Episode 49 Ray Dillon

Race fans, it's time to buckle in and listen to the fastest hour in racing radio.

Your driver is a multi-time NASCAR winner and Hall of Famer, Mark Martin.

We cover racing, grassroots, history, we bench race, we talk life, and most importantly,

we smash the loud pedal.

It's time to turn some laps on the Mark Martin podcast.

Well, I'm really excited today to have my old friend Ray Dillon, and we're going to

have the opportunity to kind of discuss some things that we may not have ever discussed

about our glory years together.

And I want to start by kind of setting the stage, and I'll go through it real quickly

because I want to get to the good stuff.

But in 1976, I raced the local dirt tracks in Arkansas.

And in 1977, I made the jump to pavement racing, late model asphalt racing, got my start, got

my feet under me pretty good.

And by mid-season, I was starting to venture off into the ASA series and picking up some

of those races.

And I wound up winning the ASA Rookie of the Year for 77.

So I set my sights on 1978 to really build my name.

I was going to go down to the New Smyrna to the World Series of asphalt racing, try to

win that championship, and also try to win race for the ASA national championship, which

really I never expected to be able to win in 78, just get my feet under me.

But we went to New Smyrna.

We won the series based on not lightning speed, but just consistency that wound up winning

the title.

And then in the ASA series as well, we won that title, and it was a pretty big deal because

I was just 19 years old, and back then that was kind of young and unheard of.

So my plans for 1979 were because the New Smyrna series was such a money loser, and since

I'd already won that title and the ASA title, I wasn't going to race New Smyrna in 79.

I didn't really need to spend the money to go down there and do that.

So I was going to go down to Speed Weeks anyway, keep my nose into everything, and back then

they had the Overtrack Trade Show, which is kind of like PRI show is today, but they'd

have that Overtrack Trade Show during Speed Weeks, and I was going to go and see what

kind of deals I could get put together for more manufacturers support and free parts kind

of support.

And so here's how it goes.

I'm walking through the Overtrack Trade Show, and I see a little booth with the Coral Spring

set up there, and I see a man standing there, and I'm like, well, here we go, and go over

here and see if I can get on a spring deal.

And so I walk up and introduce myself, and it's Ray Dillon.

We have a brief conversation about springs, and he says, yeah, and if you need a trailer,

I'll give you a trailer too, and if you need a shop, you can use a shop.

And if you need a place to stay, there's a house next door to the shop, and I'll rent

that to you for $150 a month.

The thought had never really crossed my mind of leaving Arkansas, but it was a pretty exciting

offer, and I just want to know, Ray, what you were thinking when I walked up there.

Well, I had been racing myself for like, I don't know, six or seven years,

and I was dead set on building a coilover shop, short track stock car.

I was just, I just had a lot of ideas, and I had built some stuff that I was

campaigning locally, but I worked for myself, I had at that time, I don't know,

through four employees, and we were building trailers and building a few race cars and

roll cage kits for the local guys.

What I was looking for was, I couldn't run a business and campaign a race car,

just physically couldn't do it and couldn't afford to do it.

And I saw the opportunity to put a young kid in one of my race cars and go out and set the

world on fire and expand the business by, you know, racers are kind of monkey, sea monkey, do,

and whatever wins on Sunday sells on Monday.

And so I guess that's what I was thinking, Mark, I thought, here's the opportunity.

Well, that was, that was really wild, because I was, I had just turned 20 years old,

and of course, this was a really exciting opportunity for me.

And if you, if anybody wants to go back and listen to the podcast, our podcast explaining 1977

and 1978, you'll, you'll understand more about why I wanted to make the, make the move to Indiana.

You know, one of the reasons was I blew three motors up in the haulers in the tow truck,

going from Arkansas to Wisconsin and Indiana racing every weekend.

So getting up there centrally located was part of the equation,

but there was a lot more to it than that.

So I was really excited.

So we made the deal.

Ray and I made the deal, standing there in a trade show.

And I went home from speed weeks and started packing up my stuff.

And in March, I moved up there and, you know, got ready to go to work.

There was a, there was a lot to all of that.

It was a really exciting time and we got moved into the house.

I took two full-time employees.

