Insane Private Racing Museum! Former NASCAR Driver Ronnie Thomas Shows Us His Massive Collection!

A lot of people don't get to see this. The rule was back then you were on one carburetor. That is from the race where Daryl Walrip and Nhard wrecked. Somebody sent me a poop in the mail and then I got I got So we drove up to Virginia to talk to Ronnie Thomas here. Ronnie Thomas is one of the last independents on the NASCAR circuit. He was rookie of the year in 1978. He has way more cool stuff than you would ever expect. Leonard Wood built this in 1953. I went down with my dad 2012 I think and Glenn Woods came out. Glenn said, "I don't think that's mine." My dad said, "Yeah." I gave Leonard $25 for it in about 57 somewhere along there. 56. Leonard come in and he walked around had that and he looked right at us and he said, "I ain't believing you still have that that quick." It's two two barrel Strongbergs on top. Okay. The rule was back then you were running one carburetor. So what they did, they had air cleaner on it. They didn't go from what I understand to the extreme now stripping something apart, you know, taking it to the extreme to look at everything in the car. So what Leonard done, he had an air cleaner on this. He had one carburetor on the bottom and it's gutted out. So it's got two I mean you could tell they didn't have the best of machinery back then you know meal work to do stuff with. So it's two two barrels there. I mean a two barrel here it's been hollered out. Then you got two two barrels here. And you can see how much bigger the holes are just in those four little holes don't equal what? That's That's awesome. So technically what it mounted to Glenn was running a big technically a four barrel, you know, against two barrel. So, you know, and and when Leonard signed it, he was like, you know, Leonard signed it and he was like, um, don't really, he wasn't too crazy about that getting out there. But, you know, how many people didn't do stuff like that? Yeah. I didn't see that. It was normal. It's It's okay to talk about it. Yeah. We got ready to go and we was down there a couple hours and got ready to go. We was in the back. Come to the front and I said, "Um, Eddie, where's the carburetor outfit? It's in there." He had it in the uh showcases. He said, "Man, we need that. That'd be the first piece, mechanical piece that Leonard made." And I told him, I said, "Later on, I'll get with y'all, you all about putting in the museum." But, you know, it was ours for two or three years. My dad gave $25 for it, became his. It has been our in our possession since then. And what my dad said, you know, he passed away in 215, you know, a year or two before he left, he said, "It's yours. If you want to sell it, sell it. If you want to trade it, trade it. It's up to you. And I'm gone." And I'm just, you know, it's a to me this is a very unique piece of racing history. Definitely. So kind of like you hate to get rid of it. This is a piece right here. Talking about cheating. I'll show you a cheater piece. When I drove James Hilton's car three or four times, his crew chief, our crew guy, they were having some of them had cheater motors. We never had one. Uh we just weren't smart enough to do the deal. 358 as big as you was allowed to run. 358 cubic inches. Take number one spark plug out of your motor. And you would screw this in number one cylinder. And then they had this tube it went on. It was a tube, a clear tube. And that thing spin a motor and this little rubber gasket would go and it would stop. Of course, they had a chart. Then they come out these pieces. And what you do, you take yours, you when they sitting there, the fish will be here. And then, hey, how's your wife doing? So, whoever's doing, how's your wife doing all this? And he'd be getting tension while he's getting her tension. You'd have yours laying down at the screw jack somewhere along there. You pick yours up, lay his, and you screw yours in the head, and you had these two little orps in here. And you see how big the hole is in this? That's the hole. H. Okay. Yours would be like this. You screw yours in. It's depend on what size you run the 370 cubic inch or 388 cubic inch. Different hole size. You take this. You screw this in. And you'd be talking to guy. All right. Here. You slide the tube on there. Yeah, you look good. You you take this out, you know, you just take it, unscrew it, you lay it on there, you be talking to the guy, and you take his piece, you give it to him. Your pieces kind of hid. You would change that orifice relative to how oversized your engine actually was to make sure it only pumped enough air for 358. That's right. 