I said, I’ll go up there, but I’m not going to do nothing to the car. He says, [00:28:00] make the car the way it’s supposed to. I want to know. I said, okay. So he goes into Michigan to the I rock race. So he flies back.

Well, that afternoon, just the man alive, he could draw a freaking crowd, that freaking grandstand. And they were, they were lined up everywhere, you know, as I was practicing with a Saturday and I says, Tony, I said, this is what, you know, make a long story short. I said, I feel this. It needs to be a little bit freer, dead center corner.

They did everything. I said, I fixed it. I qualified. Fifth, I get in there and he, he comes in, he comes in, he goes, what’s the story? And I said. Dead neutral, little snug to start after about four or five laps, I said, that bitch is on the money. He said, okay. Drives from the rear of the field to the lead. And unfortunately he had an air gun break and he ends up finishing third in the race.

We jump in the van on a hill, so there is in the van and Earnhardt’s in the front seat and Mike’s in the other seat and I’m in the back. So, oh, oh, Mike, stop there. Stop there. So he goes and he stops with the pay shack. Where you going? Uh, don’t worry about it. And he gets a fricking brown envelope. [00:29:00] Brown’s pack.

Whoa. I know what that is. That’s dead presidents. And we get to the airport before that. He says, leave your luggage. We get at the airport, we’ll get it later. You know, you come to the shop, pick it up, I’ll drop you off the task. ’cause we landed a Spencer airport up in near Spencer, North Carolina entrance Ville.

Annapolis go to get into the plant there. He says, no you’re not. Said some stuff to there. And he said, yes, he is. He’s sitting right there. So I did. So we’re coming home and our nurse says, what the hell did you do to that car? And I says, nothing. I says, Dale, I told you I was gonna get in the car. I says, Tony changed the can.

I said, they realized the can game wasn’t right. I says, he changed the both upper A arms went out. And I said, son, bitch was hooked. He says, you’re damn right was he goes, what do you think’s wrong? I says, Dale, the last time I drove a MoSo motor, I believe I could pull spark, plug wire off and beat that motor you had.

And he goes, I know. That’s what Childress has been telling me. I said, Dale, your motors are terrible. I mean, they were down. Major Dennis Fisher was built and they were terrible motors. So I fall asleep on the [00:30:00] airplane and then Theresa, I land and we have a new, new suburban. I get in the back seat and he drives me off and eat front my house.

And he hands me a big white envelope. I didn’t think nothing of, threw it on the counter. Go to bed about seven o’clock, my wife comes in and wakes me up. Hey, there’s an awful lot of money in that envelope. I go, how much is in there? She says, $9,000. Ah. I said, he must have made a mistake. Don’t worry about it.

So we got to car Monday. I come order an art shop, reach in my back pocket. He’s up in his office signing autograph, and I throw the envelope down. What’s the matter? I says, I think you made a mistake. Well, you want more?

I, I couldn’t believe it. And I said, Dale, do you know how much is in there? He says, it’s worth every penny to me. He’s, I got 40 grand to do that deal anyway. What are you worried about? So earn, I made a lot of freaking money. That was, that was, that was interesting. But good friends with Dale. I, it, it hurt that day pretty bad when we lost him.

But part of the sport, I guess

Dave Hare: doesn’t making any easier.

Jimmy Spencer: No.

Dave Hare: Another guy that Jimmy, that [00:31:00] you’ve talked so fondly about over the years, Bobby Allison, tell us about getting hooked up with him and what it was like to work with Bobby Allison.

Jimmy Spencer: You know, Joe Gibbs is probably a strong Christian. I mean, he gives you his testimony.

It’s absolutely phenomenal. And Bobby Allen’s pretty close. Bobby lost both of his sons. Now he’s lost. Judy. Judy, Judy, my dad used to say I finished third at Nazareth, passed Bobby Allison to get third. He finished fourth. He come over, we were talking there. He said to me, he said, you did a good job. We became pretty good friends.

And one of my first times at at Daytona, I was parked right next to ’em. ’cause we were on the outside looking in because they had the points lined up. The cars with the points were lined up. Then we were in the other garage, Darryl Waltrip, Dale Earnhart. ’cause they weren’t in the points and that’s where the new cars had to park.

I was fortunate. Park next to Bobby, I qualified Sabbath. He qualified eighth and he’s looking at my car and he goes. Nope. Nope. Put that spoiler back up. We put the spoiler back up. It slowed the car down. About two and a half tents. Saturday comes and I’m out there [00:32:00] and he sees me on the introduction, sees me on the pit road.

He walks by and he looks at my car and he goes, buddy, what did I tell you? No, no, no, no, no. He said, bump that thing up. Second lap coming off a four. Caution, caution spin. Yeah. Who the hell do you think it is? Me. Here I go spinning into the damn infield. I don’t hit nothing. I said, oh, thank God. I says, ed bumped the goddamn spoiler up.

Like Bobby said,

Music: I bumped

Jimmy Spencer: it up. And anyway, that was the year Bobby got hurt. Bobby won the Daytona 500 and he won the goodies 300 the day before. Won both races. Bobby was watching my career with Buddy and all that, and I was driving for Dick MoSo. What happened was I was driving for Travis. Travis ran outta money.

Dave Hare: Travis Carter.

Jimmy Spencer: Travis Carter. That would’ve been 91. 91. So I was driving for Moosa, the Daily First Aid car and all that. We won a bunch of races and I was at Myrtle Beach. There was a rain delay at Michigan and they were all watching us at Myrtle Beach and I [00:33:00] was fortunate enough to make a three laps that day.

It’s weird, but you get a feeling when sometimes the good Lord’s watching over you. So Dick Moroso, who’s Robbie was a hell of a race car driver, got killed two years earlier. Lots of guys drove his race car and he come to Travis, he says Travis, he says, I fired Mike Wallace. He says, I want Jimmy to drive my car.

And he says, well, yeah, you can drive his car. So I did, and we won three races. We were at Myrtle Beach. Mark Reno had built a hell of a car. Saturday morning comes, Dick goes, Aldi said, you changed the gear. I says, yeah. I says, I need this gear. He said, motor’s gonna blow up. I says, no, won’t. I said, I’ll lift.

Be careful. ’cause he said, if you don’t, it’s gonna blow up. I says, no. I’ll lift a new tires, it’ll turn. Look what happened. I had that gear in it because on the restart, I was leading the race. And the fricking thing jammed in gear. The her ship pin broke, so it jammed in third gear. So by the time they got it fixed, there was three laps down.

Go back out on the track. Chief Griss was leading the race then, and I made the one lap up. I’m sitting there two laps down and the caution comes out and Dick Russell comes on the radio races. I think you need to park that car and save it for [00:34:00] next week. And Mark Rina was one of the best crew chief he ever had.

He says, we don’t park nothing, Dick. He says, we, you worry about this race, we’ll worry about next week. Dick says That car’s too fast. I want to, I want to run it in. He says, I don’t give a shit. We’re gonna run it. He says, Jimmy, what do you think? And I says, I believe we can make these laps up. So you would line up back then at the, on the inside.

Fuck what happened. We made up the

Music: lap

Jimmy Spencer: cars. Yeah, the lap car we made, we made the laps up and won the race, but under the rain delay, you know, got a phone call and it was Bobby Allison. He said, you, you’re gonna make another lap up? I said, yeah. He goes, I gotta talk to you on Monday. I want you to stop by the shop.

I said, okay. I wouldn’t race. Monday comes, I go over to see Bobby. He goes, I’m having a problem with es. They want to leave. They want to keep one of the greatest dirt racers ever to drive a dirt late model. Jeff Purvis, hell racer good friends with Jeff still is today. Jeff tore a bunch of stuff up, Wilkesboro, they tore two more cars up.

They have one car left in the shop and Bobby calls me up. He said, I want you to come over Tuesday, put your scene in the car. Pervis is taking all this stuff out. He’s gone. We want you to drive for [00:35:00] us. Because what had happened was that they put Hut Strickland in it and Hut got fired. Pervis got put in it and then I got in it.

It’s interesting ’cause Hagerstown, Frank, er, he owns Hagerstown, him, Bob, bill B and Bobby were owners of that team. They were like 28th in the points, and it was a lot of money. If you could move the car in the top 20, I went in there with Jimmy Finning. That was the best crew chief I had without a question, even though I didn’t win with him.

And we went in that shop. There was four races to go. We were gonna win Charlotte. That was the first one we qualified. I was running third and we were tracking down whoever it was at the time, and they come on the radio and they said, you are about three tenths quicker lap than them guys right now. So whatever you’re doing, keep doing it.

And Dick trickle, ironically, wasn’t his fault at all. Dick Grammy High. And I thought I got the wall a little bit, but I didn’t. It got a little loose. And so about seven 30 in the morning on Monday, Bobby said, what are you doing? I said, taking the kids to school. I want you to come over here as soon as you can.

I said, okay. So Monday, I, I mean I shoot over, I told Pat this, [00:36:00] babe, I’m gonna run over here. I do. Bobby says, come out and show you something. So the right rear truck arm was cracked all the way around. There was two U bolts that went down the thing like that. And there was an eighth inch plate of steel.

That’s the only thing. Held it together. And Bobby’s looking at that and he goes, that’s what cost us the race yesterday. But more importantly, he said that the good Lord was watching over you. ’cause he says, if that would’ve broke, you probably wouldn’t be here. And I says, holy hell, Bobby. He said, you did fourth.

We got fourth. He said, just hang onto to the car. ’cause Jimmy, I said, Jimmy, this has gotten very, very loose. I says, if I step on the brake it gets worse. He said, but don’t you, you know, so hang on. So we hang on about fourth because there’re like 20 laps to go in. Charlotte, you running pretty fast but you don’t know what’s gonna break.

We go test the next week, Tuesday at Rockingham, we’re gonna win Rockingham and the fricking air gun breaks end up losing a lap. Making a lap back up. Finish seventh, we go to Phoenix. Davy was racing with the championship leading the race and all day long we kept having bad pit stops and I said, BA, you have to fix the pit stops.

He’s, I’ve taken care of it. So he gets a new Jackman. The last two pit stops, hysteric. We [00:37:00] come in third. Instead of coming in and running sixth or seventh, we come out third, the last pit stop of the day. Come out running second. Wow. What an awesome job. Great guys. I’m coming down pit road, going down the back street.

I look, I said son of a bitch. 28 car, Davey. Bobby? Yeah. I said, we got a problem in front of us. Jimmy Finney. What do you mean? I says, you’ll see in it less than a minute. We were coming down the front straightaway. I had an open face helmet on Mike Keys. I’m watching him. He goes, that’s no problem. He said, that’s just another car that you have to pass today to win this race.

And I was like, did I just hear that right? And I said to myself, holy cow. He goes, listen to me buddy. He says, you’ve done a great job today. Now that car is racing for the championship, but you need to pass that car so we can win. And he says, you remember we’ll be racing that same position next year. So you treat him like you want to be treated and go get him.