I think I took, brought, of course, Banjo Grimm with me and I think David Levendahl.

And we moved into that house and got set up there.

And the, one of the things that really strikes me, Ray, is I'm going to say one more time

and then I'm not going to say it anymore, but I was 20 years old and you handed me the keys to your

shop. And those keys, that shop, I could walk into the parts room.

I could get parts.

I could get boats out of the boat, Ben.

I could use any of the equipment in the shop.

And of course, I did it at night because we're work day and night.

And so, you know, if I needed something at night, I could just unlock the shop and go in

there and get what I needed.

I mean, when I think back on that, once again, I think, Ray, what were you thinking?

I was 20 years old and you didn't know me.

I knew you enough that I wasn't worried about you running off with anything because we had

too much, too much future together.

And I guess when we put our deal together, it was like, we didn't even write anything down.

We didn't have no lawyers, no accountants, no contract.

We just, you can't do stuff like that today.

We did it because we both had, I guess, a vision of what we wanted to do.

And figured you needed a key to the place because I didn't want to stay there until

two o'clock in the morning.

I lived five miles away.

I lived on the farm out in the country.

And when six, seven o'clock coming around at night, I wanted to go home.

And I wanted you to be able.

I didn't want to hold you up.

So you having a key solved a whole bunch of problems.

Boy, it solved some problems for me, too.

It was a really, really incredible time.

So we get started in 79.

Of course, I'm still running my HAL car.

And we get somewhere up into the summer and you've got your plan and your back of your mind.

Short story, once again, the entire stories in the 1978 podcast.

But you hit me up.

Let's go up to Hartford and you drive this car that you had built,

which was a coilover rack and pinion car.

It was a Camaro front snout car, not a tubular snout.

But it was your vision, the beginnings of your vision.

And you wanted me to race it up at Hartford.

And I work in the shop till last minute.

I probably ate anything all day.

Then I jump in the truck and we head off to Hartford.

We run this car.

An old thing runs pretty damn good.

I'm pretty impressed with it.

And I ate all day.

I ate about, I don't know, a couple of pounds of m&m's.

And then we get in the tow truck to head home and we're drinking beer.

So that's when you hit me.

Let's build us a car.

That's when it all started.

And I said, well, okay, but I want to use the same geometry,

same rear end, three-link suspension.

I want to use things that I know and understand.

And then you can bring in the tubular front snout,

the straight right side frame rail, the coilover shocks, rack and pinion.

And we'll make all those changes and make the car be super light, super strong.

We've got to get a surface plate to be able to do all that stuff.

And we put it all together and come up with a plan.

And we get home and I go into the house.

And there again, I ate anything all day except a few pounds of m&m's.

And that beer hits me.

And all I know is I'll wind up the next morning about five o'clock in the morning

laying in the bathroom floor.

So I didn't know about that part.

I don't tell that story much, but yeah.

So I had to clean up the bathroom before the boys got up and then go to work.

And I didn't feel very good that day.

But anyway, that's kind of the story on that and the beginnings of the Dylan Mark II chassis.

It was just, yeah, that was magic for you and me both.

It really, really built my confidence.

The thing I want to say, Ray, is you were a brilliant, brilliant person and such an asset

to me because you knew how to build things.

I would have idea, but I wouldn't know how to turn some of those ideas into metal.

And you could do that.

And the two of us really complimented one another in that way.

You also helped build my confidence beyond belief as far as being a chassis guy.

And so it was a tremendous asset to me to be by your side there for those three years.

Well, I appreciate that.

You know, and we did all that stuff, Mark.

We didn't have any engineers helping us.

We didn't have computers.

I had a drafting board and I had taken mechanical drawing in high school.

So I could lay a few things out on the old drafting board with a pencil and a T-square.

But we did a lot of stuff together with strings, levels, protractors,

you know, just lay stuff out on the cement floor and draw a bunch of lines till they intersect

and take a string and tie it on and pull that string and see where it goes.

And that's how we figured out a lot of the geometry and figured out what ratio of spring

are we going to need if we know that we're running a, let's say, a 1200-pound conventional

spring in the right front and then we go to a coil over spring.

