Bobby Labonte Explores Bill Davis Racing's First NASCAR Race Shop with Crew Chief Chris Hussey

That's why I said, "Hey, you need to come over here today cuz you're way better at this than I am cuz you might you're going to remember more than me." So, this is my office. He He's not waiting for the ladder. There's two ladders. Okay. Hey, hey, go ahead, Chris. This used to be the original Bill Davis Racing Shop, and that's Chris Hussey. He used to work here back then. We're waiting on Bobby Labonte. He's not here yet. Chris showed up early, so we're just going to start anyway. He's He's habitually late. What were you telling me about how all this was laid out back then? Well, this was Bill's really his first shop in in North Carolina. When he first started Busch Grand National racing when Mark was driving for him there in the late '80s, they actually worked so they didn't have to go back home to Arkansas every week. They worked under the awning over at the Roush Racing Shop in Liberty. Steve Mill allowed them to work under the awning, and so they was basically outside. Bill lived in his motorhome. He had a bluebird motorhome, and he parked it out back here once they moved into this shop. But, this is where he started with Mark, and then of course Jeff Gordon came here, and and you know, Jeff was young kid, and he he stayed in the motorhome with Bill. And his parents left him here, and they stayed right there in the back. A side note, Mark Martin I guess it's Mark Martin Incorporated or whatever he called his race team when he started the the Winn-Dixie Busch Grand National car, Mark owned it one year in 1992, and it was housed in here. Bill rented him side space. When I say side space, Mark only had two cars. But, they worked out here as well, and Mark had He had two employees. That's the thing to to remember here is we're talking 1992-93, 32 32 years ago, and you just didn't have very many employees, and you didn't have very many cars, either. So, I think that's super interesting that not only was this the beginning of Bill Davis, but you had a unknown Jeff Gordon and Ray Evernham working in here, and Mark Martin's Winn-Dixie car, which was a dominant car at that time too. Yep. You know, Mark owned it for 1 year and then he decided he didn't want to be in the the car owner business and and sold it to Jack and I remember when I was working at Roush's in Liberty I came over here to uh to look at Mark's car one night and um and Ray and those guys were here and they were all working on the Baby Ruth car at that time. This this tree I remember it was it was no bigger around than your wrist and it never let go of its leaves. Uh the leaves would stay on it all year round and and now it looks like it's about dead but it just uh uh in the middle of wintertime it still had leaves on it and we always made made note of that and that was uh that was interesting. Does it look like it's been added on to since then? No. No, this is this is the building. I think when Bill and Gale bought the building they added this brick front on as as office space. Uh-huh. Before that it was some type of warehouse or something. 1994 here we had 17 employees and that includes the engine shop. Hm. Yeah, had five five guys in the engine shop. The rest of us worked on race cars. That's truck driver, parts guy, everything. Was there any pit stop practice out here? No. Cars going up and down the road we tested them. actually we did it inside. Um you know, back then nobody practiced pit stops and uh I used to always joke these younger guys I'd say you know, when we practice pit stops I said when? I said the 125s at Daytona which are 150s now. I said that was first pit stop we did all year. Uh that was my office. The bathroom? Yeah. Yeah, literally. That was the door. Plate glass window like that right where that cabinet is and that was my office. We've been in a lot of these shops but I've never seen somebody's office turn into the bathroom. Me either. So this was my office. The desk would have sit right here. And have a plate glass window right there where I could look out over the shop. That wasn't there. And obviously none of none of this was here. So, That's funny. I've got Now I'm really glad I got photos of my office at home from You do? Yeah, so I can I can go back and uh do some remodeling this a little bit. That'd be cool to see. None of this kitchen stuff was here. A car A car would sit here, you know. Actually, this was the break table. Our break table was right here. Right. But the cool thing about I guess we probably had a vending machine and a refrigerator and that kind of stuff. But this was the break area right here. But none of the wall and none of the counter The whole shop was just one big open area. So, you were here before No, I was just here in