Forum Activity for @dave-fulton

Who is Building the Chassis these Days?

General

NB Arnold's discussion topic about famous sayings on racecars made me think about Banjo Matthews and his Banjo's Performance Center in Arden, NC. His trademark sign and all his invoices said, "Where money buys speed.. how fast do you want to go?" Between 1974-1985, Banjo built cars won an astounding 72% of Cup races! When I first started going in Cup shops in 1981, most of them had surface plates that were gathering dust. Banjo was building the bulk of the chassis. These were rear steer. Hutcherson-Pagan in Charlotte was also building chassis and upstart Mike Laughlin in Simpsonville, SC was gaining a reputation with his front steer cars, favored by such drivers as DW. Banjo passed away prematurely at 64. When I used to go over there his son, Jody was trying to manage the business. I worked for a short time for one rookie car owner who paid the Simpsonville operation upfront in cash for two 1986 Ford T-birds. Guess they thought they'd found a bird's nest on the ground. The only way we ever got those cars out of Laughlin's was to send our own crew there to hang sheet metal and mud the cars.

Anyway, my curiosity question is this... are the teams back to building their own cars these days or what?

updated by @dave-fulton: 03/22/17 05:10:14AM

"Sitting on the Pole" at Atlanta

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I haven't been to Atlanta since Richard's last and Jeff's first race there. There used to be this very, verytall , striped pole in victory lane with a seat on top of it. The pole winner always had his picture snapped on pole day actually "sitting on the pole." Wonder if they still do that? Anybody have photos... Robert Turner, maybe?
updated by @dave-fulton: 04/10/17 09:05:55AM

ANOTHER NEW KID ON THE BLOCK

Current NASCAR

You talking about Helton or Slugger, maybe?

This was a good win for Paul and one of the better stock races at the Brickyard that I have watched.

What Racing Souvenir(s) do you treasure the most?

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That had to hurt.

What Racing Souvenir(s) do you treasure the most?

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I forgot I have the winning sponsor's trophy (in the shape of the state of Virginia) for the 1986 Miller High Life 400 on the old Richmond half-mile. It was presented in victory lane of Kyle Petty's 1st NASCAR win (in the Wood Brothers' #7 7-Eleven car) and made him the first 3rd generation Cup winner and Richmond the only track where 3 generations from the same family have won a Cup race. That win came in the aftermath of the infamous carsh of DW by Dale, Sr. in the closing laps, a wreck that somehow 3rd & 4th place runners Geoff Bodine and Joe Ruttman also managed to run into a few seconds after the fact, leaving 5th place runner, KP free to cruise home under yellow and collect his first win.

Also, I wish I had never thrown away my Darlington seat cushion when it wore out thatI purchased at the 1966 Southern 500.

What Racing Souvenir(s) do you treasure the most?

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If I had only known. I never saved anything. Not really a "souvenir", but I do have 5 vintage unworn 1981/1982/1983 Wrangler/Earnhardt blue & yellow pit crew shirts in the original plastic bags. I was also in 1981 given a Wrangler Racing Team Manager sierra silver belt buckle that I treasure.

I Was Fonty Flock in 1966

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In 1966 I entered the academically prestigious University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Va. as a first yearman (freshman at all other non stuck-up schools). The student body at that time numbered about 11,000 and there was maybe one other stock car racing fan besides me in that number, which was all men, except for the graduate school of nursing. We wore coats and ties and wingtip shoes to class and all other on campus (excuse me, the "grounds" ) functions except sports activities. I met some very nice folks there, but also some particularly stuck up, very rich Yankee prep school grads. The tuition for these out of state boys was many times the in-state tuition and I was using both academic and need scholarships, in addition to borrowing all I could and paying it back for ten years after my college graduation. (Well, I can see some things never change, the lead story in today's Richmond paper opens with this lead: One state legislator, upset that so many constituents' children with stellar grades are denied admission to the University of Virginia, says the school could be called the "University of New York, Charlottesville campus.") You can bet those Richie Rich guys didn't want to talk about stock car racing. I endured my share of barbs every week when my copy of Southern MotorSports Journal arrived at the University post office. Anyway, I have been blessed with a very deep and distinctive voice. I was always the one who had to narrate in school and had a co-lead in the Senior Class Play in high school, etc. Frank Wilson even commandeered me to give the invocation at the American 500 at Rockingham one year when he couldn't find Ned Jarrett. Anyhow, I was encouraged to tryout for the very popular, highly rated, rock-n-roll WUVA-AM radio station (we also had a classical FM station, WTJU). I tried out and was offerred the job of doing a nightly sportscast. This new position afforded me some payback each night to the rich and stuck up. I made sure nightly to intersperse between stories of Bobby Hull's latest goal and Cookie Rojas' new hit total, some kind of racing piece straight from the pages of Bob Hoffman's Journal. Opened the show with a recording of Robert Mitchum's "Thunder Road." Much of the movie had been filmed around Asheville, NCon property owned by one of my classmates' grandparents. But, the biggest coup and trick I played was that I used the name FONTY FLOCK on the air. Nobody else ever guessed or knew who Fonty really was. I never saw Fonty race, but I always loved the stories and liked his mischievous looking photos. It was years later that I finally met brotherTim. I always enjoyed saying, "This is Fonty Flock with sports" on the air. The goofy things we used to do.

The "REAL" Fonty
updated by @dave-fulton: 04/05/17 11:07:23PM

Nicknames

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The '55 Chevy Sportsman #11we ran at Wilson County Speedway in 1973-1974 owned and driven by Danny Lee used to carry the phrase, "BUILT BY HARD CASH" on a front fender.

This photo of Danny's car is from member Tim Hamm's collection as posted here on RR on his page. I always loved our " Dixie Supply Co." sponsor, a company owned by the late John Dildy. It had a nice ring. Unfortunately, this car, with Danny aboard, met its demise one night when it left the premises of the Weldon/Roanoke Radpids, NC Chantilly Speedway 1/4-mile dirt track. About all that was left was a front fender.

Nicknames

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Somewhere in the Hall of Fame or Hall of Shame belong's the famed "humpbacked" #26 1966 "Yellow Banana" Ford "crafted" by Junior Johnson.

How about Smokey Yunick? Any of his cars have good nicknames?

Nicknames

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Favorite all-time saying would definitely be the "UGH, CONSTIPATED, Can't Pass a Thing" on the rear deck of Ray Hendrick's #11 Modifieds (barely visible in a recent photo posting by Andy Towler). Many of Ray's modifieds used to also have a Budweiser tap as a hood ornament. Winning those grandfather clocks of Clay Earles' at Martinsville was appropriate for Ray, whose favorite saying after a win was, "I really cleaned their clock!"

On his six cylinder car at Wilson County Speedway,J.E. Beard had painted on the rear deck a mule with a hind legraised and a cartoon cloud behind it's rear end that said, "Bad Air!"

Al Grinnan had a Chevelle LMS #00 at Southside Speedway owned by Coleman Mann of Powhatan, VA that had agorilla painted on each of its two frontquarter panels. The name"Sonny", with an arrow was painted beside each gorilla, referring to Sonny Hutchins in the Zervakis #01 LMS who had several beating & banging encounters with Al. This was particularly funny since Al had driven a modified owned by Sonny while Sonny drove modifieds for Junie Donlavey.

One of the Langley Field modified boys used to have "Eight Sticks of Dynamite" painted on his fuel injected modified. Can't remember who, though.