Well, we figured out the relationship.

How far was that spring going to move when the wheel moved an inch and just did some basic math

and said, well, we need a 400-pound instead of a 1200-pound.

And, you know, pretty simple stuff, you know, it's just farm boy stuff,

like you figure out how to, where to put the hinge on the barn door so the cows won't get out,

you know, we were doing it with race cars.

Yeah, that was, it was such a crazy time.

You are listening to the Mark Martin podcast on the Accelerated Podcast Network.

Mark Martin podcast, episode 49. Mark talking to Ray Dillon today.

Ray brought Mark out to Indiana in the two's efforts combined for the very first

all-tube offset coilover race car. More from their conversation.

Hey, I want to tell another story and, you know, these stories that I tell,

you may have perceived things differently than I perceive things.

And I always say that when I tell stories, you know, I'm not saying that

they're absolute fact. They're the way I remember them.

So one of the things that I remember was that I was going to need a trailer for 79.

So when I got there and got moved into the house and got moved into the shop,

was it was time for that, hey, what about that trailer?

And you pointed to the steel rack and said, there's your trailer right there.

Banjo and I had to build that trailer, but we, it didn't cost us nothing,

but a little bit of labor, but we built that trailer and we used that trailer,

you know, all of 79, 80. And we used it in 81 as well. Even to do our first five cup races,

we're off of that Dillon trailer. So that was, that's kind of a cool story. I love the stories

about the haulers and the trailers and all that, but that was one tidbit about it.

So we get through 79 and in late 79, you guys are feverishly building fixtures and the jig

and fixtures and everything for this first Dillon Mark II chassis. And we, we debuted,

I think we maybe debuted at the Snowball Derby.

Yeah, it was.

Yeah, that was the debut. And then, and then we took it to new Samerna. And if I remember correctly,

about the second night or so, we got demolished, tore all the pieces. It may have been a few

nights after that, but that kind of ended our, our speed weeks thing. And we, you know, we were

learning the new car. We get back, you know, and get started racing up there and in the north,

there in the spring. And we start picking up speed pretty quickly. But if I remember correctly,

I ran, we ran like 38 races in 1980 with that, you know, with our cars. We built two cars,

one for Art Go and one for ASA with a little bit different body configuration on the two.

And if I remember correctly, we ran like 38 races that year and we had fast time 33 times.

I know it was frequent. That was pretty normal to have quick time. And a lot of times it was a new

track record. Yeah, most of the time that was a new track record. Yeah. And you know, the thing

about that too is one of the things that really held us back early in the season was I was still

on Firestones and Goodyear's, you know, were really coming on strong. And I didn't realize how much

better the Goodyear tires were. So we get to, we get to Milwaukee in about May and we unload the car

and I'm on Firestones. Well, funny story about that. Before we go to Milwaukee, you know, back

then tires cost 100 bucks a piece. And you know, I was getting, I was on a Firestone tire deal.

That's why I'm still running them. And I didn't have any money back then. I just got all kinds

of manufacturers parts and we operated solely off of the purse money. And so I got ready to go up

there. And my dad knew that, you know, I needed to be buying tires and I wasn't buying tires yet.

And he gave me eight $100 bills. That's two sets of tires. And I had those things in my pocket.

I went to bed the night before the track opened in the hotel. And I woke up the next morning and

I noticed that the door was open to my room. I thought, oh my God. And I looked up on the dresser

and my wallet was still there. And I was like, oh my goodness. So I went, I left there, didn't

think to look in the wallet, but left there and went to McDonald's and ordered breakfast.

And when the breakfast came, I whipped out my wallet and that was empty. So I go to the racetrack.

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. So I go to the racetrack. You know, I have to give them the breakfast back.

And I go to the racetrack and we practice and we're not fast enough. When I sling the lead,

move, change springs, sling lead, move everything in that car and practice is over now and qualifies

up next and I'm not fast enough. So put it on jack stands and I put the chassis back exactly like

we unloaded it when we left the shop and I go over to Goodyear, carry four wheels over to Goodyear

and I have them mount up four stickers and roll them stickers over on and bolt them up on that car.