I was absolutely in, couldn’t say nothing. I waited and Jimmy comes like, is you okay? I says, yeah, I’m okay. Went back to 1518 lefts to go in the race. We passed [00:38:00] Davy to get the lead and the fricking motor broke a rocker arm. I said, Jesus Christ. How the hell could that happen? Broke a rocker arm and we still finished.

Fifth what to Atlanta? Had a car capable winning in that race. So Davey was in the 28 car that day. And I said to Bobby, I said, Bobby, listen to me swerving. Irvin is driving like a maniac and he’s driving a Kodak car. And I says, tell Davey to stay behind me. And I says, well, I could protect him. Bobby says, yeah, ’cause we were in the top 28 points now and we were in the top 10 in the race.

And my concern was to help Davy win the championship. ’cause if Davy would’ve finished in the top 10, he was locked in. And at the time we were running like eighth or ninth and weren’t running that hard. And this is no lie. You guys go back on YouTube or whatever, you watch that wreck, you watch the white and blue, red number 12, go on the inside of that wreck.

And Davey was ahead of me and he wrecked, unfortunately. And Larry Mc Reynolds was the crew chief. And I told Bobby what we were gonna do and Bobby went down there and told Robert Yates and Larry [00:39:00] mc Reynolds never told Davey. Pretty pissed off. Bobby Allison was pretty pissed off. So after Davey wrecks, Bobby says, there’s only one thing you can do.

Go get him. Well, that’s the day that Alan and Bill ran for the championship. Well know it all here, I’m gonna get ’em. So I went after their ass and I was as fast as they were, and I think I was faster and about a hundred laps to go in the race. I was wore out. I was like, Hey, no. So I come on the radio and I says, yeah, the car’s getting a little tight.

So I started slowing down. I was falling outta the seat. I still can’t believe how tired I was. And I realized how in shape you had to beat a race, the intensity level that Quicky and Bill put on. So after the race was over, we finished fourth, I think Jeff put, I end up beating me and I come in. I said, Bobby and Jim, I didn’t talk to you guys in the holler.

So we go up in the hall, I close the door and Bobby says, we know what happened. I’ll help you. We gotta fix it. Jimmy said, we know what happened, but he says, you’re our driver. We had a great year, but we didn’t have no money. But we had a great year. But that was the best team I drove for. Even I never [00:40:00] won.

It was Bobby Ellison. I remember when Davey got killed. I was there when Clifford got killed at Michigan. He lost both of his boys. Bobby Allison was a pretty special person. He’s still my friend today. Talked to him a lot. I still talk to him at least once a month.

Dave Hare: Jimmy, there was a story you told, I found just so intriguing.

You were testing, I guess, driving for Bobby and I think it was super Speedway. Yeah. And the car was what? A little loose? Yeah. Kicked in and he gave you a piece of advice. Just doesn’t seem to make sense. It did make sense.

Jimmy Spencer: We were at Daytona, you know, we kept working. All we worked on was do not turn the steering wheel, try to keep the wheels least amount of possible, don’t turn the wheel at, try to let the car drive itself.

And we kept working on working and Bobby would pound in my head, whatever you do, keep doing it. Identical. Don’t change your line. The computer could pick up the speeds. Yeah. I said, Bobby, I said, it’s a little free. I says, when I roll that thing down in the corner, it starts to free up. I have to back off the wheel.

He says, turn it to the right. I went, what? He goes, when you go down into the corner, [00:41:00] take all the pressure off the wheel and push it back to the right a little bit. He said it’ll tighten it up. It’ll put wedge in it. I says, Bobby, man, we’re running 200 mile an hour into the corner. He goes, trust me, it’ll work now.

You don’t panic. He said, you just do it gradually. And I went out there and I tried it and it worked. I was like son and it worked, learned from a lot of this I’ve never worked with Junior, where one in 94 we was at Daytona and Banjo Matthews come over, junior goes banjo. He goes, boy’s complaining about the car doing this and that.

Banjo had a big thick old pair of glasses. Smart son of a big old banjo Matthews. And uh, he had built a front steer car with a rear steer suspension. The pivot points had to be at the right height. And him and Junior, you haven’t seen that. Them two big old bellies and you know, they laying on the ground looking and he take a tape measure.

Banjo looked at Junior, he says, can’t fix this son of a bitch. He said They put the clip on wrong. I said, boy, that’s great. So we went on to Daytona. Unfortunately we wrecked, which I sort of [00:42:00] figured we were gonna have with what happened with the front end. ’cause he could never turn the car back the other way.

That was after Bobby I was driving. This is 94 for the Daytona 500. We won Daytona. We were beating Ernie back to Talladega in April and finished second Earn Earnhardt. That was pretty cool. I remember Teddy Musgrave drove my car and he says, there is no way you can drive that car that way. I says, well, if you ever drove for Bobby Allison, you, you would do that.

And he says, you, you will wreck. I says, no, I don’t. And we didn’t rack.

Dave Hare: I want you to tell just one more short story about Dale. There was something he told you that he did before the race on Pit Road. Oh man. That just sort of separated him from everybody else. That was his mindset. Tell us about that.

Jimmy Spencer: Yeah, it was, Schrader would come over, we’d all sit in Earnhardt’s old barn, we’d bullshit steal stories.

Earnhart had five gallon buckets, you know, the old like pal plaster buckets of water, and that was our meeting room. So this is before I was cup racing, and this would’ve been 80, 88. We were sitting there one night, I says, Earnhart hated a skunky beer. He loved Bud Light. He could tell he’s not skunky throwing, [00:43:00] he’d made Go get more Bud Light.

But anyway, I says Earnhardt. So they were all like Inger. And I sat there next to my Earnhardt. I says, what makes you think you’re so damn good? I don’t know. He said, I guess I just think I’m better than everybody. He says, what I do is that before the race starts, he would always get on his car and he would sit on the windowsill of his car.

Slide his butt down in there, get on the window, Silva’s car. Wherever he started, he’d looked back and he’d go to himself. Ain’t nobody here good enough to beat me there. I believe I can get all those guys in front of me to believe I could beat every one of them. He’d slide back in the car. Determination.

Paxton could tell you, I mean, you knew you could race against, you knew how determination a lot of guys never had the focus and the determination. They always would complain about their car. Earnhart taught me one time, he said, listen, you have a three foot yard stick. You tell them to get that son of the bitch within that three foot yard stick and you handle it the rest of the way.

It’s a lot more complicated now, but he was right. If it’s tight, you loosen it up. If [00:44:00] it’s loose, you tighten it up. You have that yard say you gotta drive that car. And I, I remember one time Bill Elliot telling me, Ray Abraham says, listen. He says, I need you to talk to Casey Kane and, and I think the world of Casey and Casey was just over driving all the time and Bill was his teammate.

Bill says he’s the best at telling you this story. He says, Gacy, I’ve done it my whole life. I always drove to the edge and beyond and I, I usually didn’t come back. I says, you got to learn that you only could push that car to nine and a half 10, and that’s it. If you go over, you’re gonna wreck, you’re wrecking a lot.

And that’s what I did. And I says, you, you gotta back up and tell the crew chief to fix that car. And the biggest thing that I found in racing was that’s why Kirk Schine and Earnhart were so good together. And Earnhardt hated Larry McReynolds. You, you, you hated certain people because they, I knew the day was over for Chad au I was sitting with Rick Hendrick and Jimmy Johnson was out there and Chad Au was telling him how to drive that car.

And I said to myself, that’s the end of this man. You don’t become a seven time [00:45:00] champ by listening to your crew chief tell you how to drive that damn race car. And I knew that marriage was over. I said, that’s instant divorce. It’s funny because. Talking about being booed and yay. And we were at WA as Glen and we were coming across the track and man, these people were going crazy.

Yay. Oh, you know, and my buddy tc, he’s 87 years old with me, my Alex, my best friend, and Mike says, tc, can you believe this at TC said No. ’cause he said the last time he left, hit him sons a bitches boot him so bad he couldn’t stand it and now they’re applauding. So Mike said what it just, how it changes.

But uh, we were getting introduced to Dover and I don’t know what happened the week before. I guess they must have thought I’d done something wrong, which I never thought I did anything wrong. And we were coming across it, it di intros, they are booing and yaying like, no tomorrow. I think I started the 17th and Earnhardt was 18th.

No, Earnhardt come across first. [00:46:00] Boone Yank going crazy. So he’s sitting in the back of the pickup truck waiting for me and they start boo and yanking for me and I’m like, son, why are they booing? Get up in the Hollerer and Earnhardt puts his arm around me and he goes, doing good buddy. He said, because when they people are yelling, you gotta appreciate it.

I hate to pick on people. But the next guy up was Brett Benign, and then the next guy up, they never made a sound. I got his point. I said, wow, that’s interesting. And one thing about being booed and yay that you’re doing your job. And I mean, you look back, AJ Foyt, Mario Andretti, you look back, they hate Kyle Bus.

I’ll never eat another Emine M in my life. And they’re the first ones to buy an Eminem. I mean, what the hell is Eminem’s got to do? It’s the greatest candy in the world. But Kyle Bus, because he didn’t like him, but I had a talk with him one time ’cause won Bristol. I was doing TV and part-time truck racing.

He smashed a guitar and then he wins the race at Bristol. And he said, this is the worst piece of shit ever drill in my life. Now that was the car of [00:47:00] the morning. He just won the race. So the following week, it was the Darlington, I believe, when we were gonna go to Texas the following week. And Mr. Hendrick and Mr.

France were up in the hollerer and bust her out and comes over to the thing and he goes, Hey, some guys wanna talk to you up in the Hollerer. I says, oh shucks, what do I do now? So I go up into the Hollerer and old man France is sitting there and. He said, close the door, said, I closed the door and they said, we need you to do us a favor.

We need to talk to Kyle. And I said, okay, I’ll, I’ll do that. And Bill explained to him that the sport doesn’t need him. We want him, but if he wants to, we can kick his ass out just like anybody else. So you, you know the old story, ’cause I had that talk too, too. Certain drivers would tell you what you’re doing right and wrong.

We were in the truck race Thursday, I went to the hauler. I knew he was qualified, so I was sitting there waiting at the truck. Like we always just sit on the director’s chairs. And one of the crew members said, you need you, you need to move. I says, no, you need to leave me alone. ’cause I says, I’m in in a talkative mood, which I’m not gonna talk to you anybody.

I gotta talk to Kyle. So you just need to be on your way. I said, you need to move. I says, [00:48:00] no, you don’t know what I’m telling you. Anyway, long story short, the other guy come over, he says, whoa, whoa, whoa. He says, there was an official there. He says, get the hell away from here. Anyway, so here comes Kyle. Very respectful guy.

Hey Jimmy, what’s up? I said, need to talk to you. So he said, lemme change. So he goes up in the hollerer to change. He comes back out, he goes, I said, Kyle, I need to talk to you. And you go between the two haulers. He goes, boy, I don’t know if I should do that. I, I know what you’ve done to my brother. I says,

Kyle, he ain’t got nothing to do with your brother. He’s got something to do with you and what’s going on. All right. So we go up in putting holler. He’s smirking and laughing and everything. He said, Kyle, this, this is no joke or matter. I said, you realize there’s a lot of people in this support you respect, but there’s two that I respect up more than anybody.

