Exploring Robert Gee's Former Race Shop: Old School NASCAR History (Stories From Darrell Waltrip!)

adt security subscriber darryl waltrip here's this big guy big man with his eyes about half closed with a cigarette with nothing but ashes hanging out of his mouth he had this thing he was welding on the car with and i told jake i said we gotta get my car out of here he said what's wrong i said i gotta know how well he was and and is and i think always will be the best fabricator that's probably open the sport this thing should be in the hall of fame it is just a fan and a shed okay here we go this may look like a regular garage and it kind of is but it's not you want to tell us what this place is this is robert g's old shop he built it in 1966. if you don't know robert g aside from being a really really well-known legendary body guy brace fabricator yeah the guy who built the beetle fender camaro for daryl waltrip he is also daler and heart jr's grandpa i heard a lot of legendary steaks were made on this property we're actually gonna call daryl in a little bit and learn some more about this but let's go in there and see what it looks like now just from the pictures that i've seen it looks exactly the same like there's cars sitting right here i think it's changed too much wow i don't know if you can hear the cars out there but this place is like right across from charlotte from here really look out right out the door you can see the sweets and stuff oh oh yeah of course logan's petting the cat did you make a friend yeah it's really sweet is he gonna come in the shop with us come on cat let's you know the air go so you found that in here that was up in the attic there's a bunch more stuff up there there's an attic okay robert d used to build a lot of second gen camaro so there's a lot of second gen parts up there really airbox for like a daytona with like a sliding screen in it you don't really see that anymore see here it is full of fuel bezel out of steel and robert probably made this yeah most likely old mid plate definitely didn't worry about saving weight back then okay god this thing weighs like i don't even know a lot 15 pounds probably that's that's all now we use all aluminum so and the rest of the parts will be upstairs okay you didn't even say anything about an attic over instagram so this is like a pleasant surprise that's how we found out about this place he just sent me a message and said hey and then robert g's old shop and i'm like really don't look like much when you're you drive right on by no one notices and that's the best part you know how many engines were pulled in and out on this beam here you could just tell you could just smell it just smells like a lot of stuff used to happen in here like that old garage smell you just there's just a smell for old garages this is crazy this is an adt security subscriber darryl waltrip yeah that the wrangler's car used to be on the front door too you can see where it used to be really yeah the door isn't faded as much there towards the top oh yeah right there so that's a 1982 that's a bud more car so that's been there a really really long time i wonder who put that there still original going through redoing all the lights and it's probably still wiring from the 60s because there's no grounds and everything it's wired three-phase so just set up to do machinery did robert build the building himself after he already had the house i think he built this first because i think i saw a photo before the house was here and this was just wide open by itself i'm sure somebody can confirm that look at these old cabinets these look like the cabinets that were in daryl's my feet there's some truck stuff back in the back too are there any weird stickers or anything in here not really too many weird stickers in here this is just the coolest thing that ac unit looks really old yeah both of them two ac units on each side [Music] back here i think was the welding mostly fabricating room the little bathroom that they built this is where the magic happened i'm guessing yeah because there's more of those cabinets back there here's the attic it's all right everybody's garage has a bunch of stuff in it from ohio oh i guess not that long ago november but we know this garbage moved you got a light yeah there's a light up here oh another cat we have more friends now yeah like if i was a cat i'd want to go into robert g's attic too i can't believe this is how there's so much stuff out here that is just not known i don't like this is so cool this is really neat yeah this is just like look at the way the walls painted and stuff in here too yeah i wonder when that was done i got so many questions okay here we go yeah i'm okay i'm good you get up here and then it's like climb over this thing or what yeah just whatever way is easy this is not all right if we go over that way who did the cardboard patching up there i don't know there's a lot that don't think i'm gonna see you right here okay he's gonna stay there there's a lot of uh old fan trout for a race car [Music] let's take welded together pop-up headlights for uh how sturdy is this floor i can stand on about anywhere yeah okay oh where there's pliers it's dirty enough to stand on that's a back window out of a second-gen camaro light bezels got parts for an old oil pump it's at least a two-stage yeah two-stage pump yeah three-stage pump there's the third one are there any dates on any of this stuff the serial numbers yeah one of them we had let's see it's the original gate cluster out of one camaro yeah we had one here we had a box it dated back to the 60s the heck is that faucet contraption thing over there i have no clue i mean back then they i think that was their water heater because it looks like it's got where gas can go into it is it attached to the floor is it just sitting there it's just sitting there there's a lot of old stuff that they just tossed up here i mean i could see why it stayed up here it'd be hard to get it out there's this like old piston i wonder god old single barrel carburetor and i wonder what year like what's the story who carried that up the ladder who threw it up here when did that happen yeah it's just they haven't made these for years i'm going to bed it's probably at least before schrader had this place when i texted him he said he bought it um right after robert died so it went straight from robert to him is that a factory jack from a camaro nope that's actually a toyota okay you never know what you'll find up here it doesn't make any sense but okay yeah there's a lot of stuff like that what could you tell us if you could talk mr a.n fitting that's an old light bezel