81 Pontiac Grand Prix. And we raced it from it's actually we're thinking this is the one that we got from Cecil Gordon in 79. One of Cecil's cars and we cut it down and made a they were 115inch cars. We made a 110in car out of it in 81 NASCAR specs getting rid of the the long wheelbase car. So we ran it till through the 83 season and then I sold it to a guy in Run Oak and he ran it from 84 till 86. So does it have hundreds of races on it? I don't know. It's got a lot of races on it. So Lenny Pond's driven it and Wendell Scott practiced in it at Martinsville and just had a Dick Mays driven it and James Hilton. So it's had a lot of different drivers. You know, I drove it naturally the most of the time, but you know, we we would rent it out. Uh we would let other people test it and sometimes, you know, like I said, we get a few bucks here and there to keep us going in racing. Somebody give you a a little bit of money and drive the car and help us get to the next race. Can you see where you shortened it at? Like um Well, no. You can't tell it. You did it to Everybody had a different way of doing it. A lot of times you would take the trailer arms and you move your crossmember down and actually pull it forward. Some people cut it from the front. I've heard different ways and if you don't know the truth, we did it here at the service station. I actually can't remember where we shorten the car and what's happened to this thing. It's been totaled probably half a dozen times. It's had a front clip. It's had a rear clip. It's had probably three front clips. a couple rear clips. So, was completely totaled at Martinsville. The throttle stuck on me in 81, I think it was, and went into the first corner wall and just completely crushed the right side. And nobody wanted to fix it. And a guy by the name of Dick Hutcherson, which in their business was Hutch and Pagan Enterprises in Charlotte. Dick said, "Bring it down here. Strip it down. I'll fix it." So we took it to Hutchin and Pagan and they put a front clip on it and fixed the floorboard and the dash patched it back together and we raced. So it's been to Banjo Matthews shop and been a clip and rear put on it and Huster and Pagans put a front back in. So this car has been been rebuilt quite a few times. It was it was a workhorse to be honest with you. It's more or less, I guess you call it a memory and a dust collector, but we take it around to some vintage gettogethers and let you know educate the people that want to know about what they don't know about racing and show them things on the cars, what was done and it, you know, let them know about the history and that's what I'm all about. I like I got to be lucky enough to be a part of it and so we try to educate what we're taught and I you know I meet a lot of people talking about educating. I get educated a lot going around meeting people that it was doing things back in the day and uh just you never stop learning. Does it um have an engine? Come right on. It does. Yep. Okay. Well, I'm going have to ask you about these scales next. There's so much in here. It's like it's like sensory overloading in here. Well, it's been my life and my dad's life. So, it's uh from the 50s on up till around 2000. [Music] And there will be a story for almost everything in here. So, stay tuned for that. This is a 358 cubic inch motor like they run back in the day. uh couple guys I think I'm not positive on the names but I think JD McDuffy and Bobby Wawwak at do somewhere or maybe it was somewhere else but anyway they had crashed and bust this oil tank and I think one of them got burnt by the oil and it was everywhere so they this is something that got outlawed you had to put them things have been three place they've been here they've been behind the seat and they've been in the trunk and I think this one here best I remember still has the roll bars where it used this tank used to be mounted in the trunk. Oh, yeah. Let's see that. Yeah, they didn't they put them there's like a little cradle down here or something. Yeah, I think we're going to find out. I haven't looked for a couple years. I've been in the trunk, but I haven't paid attention, but I think I'm wrong. And I mean, I'm right in saying that. We're going to find out. Yeah, if you look here, you can still see the this is where the tank used to be mounted. So, I was lucky not to not to uh have cut that out. And it's still got a piece of lead. So, you know, I don't think NASCAR allows you to do this. We had lead in the car. And this is something I'll show you here that you don't see where I don't know how many people are doing this have not take or have leaving it in the car. This was you put what you had in the frame rail and if you need another 30 or 40 lbs. We didn't have an extra piece of frame rail. We would bolt to here. We'd go behind the seat or the trunk or wherever with the lead. And and this piece which means something to me not a lot of people. This is a piece that come out of Mark Martin's car back in the day. That one. Mhm. Yeah. Just like I said, how do you remember that? I just I just remembered the stuff like that. It's um I I don't I just kept up with it. I keep up with the history, you know. I can't tell you what everybody else does or gas, but I know what I've got. And 99% of it I know what I've, you know, I know what I've