Looking For Information on Buck Baker's Truck Series

Requesting information.

I am working on a project to track down information related to Buck Baker's truck series, the National Pickup Truck Racing Association, which ran in 1983.

Here is all I have:

Bobby Fleming, Randy Baker, Tom Usry (deceased), Doug West, George Pultz, and Steve Sigurdson ran the series

The trucks were pre-1981 NASCAR Winston Cup cars with standard pickup truck sheet metal over the body

NASCAR observed but did not assist with the series

I am looking for information about:

the trucks

the schedule

the drivers

the cause of the series failure

the connection between this and the All Pro Moroso Performance Pickup Truck Series (All Pro Truck Series)

Alex, Bobby Fleming still has a body shop and lives in Danville, Virginia. It should not be hard to get in contact with him. I bet he could help. I know he won one of those races at Atlanta and owned the truck that Bobby Allison dove.

Without any additional research, I'll go out on a limb and suggest the cause of the series' failure:

My pic of Randy Baker's truck built on a former Petty Chevrolet chassis. Snapped at Memory Lane Museum.

RR member Alan Woodard has the Tom Usry truck from this series.

Alex, RR member Robert Turner has posted a few pictures from this series.

Tom Usry won this one at Georgia International. Robert Turner photo.

Usry wins again. Not sure where this one is. I'm pretty sure the guy second from the left is RR member David Boggs. He may be source of info., I'll send him a message.

Bobby Fleming

http://www.randyayersmodeling.com/modelingforum/viewtopic.php?p=627498&sid=93dc424b5f94b39db5710f794bf87d5a

This link has a lot of of pictures from both the Buck Baker series and the All-Pro truck series.

It appears that at least four of the know drivers in 1983 Baker series also raced in the 1984 All-Pro Series

http://www.thethirdturn.com/wiki/George_Pultz/Results/ALL_PRO_Pickup_Truck_Series/1984

WOW That is neat stuff i did not no that how did i miss it sounds like Buck was ahead of his time

That is Boggs!

Pete Keller, former Nascar official, was one of it's officials

As you can tell, they used real truck bodies !

The first race of Buck Baker's Truck series was at Rockingham in June 1983 the same day as Ricky Rudd's first Winston Cup win at Riverside. There were only about seven full sized race trucks ready to run so the rest of the field consisted of approximately 10 stock or near stock trucks who ran a few laps and pulled into the pits. The race was a pretty good one as I recall Tom Usry Randy Baker and Bobby Fleming all in Chevrolets and Ferrel Harris in a Dodge battled for the lead for a good portion of the race. Fleming ended up winning. The attendance unfortunately wasn't that great maybe 5000. Later that summer I remember that Tom Usry won most of the races Hickory, Rougemont and some track in Ga. perhaps Jefferson had races for the trucks along with their regular programs. This was a good 10 years plus before NASCAR started their truck series.

The victory lane photo looks like Atlanta. Not sure if the series ran on a superspeedway.

If I remember correctly, Randy Bakers truck was all red when he drove it, and it didn't have the full Spring Cup contingency package, but its cool to see a survivor. I think I almost bought this truck 7 or 8 years ago. I had found an old NPTRA Chevy/GMC truck on EBAY, but missed it. Bobby Fleming's truck (54) is in the International Motorsports Hall of Fame Museum in Talladega. He's my uncle, and Ive always been trying to dig up old pics, info, or video of NPTRA races. Childress had his first win with Rudd the same day my uncle won the first NPTRA race. The cool part is that my RC help my uncle with some tires or parts or something for that race, so both of their wins were connected.

Mr. Gery,

Check out the article I wrote on this. Much of the information in that I got after interviewing your uncle! He was a big help, and I am very thankful for his stories as he made that article possible. It was actually finished on Tuesday!

http://racersreunion.com/the-original-truck-series/

Bobby Fleming's truck was built on his late model sportsman chassis.  Richard Childress gave Bobby the set up for the 1st NPTRA race at Rockingham.  Richard and Bobby had become friends while they were racing in the Grand American NASCAR series

The race was red flagged for rain and the trucks went to the garage area where at least one competitor replaced the required 2 barrel carburetor with a 4 barrel carburetor.  They ran closer to Bobby after the red flag, but still couldn't catch him.  Tom Usery was in a wreck, removed the pickup bed from his truck and was very competitive. 

Bobby sat on the pole at the next race at Hickory.  He was easily the fastest there, but a right front tire losing air from the start prevented him from leading a lap.  Ultimately he went laps down when had to pit to change the tire.  There weren't many trucks there and the race was held up while Bobby's crew helped a competitor from Denver change an engine he had blow in practice.  I can't recall the drivers name.  Does anyone know?