Florida. Bobby raced out of here in '93 and Rookie of the Year. Yeah. Oh, wow. And I was Second. Second. Rookie of the Year. Yeah. It was my rookie year. Your rookie year. Um Tim Brewer was crew chief for me. Yeah. So, yeah, Tim was here. So, I was thinking that for that in '93, I don't I don't know that we had that many employees. We might not have quite a lot of them. Cuz I know I was I was probably an employee then because we were behind uh Yeah. getting ready for Daytona. I remember I think I I was here every day for 25 days in a row. Couldn't when she was in duck work or whatever, you know. You know, that was Bill and Gail's office. In there? Yeah. There was a picnic table right here. Yeah, so I said this was the uh break area. Yeah, which was a picnic table. Right? Yeah, yeah, it was just And And what was that before your office? I have no idea. When I came here, it was the That's Brewer's office. Yeah, it was Brewer's office. It was crew chief's office. They had two desks in here that faced each other. Yep. They had two desks in here. What was a meeting usually like if Bill wanted to see you in his office? Well, he never did that. Really? No, we'd sit at the picnic table. We sat at the picnic table, yeah. Yeah. Huh. Or you know, or you can come I mean, really most of the time our meeting was out there in the middle of the floor. Hm. Just Yeah. Yeah, this was Was there like There was Was there anybody out here or was there just pictures and trophies and stuff like that. Yeah. But I think there was a desk there, but like for a receptionist, but they never had one when I was here. Yeah, so Bill and Gay were here. Crew chief's office was there, and then a picnic table right outside of it. And that was kind of like this front part of it. That's it. That's it. Picnic table in the conference room. Yeah. And that was part of them. Obviously. Yeah, a lot. Parts room. None of those rooms were built. No, this was one big open area. Right. And there was workbenches and parts washing bats and workbenches all the way down that wall and did rear suspension, front suspension, all that was against that wall. That was the whole suspension area. And then, like I said, you had This was assembly of cars. You had assembled cars here. You got to You got to remember we only had five, six cars at the most. We had two Speedway cars, an all-time backup, my road course car, and and then What was your setup plate? Didn't have setup plate. Okay, where was the Where did you set I forgot where we set one up at. Out here. Did you never have one in here? Did one get added later? Never had one. And not not while I was here. Setup Setup was right here. Um There was a telephone right there. Remember telephone the only telephone in the building? It's right there. Yeah. And this This was the setup plate right here. Bill's toolbox sat about right here behind the setup plate. But yeah, we'd bring the four scales out. We didn't have scale pads, roll-offs, anything like that. It's just a common doesn't mean the the floor was very level, either. It was just a common place that you set it up like that every week. Where was the door that you rolled cars in and out of? Through here. So you had to do like a three, four-point turn with the car to get it? Yeah, see this is the original door. Yeah, it is. Yeah. You know, which would park two cars over here. Um just as storage. Might be the road course car and the speedway car, something like that. Just just as storage and and that women's restroom, that was the only restroom. Right there. We just We just went to the bathroom. One little One little story is we had a Pontiac owners meeting here one time. They'd spread the owners meetings around. We had a Pontiac owners meeting here one time. So, some of the guys had never been here before and I remember Richard Petty came over. And he came in and Bill didn't like smoking and obviously Winston was was the the series sponsor of our our day off. And Bill had no smoking signs everywhere. And right here under the exit sign, he had no smoking sign right there. And I remember as Richard Petty come walking up to it, Richard looked up at that and he pulled his glasses down and he said, "Somebody forgot who paid for this place." And I always remember that. I tell that story a lot about about Richard, but yeah, he uh he knows that no smoking sign. But Bill wouldn't take it down. So, I I remember in '90s, winter of '93 and '92. You know, cars sitting here that were like trying to get ready to go test the Daytona like Like there's a lot of stuff here that's like we're not going to get it done. And we had Fords, we got them from Rusty. You know. That Pontiac was a No, that Pontiac was a We got the Fords. Talked to y'all Bill tomorrow. I think we built them all, yeah. Donnie and That's