One of them is your car owner and the other one’s Mr. France. And I said, the last one either can make you stay or let you leave. That’s totally up to you. I don’t know. I said, Kyle, if he wants you gone, you can be gone. That’s just the way NASCAR operates. Now, Mr [00:49:00] PR knows you’re a good draw, but he wants me to talk to you about something.

I said, do you realize how many guys out there raced their whole life and never won a trophy and you broke a cherished trophy like you did it? The guitar knows I’m serious now. He goes, so this is Kyle. You stop and think a minute about what you did. You disgraced the sport, you disgraced the trophy. He says, I got another one for you.

You just won Bristol. That’s what we’re still selling out. 120,000 people. And you said the car’s a piece of shit. Kyle, do you know how many guys never won a cup race? They want to run a cup and you’re, you know, he says, you know, thanks for talking to me. I said, Kyle, I’m just telling him for your own good.

Still didn’t straighten him out ’cause Rick still fired him, but I think straightened him out was Samantha, his wife. And he come to me about three years later and he goes, you know what talk we had? I said, yeah. He says, you know, I thought about. And he says, you know, you were right. I just wish you would’ve acted quicker.

And I think Joe Gibbs helped him a lot too, because I think the biggest thing, I was talking to Rick, but he still confides in Rick [00:50:00] a lot. The biggest thing with Kyle was that Rick and Kyle still do good together. Everybody trusts Rick Hendrick, everybody trusts Joe Gibbs and that, and you keep a lot of stuff in house.

I said to myself, can you imagine being a young guy winning races and your car owner says, we don’t need you any longer. And he’s the number one card owner in the sport. You have to see yourself driving home. What the hell just happened? And I think that helped him along. And then the joke gives, hired him and you know that it was history.

Hell, the driver talented, one of the greatest guy rights.

Dave Hare: Jimmy, uh, we talk about, we’ll call the primary storylines, what’s up front. Everybody sees, you know, the racing, the rivalry, that type of thing. I mean, you’ve touched on it briefly, but talk a little bit about the secondary storyline, the politics of NASCAR and what goes on behind the scenes.

My buddy Paul had worked for Carlisle Events and they brought Richard Petty in for an event and he was having a conversation with Richard. And Richard. At one point during the conversation said to him, it’s not a race, it’s a show.

Jimmy Spencer: The one thing that Mr. [00:51:00] France Senior started, he saw back in the forties, there was promoters putting races on all over the country and nobody had organized and nobody had control to where that anybody could race anywhere.

That’s William France. That’s the old man, and he, he started nascar, him and a bunch of other guys, Daytona Beach, the whole nine yards. I was talking to Mr. Melvin Joseph one time, the guy that owned built Dover, how they were building Talladega and how they relied the people behind the scenes that helped them build racetracks.

And then Bill got in charge and he learned from his dad the same thing. I mean, they went through some tough times, but they tried to police the sport. They tried to make it as competitive as it was. I, I remember when Taurus days, they had the Lumina. So the Tauruses came out and that was right after the Thunderbirds.

And they had won like six or seven in a row. And Earnhardt says, bill wants to talk to us. So we went into the Hollerer. [00:52:00] Earnhart said, tell ’em Spence. And I said, bill, when them cars getting ya, they gained about 700 counts of downpours in earn. That’s what I’ve been telling you, bill. And then I remember one time with the Luminous were way better than the Thunderbirds.

France would adjust the spoilers, adjust the rules to try to make the field balanced. We you get in the conversation with ’em, he would always sit at his desk and the hollerer and he always had his back to the crowd. When that hauler was parked, the grant stands was behind him. He’d go, that’s what we’re doing.

And that message was. We’re worried about the fans. We’ve got to keep the fans going. And I said, bill, how do you police this thing? These guys have no clue what they’re doing today compared to what we went through. We went through the five and five rule. We went through fricking rules. You talk about changes.

No fan wants to hear. Well, we had a good day today. Finished eighth. Had a good point. What the hell are you talking about? Eighth is a good points today. What the hell’s going on with this sport? I remember when Earnhardt and Rusty, I remember how, I mean they talk about aero push. Hell, [00:53:00] a fan could care less about aero fricking push.

They wanna see a god dang race. And that’s what Bill always would put on. And the drivers were their own worst enemy. I mean, bill had to put restrictive plates on this. There was two ways to face the restrict the plate races. Buddy Bak taught me, if you see a seagull, you follow that son of a bitch. Or you could just sit there and say, you know, it’s a matter of time.

I listened to drivers of Daytona and Talladega say, it’s just a matter of time I gonna be in a wreck. Those are the guys, Bobby Allison and Buddy Baker and Junior Johnson loved the race against, ’cause they had to beat already old Ben Earnhardt. He could see. I mean, people would laugh and he was incredible at watching the angle of the car.

I mean, he was one of the best. He won all, I mean, do you realize races he’s won that Daytona 500 eluded him how many times. But Earn was one of the best plate racers and was taught by Buddy Baker and these people like that. Those guys were good at what they did, but these guys, they, they diluted the sport.

Well, he has a better car. I remember my dad one time telling me I was racing against Richie. I looked over there and I said, son, a bitch. He [00:54:00] had like four sets of tires up there and everything else. Dad said, what’s the matter? I said, look at that bastard. He got all those tires. That’s his rule. How many tires you got on your car?

Four. How many tires do you have on his car? Four. What’s the problem? That’s old racers. It’s like Paxton and I were talking Paxton. What the hell did you put them things on the side of the car for? They were nothing but heat grabbers, and then they never worked, but it was because we saw somebody else do it, so we would try it.

That’s where NASCAR lost their way. When Bill France died, they lost their way. They lost what they’re supposed to be doing, and that’s putting a show on for the people they listened to, the drivers. Denny Hammond is the biggest goddamn whiny you’ll ever meet in your life. I mean, yeah. I mean, come on.

Music: Yeah.

Jimmy Spencer: You know, in all truthfulness, you know, I mean, I’m not saying they’re not a hell of a racer, but it’s like I’m aggravated with football players because I played high school football. But you want another 25 million? And then you want me to buy your [00:55:00] jersey and everything else? And then, oh, Jesus mighty. He hurt his finger.

Oh, he’s gonna be out. I love dick Buck. We lost him. But that son of the bitch played football for one reason to kill the quarterback. And that’s what we watched it for. Okay. We watched racing because it, it was a matter of, oh boy, that guy’s gone. You had a guy that won every week, there wouldn’t be nobody in the grandstand.

That’s why you changed your state. You did anything you could in your power to try to beat that guy that was beating you. If he had a Firestone Tire on and you had a Goodyear Tire on, you would’ve say, Hmm, I better try Firestones. ’cause there are women, it was Monkey Sea Monkey deal self-policing the Parliament sing.

The problem of NASCAR was, is I was doing stuff this, and I, I said to John Darby, we were in this meeting about all this stuff and I, I said, you guys are letting them do too much stuff to these cars. I said, I know how to stop. And the engineers go, you didn’t even go to school for? I said, I’m smarter than any.

The engineer here they go, what the hell are you talking? I went for [00:56:00] six years to MIT. I said, I don’t give a shit where you are. And I said, I learned about a Stanley tape measure a long time ago. I says, you can’t outsmart a Stanley tape measure. And they looked at me and Rusty Wallace said, God damn Spence, you’re right.

I begged them to put rules in that plus or minus a quarter of an inch on their suspension. They would’ve had not had these problems if they would’ve stopped these cars from bottoming out, looking like Bucks cars going down the track. They could have stopped it 10 years ago before the old man, you know, the old man died, but they didn’t, ’cause they all thought they were smarter than the engineers.

I’m not saying I’m a smart guy, but I’m smart enough to say, wait a minute, we’re losing people in the seats. We’re losing our product. We’re losing the excitement of being Kenny Wallace. We’re not the water cooler talk anymore. Spence, you got a great point. Old Kenny was a hundred percent right about that.

When you’re not talking about it on Monday morning, you’re in trouble.

Dave Hare: Jimmy, you’re 30 years younger. Do you drive a NASCAR today? Is it an environment where you could thrive? [00:57:00]

Jimmy Spencer: Oh yeah. I think that, I remember I went to Darlington and one of my heroes was Kale Yarborough. We were parked at the fourth turn, the original fourth turn at Darlington.

Earnhart mastered that track, and we were standing and he had Derek Koch driving his car. And, and Kale was up there watching, and you could see him, you know, he’s doing the old moves and stuff. I was standing there, Travis said, kale come here. And he says, kale, think you can still do it. He’s like, could beat 90% of sons of bitches.

And the other 10% would know I’m here. And the only thing about that is it’s true to your mindset, but not your physical stamina. It’s inevitable. You can still win race, you can still do good, but you gotta know when it’s time to say, you know what, it’s time to move on. And I, I enjoy watching, I still watching nascar and I, I, I, I love Kyle Larson.

I think Kyle Larson’s incredible. I like Tyler Reddick. Watch Jeff Gordon come up. It’s fun. And there’s, there’s a lot of guys I, I love watching the, uh, brace in January, chili Bowl, chili Bowl. That’s always a good race. I never could fit in a midget, so I couldn’t. [00:58:00] Hell, you didn’t fit in my sprint car. Oh, I don’t.

I thought you were gonna have to get a torch out to cut. Cut me off to Paxton. I still think we have a lot of young talent. I remember I was telling Barry when I went down to North Carolina with my dad, we did really good. We won two championships and I had a lot of money. My car lot was making a lot of money.

Our junk guard was doing really good. And my dad, I never called him my old man. My old man sat there and he goes, it’s not too late to turn around. We’d drive another 30, 40 miles and he’d say, it’s not too late to turn around. Had a U-Haul. Had a U-Haul. I was taking all my stuff to North Carolina to live 1988.

I says, dad, if I fail, I can always come back. Yeah, but you won’t fail. He says, I know that. That’s pretty cool. Good stuff.

Dave Hare: Talking about young drivers, let’s go back about 20 years. Bristol Motor Speedway and Kurt Bus.

Jimmy Spencer: I, I’ll, I’ll tell you a quick story about Kurt

Dave Hare: Busch. Yeah,

Jimmy Spencer: yeah. I’m sitting there with old man one day at the driver’s meeting.

At the driver’s meeting. When you would come through that door and somebody [00:59:00] whistle or whatever you respect, especially Erhardt, you’d never mess with Richard Pat, Bobby Allison. When they called you to the office, you better come. I’m sitting there right by Earnhardt, Earnhart, all he sat on the front corner.

Kurt, what up bitch? Naughty. Walked that way. Kurt and now everybody sees him. Kurt, he comes over. Kurt sits down in front er. I’m sitting right there. You stick that finger up in me again. I won’t break it and both off and stick them up your ass. I’m like, oh, Earnhardt hated to be flared. Don’t ever do that.