there's a whole set of pistons right there oh six six of them probably for the same inline sex those gaskets are from beat away glass cleaner is there anything more back there there's actually something surprising back there there's a pa speaker for some reason don't know who had that but for some reason there's a pa speaker out there like hooked up to hook just screwed into the wall and the wires run somewhere i don't know where they have them run into oh is that it over there that silhouette so does somebody have a something like hey get your ass back in here it's time to work kind of thing or it's like oh probably everyone in shops mess around that fan up there i'm surprised that there's as much as there is i mean this is like 1994 two years before i was born and i'm 25. so that's a lot of time for things to not be somewhere anymore what is this thing it might be the windows where the ac vent is oh yeah that would make sense and those have been up here since probably the early 90s or the 80s based on the vintage of that ac unit yeah they haven't used 220 units like that for a while razor blade who dropped that up here that thing's just so weird it looks like it was cobbled together to do something oh what does the label in that box say where it says ship two i can't get over there die guard racing really yeah so that's that's probably a dura wall trip box okay let me go over there give me a minute george of the jungle up here yeah this wasn't shipped to this address let's brought here stokely vanguard what it says her van camp something yeah van camp dye guard racing let's say hold for i rock racers yep dude just let me take a quick second to say if you like this stuff if you're into this history stuff make sure you check out the racing history nerd zone playlist on the channel and hit subscribe because the pipeline is bursting right now there's going to be a lot of really cool stuff coming up more cool race shops inside tourism people who work there if you haven't seen yet we did a video where we drove all over the charlotte mooresville area showing what former buildings looked like today you can find that in the card right here and this is our shop where we do car builds 632 big block going into 93 suburban frame off restoration giant mess everywhere else ignore that 72 monte carlo boob tubes boom tubes everywhere that's what we do we do cool stuff okay back to robert g's didn't even notice that this is what i do it says hulf for iroc razors i think they meant hold but what came in that box i know there's so many questions there's a vent up in the roof here somewhere i saw but for a body guy there's no paint anything like his nose didn't look like a paint spot like you just paint stuff wherever paint in the driveway or yeah where's all the evidence of paint you mentioned i think i did see a spot somewhere in one of the windows actually we i know where there's the old original fan they used to use for this because i think that's everything up here if you want to go back down we can find that fan okay let's do that wow that is old wiring yes it's got that 60s looking font on it i can't describe it any better than that but you know what i mean oh there's a piece of a newspaper monday january 22 19 96. okay so this newspaper clipping is six months older than i am still but you can see the the witness marks from all how many people when they come up here they grab onto this because these beams are not smooth from being pulled on what is that school mc monte carlo is that a template like a cardboard template for something it's a template yeah door [Applause] definitely a template made for some dale jr if you're watching this is this robert's handwriting did he write this yeah that looks like a this is a template for a quarter panel mc's probably means monte carlo because i could see an 80s monte carlo quarter panel in this look at that silhouette that's a quarter panel from an 80s monte carlo dude this is unbelievable these must be preserved at all costs left away bend this way yeah these are temples for body panels is that the other quarter the other quarter panel i'd say it used to be it's kind of cool see he made cardboard templates the same way i do because you just you cut multiple pieces and you tape it together and then you iron it out oh that's a back window for something that's flat wow now rear bumper really aluminum rear bumper number 25. here's the door dude okay we're taking these back downstairs old factory gm trim molding it's nos bro no way 73 something i wonder if there's anything lurking under these things here i was gonna say there might be stuff under here that they just threw stuff over yeah like these i mean 25 lumina that's a that's a hendrick car i would i mean like this these templates probably came from hendrick yeah because g was affiliated with hendrick the bush stuff okay now we'll make the descent back down to everything else okay we're about to call darryl waltrip i've never talked to him on the phone before just uh kenny wallace talked to him he said yeah i'll talk to him so we're gonna come home hello hey daryl what's going on it's mitchell hey mitch how are you pal pretty good we're just standing in robert g's old shop here looking at old stuff well there's probably a lot of old stuff in there found some stuff in the attic there has been times anyway when does your story with this place start here it was 73 because i went to daytona with uh jake elder my crew chief and i bought them i bought a mercury from home of moody and uh we turned it it was a 71 mercury we took it at daytona and me and marty robbins got together uh during a race rift inside out of the car and uh i'd never been to charlotte before and jake knew robert because we already worked for harry hyde harry was a k k guy with the 71 car robert was a head body man over there right up the street at the speedway anyway he uh herring him folded up and so robert had a shop of his own behind his house and uh so the cars got the side tornado jake says take the car back to north carolina and i'm gonna get robert g to work on it i said that's great what's his last name it is his last name so anyway uh i didn't know i didn't know i would have never met him before so jake takes the car back to charlotte i fly over there and they pick me up we go by almost langley shop different places that that shop and that racetrack used to be like way out in the country it seemed like it's not so much anymore but back in the day it's way out in the country anyway we get to the shop and he was he was a body man he wasn't he wasn't like these guys that they he wanted to remove and replace he fixed stuff someone would