Bon Voyage "Mr. Excitement"

News comes of Jimmy Spencer leaving the racing scene. Too bad NASCAR can't hire him as an "enforcer." Sounds ready to help his dad and see the world. Bon Voyage, Mr. Excitement.

Jimmy Spencer To Retire, Take Up Gardening And Travel
May 11, 2012

By Steve Waid

DARLINGTON, S.C. Sitting in a directors chair at Greg Biffles hauler in the Darlington Raceway garage, Jimmy Spencer looked like a judge ready to hold court.

However, unlike Spencer, a judge wouldnt be chewing on a big cigar.

Spencer, a former NASCAR driver and current television personality who goes by the nickname Mr. Excitement, has never backed down from speaking his mind. And at Darlington, he wasnt about to change.

His subject wasnt racing, religion, politics or anything of the sort. It was much more personal.

I am going retire. Thats it. I am going to put my house up for sale and move back to Pennsylvania where I was raised, said Spencer, who won twice in 478 Sprint Cup starts with such team owners as Bobby Allison, Junior Johnson and Travis Carter.

Spencer also competed on several other NASCAR circuits. His record includes 12 Nationwide Series wins and 15 victories on the Modified Tour.

I love Pennsylvania, Spencer added. My dad has dementia but hes still alive and so is my mother-in-law. I want to go home and spend time with them.

My house is right up there off exit 28 (from Interstate 77 at Lake Norman). Wanna buy it?

Spencer, from Berwick, Pa., isnt leaving North Carolina simply to re-unite with relatives. Hardly. His plans are more far-reaching than that.

I love gardening, Spencer said. So I am going to build a small farm near home, off of Mayes Road up there. Ill get to do some gardening, but that isnt all I am going to do.

I am going to start traveling. I want to go to Germany and Im going to Switzerland. And Im going to take the train up in Canada.

Biffle told me to go to Seattle, then drive up and get on the train in Canada. Then Im going to take that train clear across Canada. I dont care how long it takes.

Spencer said hes motivated to retire and travel for a couple of reasons.

I love architecture, he said, and there are castles over there in Europe that are 2,000 years old I mean, 2,000 years old. Can you imagine that?

The truth of the mater is Spencer is motivated by a much more personal reason.

When you get up in age and you realize you cant do what you want to do because of your health or whatever, well, I dont want to deal with that, he said.

Im 55 years old and I know people who retired when they were 65 years old and because of their health, or something else, they cant do anything. Thats not going to be me, understand?

Spencer paused for a moment.

Whats has changed my whole attitude, he said, is when my sister Chrissy died two years ago.

She had ovarian cancer, but as far as Im concerned there was no reason for her to die.

So my point in all this is that life is too short. Im going to start doing stuff.

Thats what I want and thats what Im going to do.

Nothing else need be said except, perhaps, Bon voyage.

Jimmy's Dad, Ed Spencer in 1972.

Ed owned/operated a salvage yard in PA. and had been known to stack a few cars over on the neighbors land from time to time. It is said that Ed Spencer had a temper that dwarfed Jimmy's and couldn't accept his neighbor complaining about the cars and wouldn't remove them, he disputed the claim instead.

Well that sucks. I may be one of the few, but I liked ol' Jimmy. Of course his segment on the hub now, is just non-sense, especially that business with the crying towel. But I thought that Nascar RaceDay and Nascar Victory Lane was a heck of a lot more exciting when he was on it instead of Kyle Petty (not taking anything away from KP) Spencer just doesn't seem like the type of guy to garden or be intoarchitectural things though! lol

One thing I particularly liked about Jimmy was that deceased Richmond racer Sonny Hutchins (who both Dale Earnhardt and Darrell Waltrip declared the dirtiest driver they ever raced) was Jimmy's hero. He said he learned everything he knew about racing from Sonny Hutchins.

From a 2002 story on Sonny...

In an interview last year, Mr. Hutchins re- called his favorite part of racing was "showing up at someone else's racetrack and beating them." He said with a devilish grin that Waltrip called him "the dirtiest driver he ever knew" after trumping the three-time champion at a Tennessee short track.

He also had a few run-ins in the mid-1970s with Earnhardt, infuriating "The Intimidator" by bumping him into the wall at back-to-back Late Model races at Richmond and Martinsville. The seven-time champion hadn't forgotten when they crossed paths again in 1990.