And I went, damn, what’s that about? He goes, you know me buddy, take anything but a flare. He said, he flared me twice. He said, Jim, he’s a hell of a race car driver, but he has no respect for anybody. That’s the easiest way to explain it. Kurt said that I, he’s funny. That’s somewhere. Then it proceeded to go to Bristol.

He knocked me up at Bristol, tried to not wreck me. I says, well, Bobby Allison always taught me this needs to be addressed. And I [01:00:00] said, well, I’ll address it. We was in Indianapolis. I decided that he needed to meet the third turn barrier, and he did.

Dave Hare: And it, it was smooth.

Jimmy Spencer: It was it, oh yeah, Hilton said, Spencer, that’s as good as it gets.

And I, I said, what are you talking about? He says, how the hell did you do that? Jim Hunter said he was still living. He goes, Spencer, how did you do this? What are you guys talking about? Jimmy Johnson called me up after that wreck. He was having a problem with Kurt. Kurt was driving for Pesky. Then at the time, Jimmy called me up one day.

He goes, SP, I want to talk to you. I said, okay. He goes, how do you spin somebody out like you did Kurt? And I says, well, I’ll show you how to do it. I go to the truck next week and I, I said, you know, Jimmy, I’ve been thinking about this. You don’t need to go down that road. Hey, you’re a five time champion. I said, he’s an asshole.

I said, don’t go down to his level. Yeah, but he’s, I want to. I want to take his ass out. And I said, well, he tried to take him out at Richmond. And I says, Jimmy, I says, what you did at Richmond, you [01:01:00] can’t mess with somebody at Richmond because there’s too much break on the car. You gotta mess with somebody at a track.

Once they lose a little control their history, you don’t mess with ’em on a track. When they got control of their car, do it at Dover. You gotta do it where it means something. When they hit the wall, it’s like, man, that hurt. So. I showed him how to do it. I mean, you just, you gotta make it look good. You gotta stay up on his back bumper and the minute you know he is gonna lift, you don’t lift, but you slam your brake on.

I mean, that’s happened in a split second. And that’s what happened to Kurt. I, I said, okay, you’re gonna lift right about now. And I just pushed him that extra five feet and I said, now something’s going in the wall, but it didn’t bother me, didn’t cost me a lot of money because they kicked me out. I can tell the story because it has to be told.

We had a talk, Jack Rauch was in there, the whole nine yards. Hilton says, I’m telling you two sons of bitches. This is over. If you do anything at all, the next time, when is this gonna be suspended? I don’t want to do it, but I will. I says, I ain’t got a problem. Well, in the meantime, Tony Stewart ran into [01:02:00] it with him.

Everybody had, he goes in the holler and Tony knocked him right in the end of the nose. Anyway, we go to Watkins Glen, okay? Everything’s fine following. We go to Michigan, we’re running in the top five. He keeps trying to knock my fenders in. He says he run outta gas. We had a pit for fuel. Michigan, you’re coming in off the fourth turn and there’s a pit opening to come in after the race.

All the haulers are lined up here and I’m coming in and here comes Kurt rubbing his motors up and he pulls up in front of me to cut me off. Ah, it’s okay. So he cuts me off. Mm-hmm. I pull in behind him, so he’s pretending like his car is stalling. I, I almost bumped him a little bit. Damnit Kurt. What? And then the next thing you know, right in front of the hauler.

In

Dave Hare: front of your hauler. In

Jimmy Spencer: front of my hauler, he sees my seven crew through gas. Man, me, you know, waving. Here, here we are. Kurt slammed his brakes on the stops. Well, I bumped him going, damnit, yeah, we’ll take care of, we’ll take care of it. So Kurt’s doing, he goes, Hey, you old bastard. I hear you. Right? So I went over there, I says, Kurt, get out of this car.

I’m gonna put one hand behind my back that’ll [01:03:00] make it a fair fight. He goes, listen, you old son of, I’m like, oh me. So I walked close to the car and he goes, I know where your family lives. That is the gospel truth. As long as I live. I looked at him and I said, no, you’re not. And all I did was just, I didn’t realize hitting that hard.

Uh, so I, I knew I was in trouble ’cause the blood squirted. I said, oh. So he goes, you broke my goddamn nose. Yeah, I did. I hope I did. So we go into the hauler. I try to sneak out. I knew I was in trouble.

Dave Hare: You and Mike Davis.

Jimmy Spencer: Oh, Mike

Dave Hare: Davis. He was driving, right? I You were laying across the back seat.

Jimmy Spencer: You, I says, Mike, he’s waiting.

I says, just get the hell out. Get us to the airplane. I get on my airplane. I said, you gotta get us to the air. He goes, oh no, Jimmy. He said, these officials are looking for something. I said, yeah, me. So the officials are going down through their garage area, looking at all the cars. [01:04:00] I says, okay, Mike, drive over to the, so we go over to the thing, and Tony Stewart was the one that told me, he says, called me up Monday.

He says, don’t say a word to anybody. I’ve been in this situation before. He says, don’t say nothing. If anybody says anything to say, boy, it’s a beautiful day today. Well, let’s talk about Darlington or whatever, which is right. That’s how he handled it. That’s how he did handle it. It helped me, but it didn’t help.

Kurt made him bigger dummy than he was. So, Helton calls me up, he says. What’d you do? I said, I, I only bitch slapped him. And Elton says, why? I explained to him Why? Well, Mike Davis got the tape. Yep. Mike Davis got the tape where he said he was gonna F up my family. He was gonna do this and that. Afterwards, Mike suspends me from Bristol Truck Race Thursday night to Bush Race Friday night, and the cup race Saturday night cost me about a hundred thousand bucks.

Never forget as long as I live, car owner pulled the truck out of the race. The Bush car finished in the top five and the cup car finish in the top five. And I felt like I could win. I was better than the guy that was in the car.

Music: Yeah. [01:05:00]

Jimmy Spencer: But anyway, I sat at home and said, you know, this sport will go on without you.

And it proved it, but he made me a hero.

Music: Yeah,

Jimmy Spencer: he made me a hero because the people where Jimmy had all these kind of shirts, Mongo and the whole nine yards, Kurt proceeded to spin out Sterling Marlin to win that race. I’m serious. People hate him. He is trying so hard. He called Mike Davis up to get on Earnhardt’s show and all this, and Earnhardt says, Kurt, nobody likes you.

He said, don’t you understand that? And he’s trying to become a TV analyst and stuff like he’s a superstar. Like everybody forgot what he said. I, I mean, I, we were at Darlington, them NASCAR officials are some of the best guys. And the girls, they’re fantastic. They’re doing their job. You never would touch ’em.

Kurt told them, he, I want you guys to lick my sweaty privates, man, why you don’t do that stuff? That is fighting words my friend. Yeah, and there were some military men and the one guy said to me, I says, why don’t you whip his ass? He goes, Jimmy, but we can’t because of who we are and what we do, so we [01:06:00] just go on.

But people don’t forget those things. I mean, it was Earnhardt, it was Tony Stewart, not just me. Go down the list of drivers he’s had a run in with and explain to me that he’s right and they’re all wrong.

Dave Hare: Well, when I was doing my research, I punched into Google, Kurt Bush spins, and before I could get to Jimmy Spencer, it dropped down this entire list of names and I went, wow, that’s pretty extensive.

Jimmy Spencer: You know what’s interesting though? I’m doing tv. Jack Rauch has got thousands of employee. Mark Martin calls me up. He says, Jack wants to talk to you at Darlington. You know, I says, Jack really pissed me off up there at Michigan last week. Mark told me you got me arrested and everything else. I says, Jack, you gotta listen to the story.

And I says, he blew up. He told me, I says, Jack, I have the most respect for you ever. I said, can’t believe you just said that to me. I said, well, you can kiss my ass right now, Jack. I’m done with you. So in Michigan, I didn’t know this. I could have been arrested, but I said, I have witnesses and all that. So then afterwards, Jack pursued it.

So the state troopers called me and I said, yes, I did hit him. But he swung at me. I [01:07:00] moved ducked. He did. How stupid are you? He’s sitting in a race car and you’re gonna swing it. You know? That’s stupid. That’s how stupid he is. And he swings. I’m like, whoa, what the hell? But anyway, so Jack comes to the hollerer mark’s there Friday night.

He goes, I’m tell you, I’m sorry. He says, Jack, I can’t accept your apology. It really hurt me. I said, I have the most respect for you, Roger. All you guys, this is better. I said, I hurt. Well, I’m gonna tell you something. To make a long story short, he explained a whole nine yards to me about the fuel, everything he heard the tape, everything else under in the sun.

And then it was actually gonna resurge my career. He would call me and I was doing tv and that’s when Kirk got in trouble with the cop at Phoenix. You don’t mess messes up, messes up the county in Arizona, that guy put, he paints his jails pink. That guy is nobody to fool with him. Well, Kurt did something wrong.

He disrespected the law. That’s one thing. Bill France say, never disrespect the military. Never disrespect the law. We can handle the hell. Sterling Marley gotta take it for 110 mile an hour. And Bill France got it taken care of like, no, [01:08:00] tomorrow. If you respect the people, you’re fine. That’s the problem I had with Kurt.

But anyway, so Jack called me up around 1130 that night. My cell phone rings. I said, Jack Roush tells me the whole nine yards. He said, I want him to drive Kurt’s car tomorrow, Phoenix. I says, oh, that’s pretty cool, Jack. I says, yeah. I said, I think I can do that. So I’m starting to realize I don’t have no helmet, I don’t have nothing.

And I said, I can’t fit in the seat. So Jimmy Finn says, well, meet me at the track tomorrow and we’ll figure something out. The wood brothers didn’t want to change the seat. I was gonna use Michael Waltrip’s seat. So I said, you know what? Jack said, listen, just drive it next week at Miami, the last race of the year, and we’ll put Kenny Wallace in it there.

Well, Kenny ran like shit in that car. He convinced the rubber made people that he needed one more shot at it. I outran Kenny Wallace in Miami with a Don Arnold’s car. God rest his soul. Good man. He wanted me to drive his car and I had called him up and told him what was happening. He says, that’s fine buddy.

You drive that nine seven car, you can win in that car. Kenny convinced him, and I said to my buddy, tc, after the race is over, I says, here’s my gloves, helmet. I’m done. Never driving another car [01:09:00] again. I never did again. But Kurt did two good things for me, and one of ’em was made me a hero. The other one was, I finally said, you know, it’s time to hang it up.

Your equipment ain’t good enough.

Dave Hare: The hero part, for those that didn’t have a chance to hear this or see it, you know, on television anywhere, but Mike Davis had gotten a hold of the in-car radio exchange where Kurt comes on and tells his crew, Hey, I just tried to wreck him and I messed up. And Mike sent that to, I believe Dave to Spain.

He did. And then after that. Man, your popularity, you’re just like Spencer for president. Yeah.

Jimmy Spencer: I could do no wrong.

Dave Hare: Yeah, yeah.