got. So, so whenever Apache Stove didn't pay Mark and he had to sell everything, you bought stuff from that auction. They had auction. I got um four jack stands. I got uh a couple of his um templates, body templates. This is O2 Martin on it. Yeah, it was his when he I don't 81 Buick. I don't know what that would have I guess I don't know if that been a patchy stove or not. I drove that. A lot of people don't know. I relieved for Mark Martin in ' 83. I got a picture of him and pulling him out of the car. Herb Nab was with him at Pocono and a hole coming in his uh blew a piece of exhaust out and it blew through the boot or something. He got sick from the fumes and I got in it that was 83 and I run about 50 laps and I could I tell you the problem I had. Mark's a little bitty fella. Of course, I I was like I was a lot smaller than I am now. But, you know, Mark's like, I don't know, 56, 5'7. And when I got in the car, the steering wheel was into into me so tight. I had the seat belts pulled as tight as could. When I go in a corner, it was actually I had to turn the steering wheel hard as I could. And I run it about 40 or 50 laps. And I told him, I said, "Man, I'm give out. I just couldn't. It was just too much tension on the steering wheel." and they put him back in it. But I ran about I don't know probably 50 laps in it. So the steering wheel was like rubbing on you. Rubbing so tight I couldn't Yeah. I couldn't steer it. It looks like you kept a lot of really cool stuff. Some of it is directly related to you and some of it isn't. I'm like where do you even start with your your your house is like a museum. This is really cool. Well my dad and he raced the first year he raced was 58. He ran one year and won a championship up at Rafford Speedway, which became Pulaski, and then like I said, New River and now Motor Mile. My dad saved everything. I've saved everything and I've traded for a few pieces. I've bought three or four pieces and collect a few piece, but a lot a lot of this stuff is stuff from from the 50s on up till I guess you could say around 2000, somewhere around that area. So these mostly you and your dad's helmets and is that a AJ foy visor or something? That's fo visor and this was my helmet in 84 85 I think. This was my dad's first racing helmet would have been in 1965. This was his helmet in uh when he was running the Chrysler products. one of them it was like 7374 and this was actually my first helmet and I looked at it I don't know if I did it or he did it but if you look at the helmet it's got a long crack and it's been busted so I just think it's a weird thing to think that here he wore a helmet two or three years and then I wore it a couple years and it was busted so I don't know when it got busted if I did probably more than likely I feel pretty sure he would not have given me a busted helmet so it's probably something I'd had a crash in and cracked it and you just that's you know times just changed and naturally you wouldn't do things like that and I was young you didn't you know you I didn't care if I could drive a race car then I didn't care if I even got to wear a helmet or not you just was glad to get to do it so you didn't even think about things like that and yeah just different uh things you know Harry got a hat from Harry Ricky Rudd Hank Thomas um Daryl Walrip just different ones Um Neil Bonnet, Jimmy Spencer and Bill Blair, Harry Gant, Dick Trickle. So, Linda Vaughn, just a lot of different I don't do it for, you know, people say what's it worth. I don't have no idea what it's worth. I don't do it for the money or anything. I do it because I love the sport. I love what it what it was. I love being a part of it. And so, it's a part of the sport and it's a part of my dad. That's a part of me with the the shifter. This was uh from I run this one right around 77 till 83 and uh Richard Petty broke a stick shift. I'm trying to say somewhere um I don't know I believe it was about 70 or eight. He had I'm pretty sure he broke a shifter and he used a screwdriver to change gears and think I'm right on that. And we put a we just took a piece of steel and welded it on to support it. But I'm just thinking thing probably weighs a pound and a half and now here they are making them out of aluminum. Well, you just didn't you didn't think about a pound here and a pound there and everything. And you know most of the time you know the bad thing about we did we were most time midpack runners. every downing you'd have a good run where you get up to eighth or 10th for a little bit, but most time, you know, 15th, 40th, and that's just the way it was. I mean, we just you did the best you could do. And I always said, you know, the front guys needed somebody to pass. And I was one of those guys that that they passed a lot. And uh, you know, Nhard, I got people talking about Dale Nhard and Dale Jr., I'll just tell you a quick story. In 95 or six, like I said, we were very successful in the Lake Mall stock division and we was at