"I walked by and said, 'Who's the dirtiest driver you know now?'" Mr. Hutchins said, "Earnhardt said, 'Well, look at the teacher I had.'"

Funny, but that's what current Winston Cup driver Jimmy Spencer says about Hutchins.

"Tell Sonny Hutchins that I learned everything I know about racing from him," Spencer says.

In looking up some stuff on Sonny Hutchins, I came across a gem of an MRN Radio broadcast... the 1974 Old Dominion 500 Winston Cup Grand National race from Martinsville.

That event had an amazing number of Modified and Late Model Sportsman drivers making the Grand National show.

It was Sonny's last race of any kind and he went out of racing in a blaze of glory. He started the Emanuel Zervakis #01 Chevy Monte Carlo on the front row in 2nd position, next to Richard Petty. Good to his word, Sonny cut off Richard in turn 1 on the first lap and led the first 79 laps of the race.

Ray Hendrick started the K&K Insurance Dodge in 10th and Jimmy Hensley, Satch Worley, Randy Hutchnson and Paul Radford were among other Virginia short track aces in the field.

The surprise winner was Earl Ross in the Junior Johnson Carling Beer car.

The amazing MRN Radio broadcast featuring Ken Squier, Barney Hall and the late Charlie Harville can be heard by clicking on the link below:

http://www.motorracingnetwork.com/Media-Center/Video.aspx?id=a841b2...

Dave,

Is that the same Randy Hutchinson that ran a Camaro in Grand Touring and Grand American?

Dennis... it sure is the same Randy Hutchison. He was a regular LMS competitor at Langley Field.

Dennis, here's a 1997 story on Randy from the Newport News, Va. paper:

For Newport News Native, Life In Fast Lane Just Out Of Reach
Looking Back
July 30, 1997

By AL PEARCE

Daily Press

NEWPORT NEWS Randy Hutchison recalls with startling clarity the times he almost got over the hump and made it in NASCAR racing.

There was the Grand American race he was about to win in Michigan until the harmonic balancer broke. There was the cinch top-five finish at Talladega until a rookie crewman let him run out of gas, and the night he would have been top-three at South Boston if a relief driver hadn't spun in the final laps.

Then there was the Grand American race at Daytona that would have led to bigger and better things - if the engine hadn't blown. And the night he became too hot to finish a race in Macon, Ga., and the race when...

``I was so close to getting there so many times,'' said Hutchison, a former wrestling and football star at Warwick High School who owns and operates the Brake King on Jefferson Avenue in Newport News. ``Things never seemed to fall quite right at just the right times. Man, I was right there so many times.''

Hutchison began go-kart racing as a kid, then moved into Modifieds in the 10th grade. ``But even before that, I'd practice at Langley and run a heat, then my father would get somebody else for the feature,'' he said. ``When he felt I was ready, I ran the features.

``He'd taken a '63 Corvette frame, put an engine almost in the front seat, put my seat where the trunk would have been, and put the steering wheel in the middle. It was so far ahead of its time that NASCAR sent us a letter saying we couldn't race it unless we changed some stuff.''

Hutchison spent almost six years in NASCAR's Grand American and Grand National East divisions. All the while, he was going through Hargrave Military Academy, Lees-McRae Junior College and Appalachian State University.

After a Grand American victory in Holland, N.Y., in July 1969, NASCAR realized he was the youngest major-division feature winner in its history. Later that year, he ran fourth in the Paul Revere 250 night race in Daytona Beach, Fla.

He made a handful of Winston Cup starts in the mid- to late-'70s, then turned to Late Model Sportsman racing at tracks across the Carolinas and Virginia. He retired six years ago after several Late Model Stock Car seasons at Langley with crew chief Skipper Jutras.

Thanks Dave, I knew Randy had won at least one GA race. I have the story from the Nascar Newsletter of that race in Holland somewhere. I wasn't sure if it was the same Randy H. because I remembered him being not much older than me. I did not remember that he was still in school when he ran GA. I sure know what he means about being so close so many times. If they had had podium finishes then like the Grand American series does now I think Dad would hold the record without ever standing on the top step.

Randy at one time in late 60s / early 70s drove a beautiful metallic blue Late Model Sportsman at Southside and Langley with a yellow #42. Al Grinnan also drove the same car some.