Jimmy Spencer: Well, you know, the thing is, I think the biggest problem, I never lied and to nascar, he needed an old man earner. He might have told the press something wrong, but when you were in that Hollywood Bill French, you told him what happened, and if you kept your word, but those guys, you never had nothing to worry about.

And I was tired of watching these guys do stuff on the track. Oh, I blew a tire. Well, Jesus crap. You could see he didn’t blow a tire, just watched the film. And I would tell Rick Minor, he says, Rick, he didn’t blow no damn tire. I says, Teddy was our producer. He says, Teddy, roll [01:10:00] that tape back. Look. He goes, damn, you’re right.

And I’d call him. Then the next thing you know, they’re all blaming me for their misfortunes. But the best one was Tony Stewart calls me up. He goes, Spence, he says, I think I gonna own my own team. And I said, Tony, if you put any money into this thing, you’re stupid. He goes, well, I ain’t got that kind of money, but he says, I’ve been offered a deal from Gene Haas.

And I says, that’d be a good deal. So I said, what is He told me, I mean, give him a percentage, not drive the car, but you don’t play the team. I said, that’s a no brainer. So Teddy goes, you gotta explain that, how you explain it in the meeting. I said, I’ll explain it to the people. So I said, here you go. You got a man named Gene Haas.

He owns two cup cars. They run like crap. Now they’re Hendrick cars, Hendrick Motors. He’s went through 20 damn different crew chiefs. He went through everything under the sun except the two drivers. So I think it’s time to get rid of the drivers. So Jeff Green comes on cussing me and everything else. He wants to refire, he wants to have a recourse for me on the show.

Confirm to the fans that he’s a good driver. And I said, [01:11:00] okay, no. I says, how many top fights have you had? Oh, by the way, instead of top fives, he says, how many top tens have you had? He couldn’t answer ’cause he didn’t have any. And I said, Jeff Green needs to be gone. One thing leads to another. He comes on the show the next week, Teddy, he goes, Jimmy, you know we’re live.

I says, I can handle it fantastically. Don’t worry about it, Teddy. I’m not going to get you in trouble or anybody. So I’m looking in the camera and Jeff’s on and he goes, you know, you said some stuff to me last week, Jimmy, about this race team and me and everything else. And I said, yeah, Jeff, I did. I says, okay.

I says, I’ll tell you what I’m gonna do, buddy. Tomorrow morning, eight o’clock Monday, you’re the boss of that team. What are you gonna do? What’s the first thing you’re gonna do know? I mean, he, he, he don’t know what he’s gonna do. Well, no, because he need to fire the driver. Johnny Roberts catches it real quick and never again did he say anything.

Well, Brian Vickers was another one. He was gonna sue me ’cause I said some stuff to him about he was gonna win the race and Jimmy Johnson didn’t run outta gas. Oh, he, no, Jimmy Johnson didn’t run outta gas. You [01:12:00] weren’t gonna win that race anyway. He went on gas mileage, all kinds of stuff like that. But you know, it’s one of them deals that I tried to bring this, the other slide to the fans and that’s what the crane towel was for.

The crane towel was intended. Here you go. You need some help crying this towel, because that’s the only relief you’re gonna get from me.

Dave Hare: Did you have a favorite crying towel moment? ’cause there were some classics.

Jimmy Spencer: God, that’s a tough one.

Dave Hare: I kind of like the, uh, Kevin Harvick, who was he mixing up with? And he left his helmet on and you, you had said he’s gonna get in so much trouble with Delena, and then you made the comment that Delena would’ve taken her helmet off.

And then the try and tell was just

Jimmy Spencer: that was with Biffle.

Dave Hare: Okay.

Jimmy Spencer: That dates back. Okay. I was driving the yellow freight car that was in Richmond? No, I think it was Bristol. I think I figured second or third and Harvick and Bhel were behind me. That’s when he was driving for Childress and freaking Harvick.

You remember Greg Biffle gave me a black eye? Do you remember that? Yeah. That was great. That makeup artist did a fantastic job. Diff comes in and slides across the [01:13:00] table because I can have fun with all those guys. The best funny I ever had was Tony Stewarts and Harvick, and they’re there and they’re, I go, you guys look like two banny roosters.

I says, punch one another and makes something happen. You know? I mean, God dang, you guys are standing up. The people wanna see something and he’s just standing there like, David says, what the hell is a ba rooster? He says, I don’t know. I said, he just looks like a ba rooster. The official says, why’d you get the hell outta here?

He says, no. Jesus Mady. I said, it’s so exciting. I said, we need to see something. Harvick done that to Ricky Rudd. Now, Ricky Rudds says You wouldn’t want to fool around with Ricky. But Harvick done that to Ricky Rudd at Richmond. He was driving the 28 car. I remember Harvick flying across like a stunt guy, but the other one was, uh, Jack Sprague.

We was at Bristol ish. Cost me race. He was a lap car in the way, you know, I mean, I have less than three laps to go. I gotta just bumped and moved him up the racetrack, right? He comes running down the pit wall and I went, come on. I said, ’cause he knows he can’t come over here. Really? Didn’t do nothing wrong.

Well, then they called me in the [01:14:00] holler and, and, and I said to him, I says, well, I wasn’t gonna punch him. I said, because he’s too small. I said, that wouldn’t be fair. I says, obviously can’t talk to him about it. Which I wouldn’t, ’cause it’s not fair, you know, to have a fight for no reason. Banny Rooster, I, I would’ve to say that.

One of my favorite, I remember I was doing a TV show and oh my, my guy Taylor, look, he loved me. Ben was a good guy. And he goes, Spence, he said, I’m waiting to get Harvick and smoke on. I said, well, I’ll take care of it. So we’re poking them. And that was after Indianapolis when Tony won the race and Harper got together and they were really good friends and I was good friends with to, I was good friends with all of ’em.

So Dave Burns is waiting there and he’s, you know, I’m new to TV and I come over and the girl goes, Hey, we’re gonna have him on at this time. I says, I says, gimme five minutes. Yeah, he says, I’ll be back. So s is waiting there with the mic. You know, I, I got like 10 minutes and we’re going off the air ’cause they were coming on the air at five after one or whatever it was for live.

Music: Okay.

Jimmy Spencer: I said, oh hell. I says, it’s 10 up. We got plenty of time. So I says, Teddy, I won live. I says, Teddy, I [01:15:00] got him. Come here. Heart comes over from my right talking and I see Tony coming. I go Smoke. Get your ass over here. So I put ’em together and we’re talking. I says, explain to the fans out there. There’s no hard feelings.

What happened? It was racing. We cut, I got the mic and them two sons of bitches pushed me over the guardrail on my, on tv. The both of, I’m sitting there and they push me over. The penny will always show that shot. So afterwards, Dave Burns comes over and he says, you ever do that again? I’ll have your job.

Woo. I said, I’m scared. I said, let me tell you something, birds. I said, when you can draw as many fans as we can on a Sunday morning, then you can tell me I can have my job. But I says, until you catch two and a half million people watching this show, I ain’t got nothing to worry about. And that’s what the stories I did, because I was, and, and they would trust me.

Roger Penske would tell me stuff, Richard Childress, you couldn’t take it to the air. And Teddy would be upset. I knew that Kurt Bush was fired and Teddy begged me three weeks earlier, he says, tell him, tell him. I says, Teddy, I cannot do that. I said, I cannot tell you that Kurt Bush was fired because I [01:16:00] says that was nce between me and Jack.

And he, he’s like, I don’t blame you. We knew what was going on and a lot of stuff. And they just wanted to vent themselves, but they wanted to trust you too. They had to be able to talk about their crew chiefs or whatever. ’cause they couldn’t talk to nobody else ’cause they could explain it to you.

Dave Hare: That was the trust factor.

Jimmy Spencer: A lot of trust.

Dave Hare: Yeah. I wanna go back to your trips to Victory Lane. Talk about the win over Ernie Irvin at Daytona. Those last five laps or so. Man, you. Wow, you were setting him up, checking your options.

Jimmy Spencer: Well, the cars were, were real equal and all day long. I kept telling Junior, I said, junior, I can’t quite hold it wide open.

Dave Hare: 27th at this point. Yeah.

Jimmy Spencer: I was in the 27th and Ernie was in the 28 and I said, the only way you can hold it wide open is if you get in front of him. Because it’s, when I’m in front, I can hold it wide open and Junior says, okay. He says, well, I’ll take care of it. So the last pit stop Junior says to Mike Hill, put a little more spoiler in it.

Just put a little more spoiler in it so that’ll not lift. So then I knew that I, could I not lift? Then I was falling and I trying to figure out how to get by him, and we had mirrors. You could just [01:17:00] see the guy’s eyes in the mirror. When you watch these quarterbacks like Mahomes, it’s incredible to watch the closeups of the quarterbacks when they got their helmet there, but they’re looking to the right.

It’s amazing the perception. NASCAR’s no dip. You’re looking in the car and you can see it and you can see his eyes, you know, so natural. Sure. You go radio silent. The last few laps in the race, every driver just wants to be quiet. You gotta hit your marks, hit your marks. You don’t need to tell me to hit my marks.

I know what I gotta do. Shut the hell up. And that’s the biggest thing. They just kept watching them. I said, the only way I can get ’em but I gotta is somehow get along. So because you block and the blocks today, they don’t respect the blocks. That’s what causes the wrecks at Daytona and Talladega. I mean, they go to block, they just smash into one another.

Cause big wrecks, we didn’t do it. We had a little bit of class. If you blocked, you said, okay, if I get alongside of them, so you can’t really block me anymore. Then you gotta respect the guy. And then sometimes you eat the goose. Sometimes the goose eats you. No, that’s not how that goes.

Dave Hare: That’ll work for today.

Jimmy Spencer: Sometimes. How the hell does that work? [01:18:00] Sometimes.

Dave Hare: Sometimes it’ll get you the bug. The bug

Jimmy Spencer: anyway, unfortunately for the bug. But anyway, so then once I said, you know what, if I could get the timing right and I could get him in the corner where he can’t be looking in your mirror, he’ll lose me. Yeah. Bam. I go down and instead of going to the bottom of the racetrack with him, I shot that baby up to the top, holding it wide open.

And I knew he was looking. I could see him look and he’s like, oh shit. So he had to get to the top. Once he got back, then they had that little bit of room to get alongside of him, and then the two cars came. It was awesome. I mean, you know, but Ernie was a, a good friend. Ernie was a hell of a driver. He got hurt really bad twice.

That’s what took him out. Yeah. You know, his head injuries.

Dave Hare: That moved there. You came down off of two. Yep. And got under and they had a huge run. But then you get beside him getting into three and four and you guys are door to door off of four. How in the world did you hold it down there? Well, when you finally got, well,

Jimmy Spencer: you know, give Nie a lot of credit, both could wrecked.

I talked to David Pearson. God rest his soul. Loved him to death. But he wrecked Petty in 1976. [01:19:00] So I became good friends with them guys. Ernie could have done the same thing and turned me, who would’ve won? Who knows? But Ernie was racing for the championship. Ernie got hurt that year. Ernie had heard of Michigan that year and Ernie was leading points, so I didn’t know that at the time, but you gotta think about it.