And I roll, I never made a lap on Goodyear's before in my life. And or, you know, not, that's not

true, but I, you know, I haven't in years. And I roll out there to qualify, roll down the back

stretch and go into three and she feels pretty good. So we lay it, lay down a track record

and set on the pole for, for the Milwaukee race. First time rolling out on those, those good years.

So I go ahead and buy another set on, on credit for the race. So we've got our two sets

and we, we do win the race. From there in May, we really start picking up speed because now,

you know, I've jumped off the good years or off the firestones and we just continue to build

momentum throughout the years. Just, we just demolish the competition to the point where

I'd like for you to tell, tell the listeners who, some of the, the big name customers that you,

that you started getting after, after that. Well, all of a sudden there was people calling or coming

over to me at the racetrack looking for, looking for a chassis and well, Rusty was one of them.

Dick Trickle, Kenny Schrader, Don Gregory, Bob Strait. I know there's a lot of, a lot of people

that I'm going to hurt their feelings by remembering their name in this conversation,

but we ended up, I had to add a couple employees at the shop and, and had to,

some of the parts and pieces that were like a burnout, we were using enough of them that

I was able to go to a fab shop in South Bend and have stuff that we were doing one at a time on

a little magnetic tracer burning machine. I was able to buy them 50 at a time and things just,

just really, really took off. Yeah, plus, you know, what about your southern,

your, all your southern, like you like your Butch Linley's and Neil Bonitz and,

yeah, yeah, we got from running things other than all pro, than ASA was doing all pro stuff and

some of that NASCAR American challenge and Butch, Butch won a lot of races in, in my cars and Neil

Bonitz become a dealer and sold a lot of, a lot of cars to the, to the Southern guys and I know

the following year when we were getting ready to go to Daytona for Newsom Erna and the Obaltrak

trade show, we had a, a board, like a bulletin board right outside of my office in the main part

of the shop and we had, if we had orders, we had them thumb-tacked up to that bulletin board and

when we left to, to go to Newsom Erna, there was 42 cars on order, just unbelievable. Wow. Wow. And

David Pearson, you know. Yeah, David come up to the shop and, and you know, he was, he was up at

the shop and the local newspaper, the South Bend Tribune, come down to the shop and did a,

did an article on, on him coming to the shop and we, at that time, at lunchtime, we'd go

downtown to this restaurant called Mr. T's and we were down there a couple of days later

having lunch and the guy that owned the place, Mr. T, he'd come over to me and he says, hey, he says,

was that David Pearson that was with you in here the other day? And I says, yes, a matter of fact,

it was. And he says, well, talk about it. He says, next time you got somebody famous in here with you,

let me know. And I said, well, Mr. T, I'd like you to meet Neil Bonnet.

You know, and you saw, of course, Daryl Waldrop and Dale Earnhardt, you know, the Mark II chassis

as well, cars and, you know, anybody with you force Dick Trickle to buy one of your cars,

you know, that's big. I mean, Dick had been racing that BIMCO car for forever and when we

took it to, I mean, we just took it to him so bad in 1980 that everybody just threw their

hands up and bought a car. And it was, you know, part of that deal was people would come to you and

ask you for some tips on how to, what springs to run or how to set their tire up or whatever.

And I saw this several times and really impressed me. You told him, you said, well, now, if you had a

Dylan car, I could help you. But the chassis that you got, I don't know much about yet.

Within a few days, there was an order on the board with their name on it.

And speaking about helping people, you know, I got $100 cash in many of those cars you sold

when they would take them home and finish them. They'd bring them back to the shop

and I would do the setup on them and they would pay me $100 cash, which was important. But I gave

like Bob Strait was, you know, and those guys were a great customer, had great cars.

And that was the year, you know, that I came up with a three spring setup for Winchester.

And those guys brought their, you know, so those guys brought their car and had me set it up before

Winchester, set it up on the three springs. And not only did we go down there and sit on the pole

and shatter the track record, but Bob said on the outside pole on three springs as well. So

I would do that all the time. I mean, I said, in fact, Dale Earnhardt had me come to his shop and

do the chassis setup for his car. I think in about 83, it was 83 or 84, before he went to the

slinger nationals and he, you know, he paid me $100 cash and that was like gold to me.