benny straightened into some was going if he fixed it that's just how he was and uh so he had this out of that mercury all fixed and he couldn't even kill it ever been raised during the wrecks i was impressed very impressed but the thing that i was worried about when i walked in walked down there walked down the driveway to the back of the house and here's this big guy big man with his eyes about half closed with a cigarette with nothing but ashes hanging out of his mouth and he had this thing he was welding on the car with that was my introduction to robert g that was when i met him we became great friends and uh kept my car there i raced out his shop for a long time uh and just just incredible memories wow so where where was he standing whenever he was welding and you walk down the driveway he hardly he was leaning he didn't stand much he he's a pretty big man and he was just leaning on the car so uh even they now kiss a car with his wire welder doing you know doing his thing doing his body work he had he had all kind of tools hammer dollies uh just whatever it took uh to make a car he was the best was was and will always be the best fabricator that was ever in nascar he was incredible he his trade was body work grew up in south hill virginia moved down to north carolina went to work for harry hyde built all those beautiful knk cars uh on the back of a lot of those cars you'll see body by rg that's rg uh anyway that's just it was just uh it was it was lucky for me because when i went to the shop the first time uh he had frank horn's car he had in the grease he was he like he worked on dodges he talked he fixed all those dodges and so he had quite a few tearful cars just sitting outside waiting for different things to be done to them and that's that's that's what he did he did bodywork for a number of teams in the sport at the time the building in here there's this there's the main shop area with the cabinets on the right and the cherry picker beam in the middle and then there's a little room in the back do you remember what what the layout was like back in this back room here well we built we built our own engines ray fox jr he worked for i i all the guys that worked for harry hyde and the kmk car when they closed up shop a lot of them came larry reagan uh ray fox jr a lot of them came to work for me and uh down at robert tv shop and so that was the engine room uh you go through those doors in the back room and that's where we we built a lot of most of the engines at that time so that's where ray fox jr was for a long time wow was there a red and gray stripes on the base of the wall back then oh yeah robert kept it that shop it was kind of funny how we would work all day and bondo dust and dirt and just grime everywhere he'd open all the doors and the windows and get an air hose and he he'd do what he called blow out the shop and so he would start in the back and just clean out the shop clean it up he was he'd like things neat he like faced clean and so he would he called it blowing out the shop so every day or two we'd open all the doors and windows and take air hose and blow all the bondo dust and dirt and stuff out of the shop so the shop was nice and clean he kept he he loved new cars he loved everything neat clean uh all the cars i had the cars he built for himself the cars he did you know that the deal senior drove uh they were they're all immaculate well that's that's really cool it looks in here right now the the walls and everything have been repainted but this back room um looks like it's kind of probably how it was it's got gray paint on the base and then there's a white stripe and then a red stripe and it's got white walls with a little bathroom in the left corner yeah i i haven't been in that shop and uh the last time i was over there was when robert died and uh they auctioned off all this stuff and now that that's been i don't know 25 years or better maybe longer than that ago so i've been in that shop a long time donnie richardson who lives in the house uh worked for kenny schrader and different ones and he used that shop and i don't know what all they did back there i know they kept i know they worked a lot of race cars and stuff back there but uh i have been in that shop a long time so i'm assuming it's probably about like it always was is that uh is this where you had to go whenever you came to the auction they were trying to sell your car that was sitting here yeah yeah i bought robert and i built the camaro that uh i i won the uh modified race at daytona in 78 we built that car back there we took parts off of the mercury i had wrecked mercury in a year or two before so we took career in housing oil tank a lot of stuff out of the mercury and used in the camaro and i'll pay for everything and so when that they sit here and it was it was robert's car but you know i owned it but he he took care of it and he carol harris drove it after i did different i think couple different people uh but then uh when they said they're gonna have an auction well i went over there and i said you can't auction that car off his mind he said and jimmy and robert jr and robbie they were they were great kids i loved them i loved all three of them but the girls they they didn't they weren't that they weren't they just they wanted to know do you have a bill to sell them i said a bill of student bills or a race car do you have any cancelled so cancel checks i mean you're talking about 1978 and i don't know what year was now 80 something i said i don't have any canceled checks that well then it's not your car and we're going to auction it off and uh but stevens who uh on bsr at the time bush he'd helped us through the years and uh so we they started to auction and i told butch before the auction started i said i didn't know i'd been against star wars so i went to 2500 and then with 3 000 and i saw it with birch i went over to princess butch you can run the price's car up as high as you want to and i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna that's gonna be my car so you can just either keep bidding and and or you can stop now so he he stopped bidding and i bid it five thousand dollars i got the car and all the stuff that went with it and i still have the car it's uh i read you to put it all back together it looks exactly like i did today that's the one over at aaron's rage yeah we know that car wow that's cool well the there's inside the breaker box here there's a an adt card taped to it it looks it's like all yellow and it says uh customer daryl waltrip it's still i just i guess you wouldn't consider me a customer i paid you know i paid robert uh i paid him for all the work he…