And Miami Reynolds says, don’t forget the big picture. Don’t forget the big picture. I remember Pearson and Petty. I thought David Pearson was one of the greatest drivers, if not the greatest driver of all time, because I remember Junior Johnson telling me the stories. David Pearson was a silver fox. I was driving to Talladega with Buddy Baker and we’re going through Atlanta my first year, and I says, baker, he says, who’s probably one of the best drivers you drove against?

He says, I’ll tell you what buddy. He says, I’m gonna tell you the best driver. Well, I think ever lived your dad? He says, no, no, no. He, I That for Bud Moore, we were in Atlanta. I led majority of the race. We come in the second pit, stop, come back out. I’m almost ready to lap. Pearson never could lap him. Third pit stop, almost ready to lap.

Pearson never could lap him. Last pit [01:20:00] stop, come out first. Who’s second Pearson? He goes, got the cigarette in his hand. He’s waving to Buddy B. Said he had a mind game like no tomorrow. And he said he proceeded to beat me. Pearson was special, but Pearson knew that the Hemis, they had an advantage over the fours at the time.

When Pearson passed Petty, he says, damn, I screwed up because he says that son of a bitch ain’t gonna pass me to the last lap. The drivers know that was like 12 laps to go. Think back to this race, think back to Pearson telling you this story. The Pearson saying, I’m in trouble. So you’re plan it all along, plan it all along.

And he said, I realized that he wasn’t as good as I thought he was, but I knew what he was gonna do. He was gonna take a shot at getting underneath me. So when he got underneath me, he says, I knew that he had a lift. And he says, I kept giving him room, kept giving him room. And he says that son of a bitch wasn’t lifting Jimmy.

And he says, [01:21:00] gonna wreck me. And he says, no you’re not. He turned into it and he took Petty out. Petty got pushed across the line and Pearson won to 500. That to me is priceless. To hear David tell the story, he said, I knew I messed up so many times you could hear, and I just screwed up. And you remember those things.

I remember Richard Petty saying, never forgot the ones that I should have won. Those are the ones that bother you. They were great guys. Bobby, oh man, I these, these guys. Incredible.

Dave Hare: And that was half a car length wind there

Jimmy Spencer: for me with Ernie. Oh, it was close.

Dave Hare: If that

Jimmy Spencer: you see it today where there’s a couple only, the cars are so competitive, so equal.

It was a few inches. I didn’t know one. I mean he didn’t either. He congratulated me afterwards. But yeah, we bumped a couple times. But you try to side draft. And what he was trying to do is he kept pushing against me, trying to slow me down and I would keep turn off, try to break off. ’cause I knew it was gonna come down to just close.

Dave Hare: Wow. If you’re gonna win your first one, that’s the way to do it.

Jimmy Spencer: It was awesome. I should’ve won a lot more, but we were rocking him. Peter Guy was building the [01:22:00] motors. Robert Yates came, he’s dead and gone, but he come, he would always look at the cars and he looked at the motor and he, he said to Donny, he says, Donny, he says.

Them gator belts. The Goodyear belts are gonna turn in the race. He’s, I’m gonna send you down instead. The deco belts, I’ve had them turn on the dyno. They would run those motors for 500 miles on an endurance test on the dyno. Robert Yates would 500 miles on the dyno to know it, that it would break. I was a rocking when I was leading the damn race.

Erna ended up winning it. He ended up passing brick mast, the god dang thing, ran hot, turned the fan belt, cooked the motor, and another time I, I was loving to death. He’s no longer with his, Harold Elliot was Rusty Wallace’s Indian builder, and Harold Elliot worked for us and he built the motor at Bristol.

He said to me, he says, no idea why Travis has a spirit throttle linkage in that toolbox. And he, he tried to get Travis to put on a quarter inch highman, but it was actually a bike, a half inch aluminum, I guess you would call it Hexagon, T six.

Dave Hare: Okay.

Jimmy Spencer: On the throttle linkage. I was practicing Saturday afternoon [01:23:00] before the race, and Harry can’t come over.

And I told Travis, I says, Travis, I just don’t like the way it’s coming off of Ford. And Harry come over and he says, listen, that car’s good enough to win this race, Jimmy. I said, I told Harry what I’m doing, Harry. He says, Travis, do what you used to do to me. Travis went to that truck, got a Carrera shock.

Everybody’s got a bill seat, and he puts a, he says, go try that. He tried it. I says, wow, that thing fixed. It ran five lap. I pulled in. I says, Travis, I don’t know what the hell you done. I said, I fixed it. Let 200 and I don’t know how many laps getting ready to lap. Quickie fifth place. He says, you need to slow down.

I says, Travis, I did. And he goes, okay, well if you did to keep doing what you’re doing, I was running two tenths quicker, a lap than anybody on the track. The car was incredible. Same car I won with the, with junior. It was a banjo front steer, rear steer, front clip with a front steer. It was incredible, incredible car.

It would go through the corners. And I was explaining to Barry Klein, I said, the car would never, the Campbell wouldn’t change in the cast area, you know, there caster gain or nothing. So whatever you had, it was gonna stay. And once you adjust to the car, the fuel, no matter what, it would stay the same. It was incredible.

Made a pit stop [01:24:00] and come back out on the pitch leading the race. And I says, Travis, I says, the gas PO just went to the floor. Travis Carter’s never won the curse. And he says, don’t you F with me, Jimmy. I says, Travis, I’m telling you that’s what’s wrong with it. The throttle linkage broke. That was the biggest heartbreak I had it.

I wanted to win Bristol. So I won a couple times in the Bush car. I never won the. Kurt Costy, the one that put the 41 7 car, Tommy Baldwin Ram me outta gas, which just racing Dick’s car. Oh, did we have a car that night? In fact, Robert Gates bought the car from Dick Roso the following week. Highman broke today, the NASCAR engine builders, they don’t break the technology.

The sport has progressed so long, even in sprint cars, dirt late, anything. They don’t break. The guys have gotten so smart. We don’t have no bearing failures anymore. We don’t have hardly any piston failures, valve nothing. I mean, when they adjust the valves down, they don’t adjust ’em. They put shims underneath the push rod and the, the rocker arm.

I said there’s no nuts and bolts to break. I lost so many modified races when I was telling Barry would, Hutter, you used to loosen [01:25:00] the the poly lock and you tighten it down. If you tighten it down too much, it’ll crack. I remember I was at Richmond, man, that car was fast. I practiced. You always would be there early.

And I said to the kid, I said, what do you, I said to Tommy, I said, what is he doing? Trip said that he had one of the, no, the push rod wasn’t lined up to the rocker arm and it slipped out. I said, the motor’s gonna blow up and bent the valve. They said, you’re not a motor builder. I said, I’m telling you right now that I know what I’m talking about.

That push rod cocked that rocker arm and it bent the valve well for seven hours. They kept convincing me there was nothing gonna happen. Well guess who was leading a goddamn race but a hundred something laps to go and the motor blow up. Me and then they wanted to talk to me. I says, you just gonna all kiss my fat ass?

And I walked out and I mean, you just, you don’t forget I was gonna win. I had just won the third race in a row at freaking Richmond in the Bush series. I loved it. They said, well, how’d you know it was gonna happen, motor builder? I said, I damn. I know what happened About 10 years ago, we were at a Oswego, New York, and my brother Edward, was [01:26:00] adjusting the valves.

And I watched him, this thing slipped, and Bobby Jacobi said, eh, that wasn’t good. So Hunter comes and Hunter changes it. I says, and Hunter said it might’ve bent the valve. I said, let’s change the motor. I said, we got another one in there. No, he said it’ll be okay. Guess who was leading that race? And the motor blew up?

Well, it broke the rocker arm with about 10 laps to go. Me and I ended up finishing second because of it. You don’t forget the ones you lose just the way it is.

Dave Hare: Let me go one more question and then, uh, we’ll wrap things up. We’ll have, um, a couple questions from the crowd before we let you go here, but, you know, we talk a little bit about the technical end of NASCAR and big league racing.

How much cheating goes on. I, I heard Dale Jr. Say on one occasion, he said, I don’t think I’ve ever driven a legal car.

Jimmy Spencer: Oh, I he exaggerates for publicity. All right,

Dave Hare: fair enough.

Jimmy Spencer: I’m serious. I do not believe that there’s a lot of cheating going on in nascar. I believe there was years ago, I think in the last 20 years, there isn’t.

I remember when Junior Johnson would go to Wilkesboro, he always wondered why Terry Le Barney, whoever [01:27:00] drove junior’s car, Wilkesboro one, I saw the wheels of his shop. So what they did. Is they melted lead on the inside of the wheel around the interior of the wheel.

Music: Okay?

Jimmy Spencer: Then they would mount two tires.

Well, the first couple times they let ’em get away of both tire changes, but then they come down and say, ah, something’s fishy. They went out. So then they got down to one. It was 130 pounds of lead in that fricking wheel, and Shorty Edwards, they pushed the car through tech, get it weighed. They would say, ah shit, we got a leak in that tire.

Well, nascar, well you can change the tire. And they were nascar, never smart enough to check it. And they would roll that tire back and take two men and a truck to lift that damn thing up and they proceeded to go on and win the race. Well, hell, they’re 120 pounds later. This is the cheating. That was funny.

They had a guy named Bud Green weighed about 130 pounds, a 1 35 pounds short hell of a farmer. He was junior’s main hog man. He would take care of the cattle and everything else. Now Bud was a pretty short guy and Fri Tim Brewer would slide that son of [01:28:00] a bitch in the trunk of the car. They would lift the trunk up and they’d roll his ass in the damn trunk of the car.

He would rule out of the car and they’d hurry up, put a hanky on his thing. Somebody said that You need to watch that. So Dick Beaty, God dressed his soul. He was, they was at Wilkesboro or somewhere. They’re rolling the car around the back and Dick’s over there by the ambulance and he’s standing there and he’s watching and he goes, he more five.

And they’d go by the ambulance and he goes, what did. Six. Okay. He comes over, stop. He goes. Now boys, there was five yous. When you come around that ambulance, now there’s six. And Brewer, Dick, you need a goddamn pair of glasses. Dick says. You might be goddamn right, but right now you’re gonna goddamn pull that car in and we weigh it and we weighed it was 135 pounds light and goes to brew.

You ever do that to me again? You’re gone. That was the stuff, you know, they used to put [01:29:00] wax when they p and g demo motors, they don’t do that stuff anymore. They used to cheat on the bodies a lot. You know, cheaters get caught one way or the other. I won’t deny it. We were at Daytona and uh, I was driving my own car and David McKay, he was a pretty smart guy and he raised bull semen and he would freeze it in liquid nitrogen.

So we were sitting there one day and he goes, got me an idea. He says, I believe I could freeze two of those shocks to hold that car up an inch. And when it haws out. It’ll drop an inch. I says, uh, Richard, if you could do that, I kicked their ass. He said, okay, well we’ll try it. So they played with it for about two weeks in that garage.