So I would do chassis setups all the time for those cars and it was just, it was a golden time

for you and me both. You know, I was really happy. It was a real compliment to me to have so many

people want to buy your cars and run your cars. And I was never threatened by any of those guys

because I always felt like my car was better than theirs anyway. My cars were always lighter

than any of the customers because I worked harder. We put more hours in. We, you know,

we cared more. We ground and sanded on those cars and polished and pushed and pulled on the bodies

and made the cars lighter. My car always had more left side weight than any of the customer cars

solely because we put more work into them. So, you know, that was all a benefit of you having

a key to the shop. Absolutely. You thrashed, you worked and you was, you was there half the night.

You must have got by on three or four hours of sleep for about three years there because the

lights were always on in the midnight. You know, you weren't done yet. The thing is the chassis

that you got, when it came off of the jig, in fact, there was a time or two, there was one time

one of your cars got wrecked. I don't remember where it was and we pulled the chassis out of the,

you know, it was for somebody else. I don't remember who it was. We just give you that chassis

because it didn't matter to me or my guys who it was for. We just put out the best that we could

and everybody got the same thing and the difference was when you got yours, you took it across the

parking lot to the building that you used over there and you rubbed on it and most of the other

guys just took it home and painted it and put wheels on it and went to the racetrack. It was

the same piece. It's just theirs has not been ground sanded and polished. Yeah, that's for sure.

That's for sure. So we have so much success and we're entering into the fall part and this is

going to be a little bit of an interesting thing because you and I have never discussed really

what took place the fall of 1980 and through 1981 in our venture into NASCAR

and then me packing up and moving out of there in November of 1981.

So we really conquered ASA in the short track thing by late 1980 and I decide that I want to

venture into NASCAR and I want to use the same kind of thing. I want to use the geometry that

I know how to use. So we make a plan. I make a plan for a bush series car or Xfinity series car

to do five super speedway races with to get some super speedway experience and a cup car

that will be solely for a short track and racing and I'm going to try to do really good or maybe

even steal a win coming right out of the gate. So you build the front snouts for both cars

and we find somebody down south to put the cage and the rest of the frame together

and hang the body so that they would be legal for NASCAR because all that stuff is kind of green

to us. I have my deal is still I don't have any real money. I operate off the winnings so

my deal with you for 1980 was you build the car in the parts and I take it and race it.

I put the motor in it transmission and I take it and I race it and I give it back to you

in one piece just like I got it from you in one piece and so we had two cars like that and that

way I didn't have to invest any money into the vehicles themselves and I could put my money

toward going fast, going faster and so that was the deal. So I made the deal with you to

furnish the bush car and I found a guy named bud reader from Denver Colorado that would pay for

the assembling of the cup car and so these are the things I remember you being involved in it and so

that was a big expense for you to be in. I'm not even sure why for sure you were

interested in helping with that but my plan for 81 was to do one arc a race with that car,

five bush races, five cup races and then all the rest of the time I was running short track races,

ASA and ARC go and still kicking button winning races so I had a real full schedule

and there I want to let you talk a little bit about what you were thinking and what we did.

I will say this, the second race out of the gate with that car that you furnished me

got totaled and so let's hear what your thoughts on all that were.

Well it was you that was really set on going big time racing. I was content

being I guess a big fish in a small pond business wise. I think we were up to we had like 17

employees by then and we're just cranking out trailers and short track race cars and selling

springs and selling component parts and life was good and you wanted to do that NASCAR stuff

and well what the heck it's a natural step you know and so well yeah that's a feasible deal and

if I'm going to get the car back it'll be famous when I get it back and so I can sell it for a

bunch of money and I can buy myself a new bass boat or something you know there's you can always

follow the money if you want the answer to why something happened you know but

and besides that it was it was a challenge shall we say to try to figure that out because that

you couldn't use rack and pinion or coil over shocks and so that's when we really had to go to

work with the strings and the protractors to try to try to figure some stuff out because you and I

both had a pretty good idea what we wanted those front wheels to do when you turn the steering

wheel and when you went in the corner and the car rolled over and and we couldn't use the rack