when they had Donnie and Daryl. Because we were just putting them together as fast as we could to get to Daytona. So. We did that every year. We sure did. I just noticed something. Yeah. You think they left that here? They must have. That's a family shop only. If you're a man and you work hard every day, especially in the summer, you're probably taking your shoes or boots off and just been like, "How did that happen?" Well, we got right here from Mando is going to help you a lot. Mando was created by a doctor who saw first hand how misdiagnosed and mistreated BO was. Much like a lot of problems, people just try to mask it. They don't try to fix it at the source. Mando is designed to fix it at the source, especially this, the whole body deodorant. It's aluminum free. Mando is clinically proven to control odor better than a shower with soap alone. You got your acidified cleansing bar, which is important because the stink doesn't come from your sweat. It comes from the bacteria that grows when you sweat. 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And just for my followers, Mando is offering an extra $5 off, plus free US shipping on orders over $30 when you click the link in the description below and enter Stapleton at checkout. Check it out. You looking at this little few leaks in the hydraulics. Pump things. Yeah, thanks. The paint spray booth is right here. And we got the doors up in this way, and that was And it wasn't a draw down booth or a bake booth. It didn't have heat, you know, it The heat was whenever you put a space heater in there. Yeah. It was just a It was just a paint booth so you didn't get overspray. Whenever it was uh the Baby Ruth car and Mark Martin's car, how was the shop laid out? Were they mixed among each other or did Yeah, this really same thing. This we call this a dirty room, you know, we could always shut those doors. This used to be dirty grinding and all that and that up there was always suspension and assembly. And Mark's car, the the 60 car the night I come over here, it was close to stuff to where the parts room It was kind of kept up there and Bill's stuff was back on this side of it. You know, but that's still all that's still up there. That was uh National house, yeah. It's free of charge. Did that jack come with the building, too? Yeah. Yeah, I bought the building as old Yeah, it it was here. So, when I bought the building, I bought it with the bolt bins, the office supplies, uh the dyno, and he had some kind of cleaning back back here, one rod machine. We We got rid of it. So, you got to think that after we moved or they moved to the other building, this one here would be in a the bus shop. Probably took some of the stuff with it. So, it might the paint booth probably was over there. You know, I mean, there was probably some things that changed before you got it. Yeah, cuz there was two dyno rooms here and I bought it with one dyno. Okay. I mean, we dyno three to four motors a week. Everyone of our new motors is dynoed, you know, Mhm. or we ship them out. The hauler was parked out back. Everything went in and out that door. Uh that was the only door that cars would go in and out of. The hauler was Hauler was at the bus. Yeah. Yeah, that was the original Barney mobile. Literally. No, no, this one here is the Okay. This is all um This wall was here? Yeah. This one here? Yeah. That wall wasn't there? Everything is just one big open area. It's just yeah, open. Surface plate was right over there for for hanging bodies. This is like a Roman fountain equivalent of a parts washer. Yeah. It was surface plate right here, metal surface plate that was, you know, off the ground. And and this is where all the bodies were hung. I remember that corner is where the heat yard machine was. So, all the aluminum welding and stuff was back in that corner. And templates and stuff hung on that wall back there. Like you could pull a car off and put another one right right here is where you'd do the finish fab. But fresh panels, duct work. All that type stuff. We tried to keep all the dirty stuff back here in the front was all about assembly and and cleaning. What could be You were here. Was it '93 that we at Daytona we had to weld up some headers or weld up the intake or something like that. Remember I went over to Roush's trailer and welded up the intake and then drove it back to the back to the motel and ground it out or something. Remember that? I don't remember that. But you had to come to Roush's trailer to do it cuz he was the only one who had a heater. Right. Cuz I was the only one who knew how to use the arc. It was a truck. Yeah. So, cuz I remember we were we had no speed or something like that. We needed to do something to it. Get that flow differently. Yada yada yada. That's back when it was