They finally figured it out. So NASCAR caught it. Okay? We knew that the car had to be 38 inches or whatever the height of the quarter panel was, 34 and a half, whatever it was on the right rear quarter panel. And then he had one inch difference, and the right rear was high. We would never want to be high because it’s disadvantage.

So they’re rolling that car through [01:30:00] tech, and Billy Kerrwood said the CR that comes over and he goes, Billy, your car’s like a eight three sixteen’s high, Billy. He says, oh, Jesus Christ. He says, you know, Jimmy, if I touch a jack bolt on this car, he’ll fucking fire me. So Fisher says, well, I think you should lower it.

He says, no. He says, he told me, do not touch that car. He says, well, I’m just telling you, you got a disadvantage. I didn’t know what happened. You know, we’re going through driver intros and I come walking over and they’re sitting there and I keep staring at the car. I’m like, okay. What do you think? Uh, David says, I might have left him in a little too long.

Him, he said. Okay, what can I expect? He says, oh boy. He says, well, they won’t break, but he says, oh, you’re gonna have a hell of a a chop to it, you know? Alright. So I decided that I could wreck it’s bouncing and I went, oh boy. So I said, but go to the rear of the field. So I went to the last place. I kept trying, I said, boy, I hope the heat heated up and luck would have it.

They had us go one more pay lap and we got it and they said, oh, they’re fine now. And, but I went to the lead and I was gonna win that race. And [01:31:00] my t and l motor blowed up. So there you go. And that car was so fast. And then we went to Daytona. I said illegal as could be. I was a hundred percent legal. ’cause my mom always said, if you cheat it, you get caught somehow.

And that was the truth. That is a good example. When we cheated that car, it didn’t win. But anyway, so we went through tech, everything. The car is so fast. I spent a lot of money newly put the body on the whole nine yards. We’re leading the race at Daytona. I come on the radio and they said there’s a caution with like 55 laps to go or whatever.

And I said to the crew, I said, they said, what do you wanna do? And I said, well, I don’t want to pit if we don’t have to. I said, okay, if we pick, can we make it to the end of the race? And they said, no you can’t. I said, we gotta pin again, no matter what they said. Yeah. I said We don’t need tires. I says, why get back like Bobby Allison taught me.

Why get back in the rattlesnake pit? So I stayed out front leading the race. Well I led the race all the way up to 90, 91 laps. It was 120 lap race. Well they had to start pitting around lap 1 0 5 to one 10. I waited as long as I could, I could down pit road. I know I was running [01:32:00] 10 mile an hour slower than I was supposed to.

I had that thing. I was only caught on pit road and I’m coming down pit road in first gear at 4,700 RPMs and it was supposed to be 5,700. I’m watching the thing. I pulled in. No tires fuel only ’cause you never wear tires out at Daytona. Come back out on the pit road, come back out a track and they said, post the car speeding.

So I wasn’t, Gary Nelson was up in the booth and he goes, Les, he wasn’t speeding. David Hoots said he wasn’t speeding. Les, the girl that I knew said they both said the same thing, but Les said you were speeding. And he says, I said, post the car. This is what was wrong with nascar. To a certain point that was his vendetta to get me.

If he post the car, I have to come down Pit Road. I come right out behind Dale Jarret and Grissom and Bechtel Corporation owned Grissom’s car. And one of Jared’s people come down and say, Hey, if you protect us, we’ll get you a set of tires. Well, buddy Parrot come down and Buddy says, gimme them radios said, buddy [01:33:00] Parrot puts the radios on.

He goes, Jimmy? I said, yeah, who’s this? He says, this is bp. What do you want, buddy? He said, make sure you, uh, push us to victory. You’re gonna take care of me, don’t you worry about it. So I, I knew then I was in good shape, so it was a lot more than a set of tires. So I says, tell Steve to get behind me. We’ll pass Jared with five laps to go.

So now here comes no. And all Les Richter on the radio, they could scan every one of us. Mr. Spencer, I don’t believe you need to be in that field of cars, the three cars. And I went, I, I, I can’t hear you. You got bad communication. He goes, I don’t believe you need to be in that field of cars. And the race was winding down.

And I, I said to Grissom, let’s go. And I said, on the radio, I take the lead, Grissom’s second, Jared’s third. ’cause Jared we’re going down the straightaway. Jared’s going. He knew. So we come in, I says, now listen to the spotter. I says, you tell Steve we’re going down the back straighter. I’m gonna go to the high site.

Go on win Ray. So he [01:34:00] did. I went in the next day, the Daytona 500. I was bitching to bill about it. And Bill says, well, we can get to the bottom of it. So we go in there, Les comes in and he says, yeah, I posted your ass. He’s, I told you I was gonna get you for what you said. At Bristol. And I’m like, what are you talking about day?

You know the whole, he’s, I told you we hold the black flag cost me the Daytona goodies 300. Never forgot. And they wonder why I couldn’t stand that son of a bay. And I told him I, I could never whip his ass. ’cause he was a professional football player. You got your ass stomped. Yeah. But they knew how to get back at you.

They, they would say there’s foam rubber coming out of a car, debris on the track. Denny Hammond always complains about that. You know so many stories you hear about, put it out. I remember Bill France would say, put it out because. You’d rather err on the side of caution than not, you know? Now they don’t even put a caution flag out.

And to me, I think that’s a mistake.

Dave Hare: Well, great insights. We certainly appreciate that. Jimmy, thank you for everything. We have a little bit of time here. Let’s, uh, see anyone has any questions for Jimmy?

Jimmy Spencer: Talk about, what the hell [01:35:00] would you bring that up for?

Well, I’ll explain it to you. I had the 70th year of Snap-on Tools on my truck. That was the 10th anniversary of the Craftsman Truck Series. Who would you want to win the race anyway? NASCAR has a line. That you go back to that line when the caution comes out, not the line that’s there. The last line at the caution light plus they have a timer and they have a timer stamp.

When that caution comes out, that timer stamps that caution. You can’t lie when that caution come out. I went by the start finish line under white flag, and then down the straightaway the caution came out. So I had already locked myself in. They went to the fourth turn camera to get the angle. This way of Bobby Hamilton passing me, congratulating me that I won the race and they said he won the race.

So I pulled in the victory lane because they said you won the race, which I did win the race, and somebody made a decision that I didn’t win the race. I don’t think [01:36:00] it would’ve been too bright for craftsmen to have a snap on truck, win the race. Plus he had a good excuse. You know, I sat in there and I says, first time I ever was backed outta Victory Lane.

And Hilton said to me, thanks for doing that afterwards. And I said, well, I’m getting paid by TV and stuff, and I know that if, if I would’ve done that, it could have fired me for what I was gonna say. But I said, you know what? You guys have effed me my whole life and you wonder why I’ve got a chip on my shoulder for it.

That’s the reason I said, Mike, show me the timestamp. They still, to this day won’t show you the timestamp of the caution and the position rest my case. But hey, what you, Hey, you know what, Bobby Hamilton, God rest his soul. He is in hand the good Lord, so he won the race. Another question

Dave Hare: for Jimmy. Yes, sir.

Jimmy Spencer: Jimmy admit you crashed. Wound up, down. Oh, Wally, Dolly. What did Wally’s Wally Dolly, what did the window that say to you? He wouldn’t put it down. He was driving for Bud Moore. I was running the third spot, and that dumb ass wrecked me. And he was five laps down. I was just mad. You know, it’s funny, that [01:37:00] Peterson guy that grabbed me on the back.

Yeah. I threw him off, you know, and I was going to drop him. And I realized, you know, he was watching Daytona 500 and died in his lounge chair. He was a good guy. All the officials. I had the utmost respect for him. You never would fight. Put an official, but Wally, you know, he knew I was pretty mad. I, I remember when Michael Waltrip done that to, uh, leg speed.

Yeah. You know, you’re gonna hurt yourself, but you’re like, you just, Paxton, how many times have you lost a race

Music: lot?

Jimmy Spencer: That’s what I’m getting at you. No, no, but that’s what I’m getting at you. And you, you’re, so how did that get away? And you’re just so tense up. Yeah. You gave what you’re like, what? Dang. You know, and you’re just so.

And you’re aggravated for not having a good finish. I mean, that’s, that’s the thing. I mean, wow. I, I, Bristol, I remember Prestol one time I was driving for Dick Morso. There was 12 laps to go. Morgan Shepherd wrecked me. He didn’t intentionally do it, it was just that he was out. And I’m like, cop dang, Morgan, what the, just slow the hell down.

He wrecked me. I [01:38:00] went to the car, give him peace of my mind and he was in there. Oh, think guy broke my shoulder and all, you know, looking for mercy. I said, you listen, you old son, you’re gonna pay for this deer. You just cost me Bristol with seven or eight laps to go in the race. The next day. The both wood brothers, the woodies, I call ’em, they come over.

I was driving Rosa’s Cup car. They come over and they said, Mr. Excitement, will you do, will you do us a favor? I said, boys, I’m not messing with your car. I got too much respect for you guys. You got my word. But if he messes with me tonight, I’ll park his possess in the fifth bleacher and they say he will not do that.

He’s more concerned about what you’re gonna do tonight. He says, no, I’m not. And I outran him anyway. But you just had respect for one another

Dave Hare: for the folks in the back, on or off the track, if there’s one event you could change, what would that be?

Music: Hell,

Jimmy Spencer: uh, probably not having the jack break at Pocono when I was driving. Bobby Allison. We were gonna win that race, and the jack broke on the [01:39:00] last pit stop, and that haunted me. The olis were fantastic. I love Pocono. We were talking about Ru Well, I was there. I was at Pocono, and Mark Donahue was one of my heroes.

Won his first IndyCar race there. Mario. I used to, I wanted to drive Indy cars. Pocono was a special place. I went to Poconos and I’m, I’m saying, all right, I think I can get into pits. So as they were pushing the IndyCar in, I just put a rag in my back pocket and I pushed the car in with them and I’m over there and God dang, I wanted to meet AJ Fo.

And he hit the block. Number 14. He always was in the front pit row. And I said, well, I’ll just go in there and check it out. I’m over there and I’m looking at the car. He comes over and he bumps me. I go, oh, what’s up buddy? Holy shit, aj. He says, what are you doing there, buddy? I says, man, I says. These cars intrigue me.

I, I love Indy cars. I’m racing a little bit of dirt cars, but I love to run Indy cars. He goes, really? And I said, yeah. He said, they’re pretty cool. And I got the meeting. He said, well keep it [01:40:00] up. You know, you’re going the right route. And I, me and Tyson talked about that, about going dirt route, then going asphalt because I first started dirt.

And you look at Tony Stewart, you look at Jeff Gordon, you look at these guys that came from dirt to asphalt. They had better car control. And that, that means a lot. But Pocono is pretty special. I, uh, I never had a lot. I won token in the modified, but he never had the luck I needed in the cup car there.

You would pretty cool for you didn’t want it.