and pinion steering that we were accustomed to we couldn't use the coil over shocks so

we had to figure out how to do it with conventional steering and then there was also at that time a

lot of the cars on the NASCAR circuit were a rear steer you know they were a forward strut suspension

you know we were geared for front steer and so we had to go through the you know the pitman arm

idler arm drag link where do you put stuff out to get it to do this and do that and

it was I could see it's going to be fun to figure all this stuff out that so I guess I guess that's

that's why I decided to get involved and it was uh it was gonna all work out as planned except the

second race was Rockingham and we go down there and sit on the pole and but in the race the right

front tire blows out and it demolishes the car and it's a total loss and so that is a big setback

for you and me both yeah uh but if uh if you're involved in in racing you know that uh you're

you're going to lose some equipment sooner or later and uh I remember when when that happened

and we were you know extremely devastated but it like it's just the racing thing I didn't like

you know who we're going to blame you know you don't sue somebody you just you know you just

build another car lick your wounds and and go on and it was uh it was in the race season

so we weren't going to be able to build another car and I had my plan it was going to stick to

my plan so I managed to uh to buy a a car from Rick Wilson to be able to run the the other three

bush races that I had scheduled in the ARCA race at Talladega and we had uh had a lot of success

with that but that brings me to the cup car and we get that cup car all finished off I take it to

south bend to test uh sound south bend speedway uh to test a couple times and it sure seems to me

like the thing falls off the tires pretty bad but who knows I didn't know much about a 3700 pound

car I'd never been in the in the pits of a cup race before garage or anywhere else never been

around it so so I didn't know we got to north Wilkesboro with it the first time out of the

game I think we qualified like six and then we take it to Nashville um I think qualified

about fifth or something but we blew the motor up on the first lap but it didn't matter I knew that

we were in trouble as far as the race went so I knew we needed to make some changes on the car so

called up our buddy Randy Sweet and talked to him about let's cut this you know front end

geometry up and make some changes to it we made those changes and we went down to Nashville the

next race and center on the pole uh and a long story short that car hauled but we went to Richmond

and sat on the pole and finished seventh and then we took it to Martinsville and led the race for

40 laps or so and ran third and that is with an open trailer open Dylan trailer and an ASA pit

crew nobody no NASCAR nothing nobody from NASCAR even given us any advice we were just doing our own

little thing so we what was what would I remember about that second trip to Nashville and sitting

on the pole I was with you at that race a lot of them other races especially the bush stuff I

didn't go on that that was too far away and I had ASA cars to build but I went with you to Nashville

when you sat on the pole and what I remember about that was Ned Jarrett come over and he said hey he

says I need you when when uh I forgot what the heck was going on he says I need you to come over to

the start finish line in about 10 minutes he says I'm going to present the pole award which is a

case of bush bear and he says I need I need you to come over and accept that because you're the

only one on the crew that's over 21 bunch of kids yeah bunch of kids and and then I overheard

some comments uh after I got the case of beer was walking out whether I overheard some comments

above some among some of the important dignitaries that were there and it was something to the effect

I don't know how them plow jockeys got that done

you know we definitely we definitely weren't southerners no we weren't and there's a lot of

there's a lot of good info on the 1981 uh podcast uh you know telling about

technical inspection for for that car and a lot of other things and technical a lot of technical

data about that car and how much lead was in it and all that stuff so uh you can go back

people can go back and listen to those and they're very interesting from travel to nascar to gucci

main we cover it all on the mart martin podcast so we had a huge huge success together to this

point spent absolutely like straight a straight shot to the moon and uh for you for you and I both

in our our careers and what we were doing and so my plan at this point in time now is to go full

time cup racing uh in 1982 you know I've got by this time I've got three full-time employees

and uh and I feel a lot lot of loyalty to those guys and to you and to Ron Neil at prototype

racing engines because without Ron Neil I did all those all those races I did one arc a race

five bush races five cup races a bunch of art go asa and southern races like all pro all different

engines different kubik inch engines different kind of stuff and I never got one bill for engines

for the whole season and if it weren't for him you know this that program wouldn't have worked

either just like if it weren't for you that program wouldn't have happened period so you know