Martinsville and Dale Jr. come on. Now, I mean, I knew him, but you know, he hadn't got to be Dale Junior then. People didn't really know of him and he was he struggled he struggled a lot in the Lake Mall stock division. So, he was down Martinsville and it was about 95 96 somewhere along there. He come over and said, "Um, uh, my crew chief said, 'You get around here pretty good." I said, 'Well, you know, we won and we've sat on a few polls, so yeah, we do pretty decent. He said, "Would you follow me for a few laps and I'll motion you by and I'll follow you a few laps?" "Sure, and just tell me when I'm doing something." So, we did that. You know, he comes on. We talked about it a little bit. That was the last time, believe it or not, that I have talked to Dale Earnhard Jr. And I'll tell you the last time I talked to his dad around 83 82. You know, Dale was, you know, I don't know if he'd been had I don't guess he'd even become what they call the intimidator at that time. The race after Darnington or the race after Rockingham. He comes up to me and he said, "Need to talk to you." They're we was kind of across each other. My toolbox is here. His is on the back side like maybe a few feet down below mine. Somebody else might have been across, but he was very close. He said, "Ron, I need to speak to you." I said, "Yeah." And he comes around. He said, "Uh, last week when I come up on you," he said, "I passed you two or three times and you crowded me." And I said, "I crowded you." He said, "Yeah, you come up the corner and you kind of was up the track on me." And I said, "Yeah, you give you an inch, you take a mile." And he said, "No, you was crowding me." I said, "Well, I'll tell you what I'll do from here on out." I said, "The track's two lanes wide. I'll run on the apron half a lane. That gives you a lane and a half. That should give you plenty of racing room. He looked at me and he walked out and he never spoke to me again. So he just, you know, I thought it was kind of funny, but he didn't appreciate it, I don't think. But that's the last time I talked to his dad, but you know, people knew Nhard. He was, hey, you liked him or not, you couldn't take it away from him. I mean, the man was tough. This is probably one of the neater pieces I've got. Um, this is Richard's uniform from 70 when he ran the Roadrunner and the Superbird. And this is Darlington in 70. This is when they used to run. I never run it. My dad ran the circuit when they used to run like 50 race year. And this is Malta, New York, July of 70. And same uniform. It's he give it to my dad at the end of the 70 race season. My dad bought a couple cars off Richard. When he quit, he quit for uh Chrysler in ' 68. He went to Ford in ' 69. My dad bought the Plymouth. And at the end of 70, my dad got to be good friends with with the bunch. So, he gave my dad the uniform. Then the end of the year, so I got Richard authenticated and this and that. And uh strange thing about this, this is the one he ran. And I I don't know how many Plymouth Roadrunner uniforms. I mean, it's got the, you know, it's got the Superbird patch on it. Uh I don't feel like there's very many of these would be around. No. I mean, it's not like they were getting a new one every weekend back then. But here's the odd thing about this. This uniform in 73. I think this uniform was wore in this movie. If you ever seen the movie The Last American Hero with Jeff Bridges. Yeah. This uniform was wore in the movie. And this is the car it was worn in. This is the guy I was driving. This was my dad's crew chief, Jimmy Cox. And he lives in North Carolina now. Jimmy 76 years old. He kept the cars up pretty well for about probably about six or seven years. He was pretty well almost a one-man operation. He kept the cars up. You know what little help he could get to help on the cars. Jimmy wore it and he drove the second Plymouth. Um, they had two of them. And what you would do back then, you would take two cars. A lot of times you would take the second car. Jimmy or somebody would get in it and they make three or four or five laps, park the car, and get the hundred bucks or whatever it was. Starting money, take a trailer to the track. It just technically, you know, don't sound like much, but it was a lot then. It give them extra money. And a lot of several of the guys did this. So Jimmy, I don't know how many laps he drove it during the race. So it's got a little history. It's Richard's uniform and it was worn in the last American Hero movie. So pretty neat little uniform. Here's the funny thing. My dad gave $25 for this, which was, you know, in 58 or 57 25 bucks is pretty good chunk of change. It's probably like 500 bucks now. Yeah, probably. Here, here's a funny thing. [Music] This is when I won the late model stock car race at Martinsville Speedway in '89. Everybody was running power steering and we come up these cars now they've got these things from what I understand they're running 500 horsepower or maybe I don't know maybe 5 I…