Dave Hare: Jimmy, you said you love Indy cars. Did you and Chip Asse have a

Jimmy Spencer: badge? Yeah. Chip at me a hundred bucks. I couldn’t fit in the Indy car.

Music: And he won.

Jimmy Spencer: No, I fit in it. I tested it. Kenny Brack was driving it and we went there for a target shoot and the guy’s still, his crew chief for Scott Dixon now.

And Chip goes, did this fat as in that car. And the guy goes, yeah. He says, okay, now I have to let him on the track. Uh, court said that I could go on the track and Kenny Brack told me what I had to do and I said, I don’t wanna wreck the car because they’re very easy to wreck. You’ve actually felt the down [01:41:00] force about 70, 80 mile an hour.

And he told me where to go. So I got in the car, they made all the adjustments. Bill Fran sent me a picture. Oh man, it was funny. I had a lot of publicity at that one, but I actually drove the Indy car at Seabring in Florida and I got it up to where I was three and a half seconds slower than they were.

Tony Glover comes over and he goes, Spence. What adjustments do we need to make? And I knew he was having fun. And I says, take this helmet, put it in there, and put another helmet on somebody that knows what the hell they’re doing. Because I, I, I knew that it, it’s not the car, it’s the driver. But I says, Tony, how much time do I have to make up?

He goes, I think 3.9 seconds. I says, 39 hundreds of a second. I can make that up. He says, no, 3.9 seconds. I said, I don’t think I can make that up. Jimmy Johnson found that out. There’s a lot to those Indy cars. There’s a lot to a sprint car. I mean, every, oh, you just get in there and you turn it and you hold the son of a bitch [01:42:00] wide open.

No, I drove a spare car one time. There’s a lot to him. They’re more than people realize. You just don’t sit ’em in there and hold ’em wide open and go around the racetrack. You better know what you’re doing.

Lynn Paxton: Now we’re gonna have Spencer back and the next time we’re gonna take

Dave Hare: you got time for two more questions. If given the opportunity, would you accept an offer to run the SRX tour?

Jimmy Spencer: I had an offer, no, I don’t want to do it. Last time I drove a car was in Canada, finished third, and if I would listen to the damn crew chief, I probably would’ve won. Hardheaded me.

Dave Hare: You’re not supposed to listen to the crew chief, you said?

Jimmy Spencer: No, I didn’t say that. I said, when the crew chief tells you how to drive the car, would you tell the crew chief what to do? That’s time for you to quit. Alright. No, I, I wouldn’t drive the SRX because I think that. I’d have to lose 40 pounds maybe, and I just don’t want my grandchildren to have those memories.

I think there’s a lot better things to do than race. If you wanna race [01:43:00] local and enjoy it, that’s fine, but if you wanna go cup racing, you’re gonna have to mortgage your house. Your mom and dad’s house. Your grandfather and your grandmother’s house and then you’re gonna have to tell ’em you’ll do anything you can for the next 10 years to pay for it.

Because what has happened to the NASCAR sport? I got in on talent. Dale Earner got in on talent and Rusty Wallace and you go down a list of drivers, you got the phone call because you could do it today. It’s not how good you are, it’s how damn much money can you bring me? And that sucks because there’s so many talented drivers out there that don’t not ever get a shot.

There’s some people out there driving that they cannot ever be as good as some of the guys that are out there. They’re not gonna get the brakes, unfortunately.

Dave Hare: Alright, final question, Joe. For the same race

Jimmy Spencer: I kicked his ass.

First year race in the port world, I was leading the race. I, I didn’t win. I was going for my first ever win. I think he needed five [01:44:00] feet and I left four feet, eight inches. And he, he moved you over? He moved me over. And I said, son of a bitch, dad. And he ended up beating me. I got second, this is like my fifth or sixth race of the year now.

I had a good car ’cause my own man could set the cars up and it was a Barry Klein dance car. I proceeded to ignore him. I wouldn’t talk to him for about three or four weeks. Mom said this gotta stop. We were eating supper one night. She said, this has gotta stop. I said, your son of a bitch, dad. Why did you do that to me?

And he goes. I didn’t do nothing anybody else wouldn’t do. He goes, how much room did you leave me? And I said, you’re right. I left you too much room. He said, you just drove in a little too far. You got the car tailing in the middle of one and two. And he got up underneath me. I did race against him. I did win my first race against him.

That Jimmy Nave deal. I knew it was time to move on. I didn’t wanna race against my dad and I didn’t want, he didn’t want me. To do what he did for [01:45:00] 25 or 30 years. But I remember one time he wanted to run a modified, Tim Richard was one of the best drivers you can imagine. The promoter at Shangrila, the promoter says to me, he says, I know you bring two cars to track.

I wanna run a car for Tim. Richard. So I said Okay, made a deal with him and Tim Richmond comes in, both cars are sitting there and my brother Eddie, Tim goes, what’s that car? And he says, well, the last time he was out with that car, I think he wanted Thompson. And he goes, what about that car? He says He won with this car last week.

He goes, that’s the one I want. Okay. I gave that car to Tim and talking about a driver knowing more than the crew chief. So we go out and we’re racing. Tim kept telling him, he says, you need to free that car up. And Ed says, Tim, you don’t need no more stagger. He goes, gimme a quarter inch more stagger. And he says, Jimmy will kick your ass.

He’ll give you a quarter inch more stagger he so I can hang onto it. So it was a 50 lap race, Tim got out in front of me. We had good cars, Tim. He got ahead of me on the one restart and he takes the lead. I says, it could be hard to beat him. And all at once, [01:46:00] I’m watching a Goodyear Tire on the asphalt.

They would, they would wafer the inside edge, the outside edges. He had too much stagger and I had open face. Somehow I could see it. And I saw I got him now, and sure enough, I bumped him a little bit, my own car, and I ended up passing him and, and beating him. So the following week my dad says, you can’t do that to me.

So. I said, dad, you could drive that car. So dad drives it. He starts in the back. We’re out there racing. It was a, it was a hundred lapper, I think, and my dad was up in age, man. He pulls in the pits. Ed says, dad, what the hell did you pull in for? He said, I got a bad vibration. There’s a bad vibration in it.

After the race was over, I ended up, I ended up winning race. I said, dad, what happened? He says, I wasn’t gonna let you lap me. You think I’m stupid?

Oh my God. Oh, oh. They all liked my dad. My dad was a character. He was a good man.

Dave Hare: Classic.

Jimmy Spencer: My dad [01:47:00] drove sprint cars. They weren’t sprint cars. Lynn, what the hell would they call? They were super modern, super mods and you know. But anyway, so my dad was back in the sixties, I was, I would’ve been 19 61, 62. I think my sister was born in 61.

My dad was driving for what? You weres. Who was the guy that drove your cars? Emrick. Mr. Emrick had a lot of money and he wanted his cars to look nice. Yeah, well, dad drove for two brothers up near Pitton, Pennsylvania that had coops that they were winning. All my dad won lots of races for him. They had two full-time mechanics, Paxton, two full-time mechanics working on my dad’s car.

So they said, ed, we we want to go to Indy. And Dad says, yeah, I’ll go to Indy. They go to Indy and he takes all the tests that he’s supposed to and everything, and I guess it was about 61 or 62 that killed a bunch of guys. Which is normal. Dad sat there and the next day he was supposed to go on the track.

The Chevy dealer said, ed, what are you thinking? He goes, man, guys. He said, I think I can do it. In fact, I know I can do it, but I got Fran at home with seven kids and I got a big [01:48:00] business and if something happens to me, who’s gonna run it? That right there stopped my dad from going to IndyCar racing because of what happened.

He was always so supportive of me and my NASCAR Cup series because I know my dad could have made it. A lot of these guys are, I know these guys could have run Richie Evans. I guarantee you a Paxton. We saw Dave bla. There’s so many guys that could have ran the Cup series, but the problem was they weren’t making no more money than you guys were making in the days.

They weren’t making as much. They weren’t making as much. Paxton, you’re a hundred percent right. You could make more money. I remember Richie Evans telling me that he made more money than they were. Won in the Cup races. The only thing that made the Cup Series more popular was if you look back at the sixties, the cup race, you were lucky to get $400 to start a race and he only won 10 or 15,000.

And I remember winning some modified races in the eighties that paid 15, 18,000 to 100 lap, 200 lap races, and now they’re not even [01:49:00] paying three or 4,000. But to me it was a big disparity and I think there were so many good racers in the sixties and seventies that didn’t race. And then you had to go up against Richard Petty who was backed by Chrysler.

Plymouth Dodge. I mean that that’s what made Holman Moody what they were. Holman Moony could beat the Petty, especially with Pearson. I remember Junior Johnson telling me that if Bobby Allison would’ve stayed with me in 1972, Richard Petty would not have seven championships. But Bobby Allison, I love him to death.

He wanted half. The Dean of sponsorship money from Coca-Cola Junior told me that story of his own mouth. And Bobby didn’t do it. But you look at who won all his kale, won a championship. Darryl Walham, bill Elliott, you didn’t go down. The people that won championships for Junior, he was pretty special. But those guys, bud Moore, they had cliques.

The wood brothers. But they all knew they needed money to race. That’s how they survived. And it was all sponsorship money really. It wasn’t the winnings.

Dave Hare: So how does the driver come up with, with their number in your family? You had the [01:50:00] 24 for years, you and your dad.

Jimmy Spencer: You know, my dad would come up with 24.

I wanted 24, and they wouldn’t take it. Then they gave it to Jeff Gordon. My dad used to own a gas station, and at the time gas was mostly 16, 17, 18 cents a gallon. He never was over 20 cents. And it was never under 15 cents. And that’s why we used the two and four. That’s the truth. And there’s a lady, somebody has a picture from Langhorn and there’s a white 24.

Those are gas station numbers on my attached car. 24. Yes. That’s gas station numbers. And that’s how we got 24. And you look through my whole career, I was 24. 24 junior.

Dave Hare: That’s beautiful.

Jimmy Spencer: That’s how you added Amazing,

Dave Hare: perfect sense.

Jimmy Spencer: How did you get one? Paxton?

Lynn Paxton: You used to paint.

Dave Hare: You asked

Jimmy Spencer: why know It’s Paxton.

Dave Hare: Yeah.

Jimmy Spencer: Why? Why one and one a? Well, one A was for Alan Allen. Yeah. Allen. And then one was for Paxton. Well,

Lynn Paxton: we started with one and [01:51:00] three, so that’s how it first started. We had a number one and Alan didn’t like that. Then we got one A and three ’cause Oman to drive

Jimmy Spencer: the hippie.

Wow. That’s how most of the guys took the numbers. The owners. Junior Johnson. 11 was the number baby. That was it. And Earnhardt. Always told me that he wanted the three because childs got the three. But he said that two when he won his first races and all that in three was always better than number two.

’cause it was always one better and And Earnhardt had that slanted three. I mean it was just, you know, that was a hell of a marriage. Him and childs good people.

Dave Hare: Well that’s a great way to end the day. Well, we appreciate everybody coming out today, Jimmy. It has been an incredible day. Thank you so much.

Applause.

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