I've got a lot of loyalty and so I'm I'm working in the shop and the phone rings it's uh one of

them slimline phones that hangs on uh on a pole barn pole back there at the back of the car and I

remember just like it was yesterday I answered the phone said hello and is smart this is Waddell

Wilson I'd like to know if you'd be interested in driving the 28 car next year and I didn't even

I never even checked up I took a breath and I said no Waddell uh I think I'd rather do my own

deal do you know how profound that I mean at the time I didn't think about it but that was profound

I mean I there was a chance I could have been in the 28 car for the Daytona 500 in 1982

the fastest freaking car ever at Daytona and Talladega and this is the craziest thing but

my first thought was dude I've got three full-time employees I got Ray Dillon I got Ron Neil

I get out of these people that have helped me get here and I you know I have a loyalty I can't do

that and that was that was my feeling um after I made the move I really thought back on it and I

felt like that you know there was some bitterness on your side about my you know leaving and going

NASCAR racing and I'd like to know you know what your feelings were on it and where that all went

well I guess keep in mind that was what 40 42 or 43 years ago you know and if there was any

bitterness on my part it uh I should not have shown it because it was a natural thing I mean that was

when we met at the trade show in Daytona I knew that was your direction and uh I was uh

fortunate to go along for the ride in the meantime and when it was time for me to get off the ride

for you to go on that's the way it needed to be and like I say we never had any contracts or

agreements um I would say that anything I might have displayed was uh disappointment

but you know I was I was disappointed that you were going

yeah that was it was a tough thing right it was it was a really tough deal

and and I get that um and as the as the record shows um you know I went I went down there and

and did that thing and got knocked completely to my knees losing everything have and have an

auction and selling everything that I own to pay off all my debt you know to to kind of round out

this story I wind back up of course I had to re-establish my career so I come back up north

and in 1985 I'm back at Ray Dillon's picking up a Mark II chassis and you know we're back together

again and we actually went a bunch of races and things in 1985 and by the way in 1986 we went

another ASA championship together so there was a there was a rough time there from the end of 81

to uh you know to somewhere you know maybe in 84 and then and then things turn out for the

for the best again so um that's kind of a part of the history and we did that with a Ford

yeah you talk about some adapting hey uh my life thought I'd be working on a Ford

you know I knew that I could get a little bit of support from Ford in 1984 after I went back

to short track racing because of my contacts that I'd made from NASCAR and so I knew I could get

get some help so like I didn't know nothing either so I called up Ron Neil because you know

he's gonna do the engines and I'm like hey uh what do you think about uh Ford he says well it's

only iron you know so once he started you know it's like that ain't no problem I don't build them

but I'll start building them you know it's just it's just iron I can do it so so yeah so we we do the

the Ford thing which was fairly fairly well earned earned heard of and in in the circles that we ran

the martin martin podcast is a production of the accelerated podcast network

I want you to tell the story about your endeavor uh with the with the green weenie

because that uh that's a very historical car and uh you you whipped my ass with that car to

Minnesota State Fair when I thought I had that the the race won so talk about uh about that

well that all started actually when your car got demolished at new samerna we were scheduled to

when speed weeks were over we were scheduled to go over to smokey unix garage and put a

buick v6 in that car to do some testing you remember that no that's so cool that you tell

it no I don't remember that okay well what we ended up doing is we called big ron that were

currently at the shop and we had your asa car was pretty well complete back at the shop big ron

loaded that up on a trailer and brought it to new samerna and we went over to smokey's garage

put a buick v6 in that car and then on monday or tuesday after speed weeks were over went back

to new samerna and I don't know you're running like 100 laps or whatever with that v6 engine

that coming back to you yeah yeah that's a vague memory now that you now that you mentioned it