open game. But we were cuz we were that's like our first year. So, we you know, go down there like we had to make the race cuz there was 60 something odd cars. So, we were I remember we were down there for a week. So, we had plenty of time to do things. So, We used to take oil tanks back and wash them out in the bathtub at the motel and stuff. I mean yeah. We were down there so long. We did so much. I think you might have been the last driver to weld on their own intake manifold. Wasn't me. Probably. Well, but here's the thing that I'm just fortunate to work with a lot of talented guys. Bobby was one of the best fabricators I ever worked with, let alone driver. Todd Bodine was an outstanding fabricator. Brett Bodine was an outstanding fabricator. There's a lot of those guys that were really really good fabricators, but I mean Well, back to 1990 me and you and Little Wayne and then Ronnie came along. Uh You know, Bobby hung all the bodies. Got Robert Gee Jr. to hang those two bodies first year and you hung everybody after that and then I I put the windows in and we just did what we had to do. Then David Green I hired him cuz he's a fabricator. He was just happy to drive. So So it worked out that he could drive too. Fabricators don't use the tear up as much stuff cuz they know they have to fix it. Yeah, that makes sense. When you were working on cars in here, where was that? I used Was it You said that was finished fab stuff? It was all right. I mean, you know, and you know, I didn't I didn't do a lot, but I did some. You know, cuz there was just weren't enough people here to do it, but um you know, that first year we were just trying to get cars doing duct work, windshields, uh fresh panels in, blah blah blah all that stuff. That was just you know, just everybody was just pitching in to do whatever you could do. You probably didn't worry about too much about um filing a whole lot of stuff. We were just putting stuff in. Just so we could get to the race track. Cuz I think December 1, there was like zero cars done. That year, in '93 or '92. I think it was '92. And we were supposed to be I mean, we were supposed to test at Daytona in the first week in January. Yeah, right. So we were like, holy crap. That's why I think I worked till at least Little Wayne the 20th Christmas Day. And we were just Everybody was here hands on deck, you know, putting stuff together and work all day, you know. Yeah. Yeah, I couldn't remember if that was here or not. But this is definitely one, but it's all just just as hard. You know what? When Bill and those guys moved in here, they might have built some of these interior walls cuz that's the way Bill had that shop over there. He built a lot of these walls like this. I was over there a couple days ago and they Yeah, for sure. It was his That's kind of his thing. I remember me, I was I never I never came over here. Uh when he did that. That was This was Bush Granatelli team and that was Scott came in and I I never came in. Can we walk out the back door? No. Go around back. It's got two two little latches there. Yep. You You have to get a ladder, but that's where the master house body stash, you know, it's still up there. So there's storage up there. Yeah, there's storage, you know. And I just run across it one day went up there and got in there and there's a hot water heater up there, but they said there uh master house body parts still up there. I'm glad you didn't find any bodies up there. Human bodies. It just That's water only. You sure? Yeah, I think so. I'm pretty sure. When we This was not quite like this. No, we There was only one engine dyno and and the the mufflers and all ran out that wall. Everything ran out the back that way. Well, they said when we bought it we bought it one dyno, we just use that room for storage now, but uh but all the hookups and all that still there. Yeah. So Bill's motor home parked right there where the dump station was. So that was a The first one was a Blue Bird, right? Yeah, Blue Bird. Yeah, big Blue Bird. Like I said, that was Dale would drive it too. That was the original uh That was the original uh This is original barndominium, if you think about it. Small house, big garage. Yeah. Dude, that was like what everybody wants. Well, all the guys want. You back the hauler up. You haul it back up this edge right here just where the liftgate would fold down to where it just overlap concrete. And I can remember in December, January going to test, we'd be out here with shovels cleaning the ice or the snow off so you could so you could load the hauler. We was no different than anybody else. Nobody's hauler hardly parked inside then, so it was just what you did. Was that little canopy there? No. No, no, no, no, that was it. They'd bring engines out here and deburr them and…