I had forgotten all about that yeah that's how the v6 deal got started and cause asa was

thinking about maybe starting to run v6's in the near future so anyhow when the way the green

weenie come about was uh billy owl from shiverway called me up one day wanted to know if I would be

interested in building a shiverway cavalier and putting a v6 motor in it to run a few selected asa

races so that's how we built that car and originally it was uh oh there was all kinds

of deals going on that poncho carter drove it once I think the first first driver for it was

waltrip so asa used to would have uh for a particular race that they needed a little help

selling tickets they'd make a deal to bring a a nascar hero in to race and most of those guys

didn't have a car that was competitive in asa so I had a shall we call it a rent eraser program

and uh waltrip drove it poncho carter drove it I can't remember who all else and uh

butch lenley was interested in it and we were going to the minnesota state fair

neil larson I think was the promoter's name up there him and rex robbins come up with this deal of

of let's uh let's put butch lenney in that car because they raced two weekends up there and then

there was a race like on wednesday or thursday night at lacrosse wisconsin and so they cut me a deal

bring that car up there and uh butch will drive it and you and butch split the money and we'll get

you a motel room and we'll get you some good year tires and we'll get you some union fuel and

amsoil will give you a bunch of grease and oil and so like I say follow the money you know

I always go for that stuff and so that's how we ended up at the minnesota state fair and to run

that v6 motor we got a 450 pound weight break and at the minnesota state fair they only run that

track once a year at that time and so the track would just eat tires you know there was no rubber

in it right and that that little v6 man it would be in 450 pounds light and butch was pretty smooth

driver you know he was incredible yeah he was and uh he would uh you know I mean it wasn't fast

like we didn't qualify good but whatever qualifying speed was it didn't run that same speed all day

along on the same set of tires and guys like you with the more horsepower with v8 and wanting to get

going about 10 laps man your tires were I mean it wasn't like they were shredded or the rubber was

gone it was just cooked they just quit and here'd come butch yeah I remember oh golly um I can't

remember guy's name now um they were pitted next to us he called in on his radio to his guy said

how many of them green son of a bitches are out here he said just one and he says that can't be I

just got passed the third time so we we ended up winning the the 300 by uh by three laps over the

second place car and it was just really cool I guarantee it was cool yeah it was really really

really a spanking for sure um I also remember yeah we were experimenting with a experimental

rear suspension and had that a-frame thing with the fifth coil spring and all that on the rear of

and we had it working really good I mean we you know we were we were second in class I felt like

well you you broke a motor put your something motor transmission something broke and put you

out of the race yeah yeah it put us out of the race but we were still getting our our asses whipped

by by you but we we were second in class for sure there you go yeah well what was another another

angle to that is I didn't have any pit stop equipment and I was using your equipment and your crew

and the deal was you would come in and make a pit stop and then when you were back out on the track

then butch would come in and we'd put his tires on after after whatever it was broke it was like

oh probably what it was it was less than halfway into the race or

somewhere around midpoint anyhow when your car was out your guys start taking the putting

all the pit equipment away wait a minute wait a minute guys that ain't the deal

they were not happy yeah god yeah we got it all worked out and they changed butch's tires one

more time and then we were all friends again well I tell you what Ray it's the the time

that we spent doing that is absolutely golden most pivotal

point in my career were the three years that I spent in north liberty

and you were a huge part of me going from kid in Arkansas that knew a little bit about racing

to you know being on top of the sport and those three years were incredible to me and

mean the world to me and all I can say is is that I look back on those days is

some of the most proud times of my life and all I can say is I love you brother well thank you

very much and I've told lots of people that if mark and I had never gotten together I'm sure

mark would have ended up being a famous Winston cup driver but I would have not ended up being a

famous race car builder you know I'll tell you one thing I never worked with with anybody in my

entire career that had a more that that could figure out how to do it any more than than you Ray

and I worked with a lot of engineers with a lot of engineering background and and some of the

greatest people in in in motorsports history but and and you were you know what they what those

guys said at Nashville when they said I don't know how them farmers did that that's about right

you a lot of your engineering was farmer engineering but it was it was a way to

accomplishment you knew how to accomplish the things that we needed to make and and the

mechanical way to make those things work that was just so key in in my development from 79 to

to 1982 and I just uh you know I want everybody to know everybody that listens and I want you to

know how important you were and in in my development well you know my dad always told me the definition

of horse sense is stable thinking that's good stuff buddy yeah man this has been so much fun

um I think this is just just gold and I appreciate you taking the time to to share with us

all right all right now thank you for thinking of me appreciate it

Chevrolet Camaro

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