Inside Alan Kulwicki's Private Trophy Room & Museum in Greenfield Wisconsin

we're here at KI Park in Greenfield Wisconsin this Brooks Pavilion up here houses almost all of the trophies and memorabilia that were inside Alan ki's house after the plane crash we're here to meet with Bob Trask who was part of the group who put the Pavilion together and went to Allen's house to collect the memorabilia he's got some pictures I've never been seen before and a pretty cool story about how this place came to be and that is the that's the sign that is the sign good morning that's good hello Bob how you doing this morning John I'm doing well this is Mitchell from how you doing hi nice to meet you good to meet you all right so what kind of happened here is after Ellen was here we after he won the championship we invited him back to the city of Greenfield 10,000 people showed up that day to come to the Greenfield High School to see alen Quicky and it was really quite quite neat we had just tons of people there from all over and I think the most thing that impressed me the most was this towards the end of the day and he say walked down to the end of the table and he said find out how many people are still in line cuz he said I got to fly out of here here soon and he says I got to get back not a problem so I took a couple of my officers cuz I was on the police department at that time walked down we counted about 300 something people and the guy was standing at the very end he goes oh he says I drove here three states just to come and see Ellen quickie I said not a problem I said he'll try to get you you know an autograph for you but I said I got to let you know he's got to fly out of here so about a couple hours had gone by not knowing at that point Allen had already rescheduled his flight so at the end of the thing the guy was standing at the end of the table I was kind of standing by Ellen the guy was standing there with these two ladies and I'm waiting for the guy and I gave the guy a thumbs up like this that you made it all the way here for your autograph and the thing that impressed the heck on me he walked up to Ellen all he did is he said I just want to shake your hand didn't want an autograph didn't want a picture just wanted to shake his hand that impressed me the most for somebody to drive wait that many hours in line drive three states here just to shake his hand well obviously we know what all happened you know later onil 1 plane crashed It All Happened sat down with the mayor of Greenfield and I said you know we're always proud of alen and I was married Jim Besson which he's gone now too but uh we said we were always very proud of alen he was always very proud of Greenfield Wisconsin and we got to do something here for him this park was called Cold Spring Park it was much overgrown there was nothing back here was all weed there was a ball Diamond that was back there but it was overgrown you couldn't even see it back there cuz there was so many weeds and trees here there was no parking lot really here a small parking lot and it was it was called Cold Spring Park so we went in front of theuk uh walket County Board to get a name resolution changed to alen quickie Park and then we looked for donors to come through and now start raising money to build what we could build here I was part of the little league and I said when Ellen came to the high school to do his when he came back after winning the championship he got to meet a lot of the kids from the Greenville little league and a lot of the kids said boy I want to be a race driver like you and Ellen looked at a couple of kids and said I'm not a race driver I'm an athlete just like you which impressed us that drawing there was a conceptual drawing of the park it's faded now but that's why we came up with the idea how we were going to build a park with three diamonds and one Diamond up on top here well obviously it took a lot of money to build this million and half dollars we sat down with Wimer Brothers out of uh hailes Corners I put together a committee which we have all the committee members listed on here and we sat down and said okay what do we got to do why we have to raise money well when you start going trying to raise money to raise something like this and you only have $50 to $100 people shy away from you they're like yeah okay you got a million half project but if you're you only got $50 to $100 or $500 yeah I'm not interested right now so I beat up on Bob Brooks and I said you know Bob Brooks I called him up and I said you lost the son in there also too and I said you know Mark Brooks has died in the plane crashed with you I said we' like to name the building Brooks Pavilion he kind of thought about it he said you know tell you what I said tell you Mr Brooks I said how about donating $500,000 to help for this project oh he said that's a little bit too much for me I said okay so we went back and forth he goes well tell you what I'll donate 100,000 I said oh that's really great thank you you're so generous how about $400,000 wait a minute now here so we kept going back and forth we finally wrote a check for $250,000 well now when we went to places to sponsor like Miller and everybody else we said we need to build a park here we have this much raise checks started coming in because now you have a base there people now knew it was going to happen one of the biggest things that kind of surprised us was we had gone down to Allen house to bring back a lot of his trophies to bring back all his stuff inside of one of the file cabinets at his house was a letter from the head person from Ford Motor Company congratulated Ellen from winning the championship driving a Ford product he was very proud of Ellen so I called him and the guy was like okay I said talking to him on the phone this sign that you see over here with the Hooters car on it we actually the first one we had made up cuz this is our how many donor people donated things we actually had a Ford logo in the very center cuz we were proud of Ford well as I talked to the gentleman from Ford morom I said how did you get my number I said I found it in Ellen's file cabinet and I said I saw the letter that you wrote to him we just thought that Ford Motor Company would be very interested in this project we want to donate just to let you know I said drivers die all the time we can't do that kind of stuff I said what he said well I'm telling you drivers die all the time I said oh wait a minute here drivers don't die tragically like Ellen did I said yes they die yeah we can't be part of this so they never gave anything to the entire project so instead we turned it around put the Hooters car in there but one thing that impressed me was General Motors wrote a check really and they gave us a check the check's actually hanging up here if you walk through the wall over here you'll see some of the checks that were written here so it was kind of cool that you know we actually got a check from from General Motors Good Wrench rote a check for $2,100 which is really quite cool but again like I said Ford Motor Company wouldn't give anything towards this thing and another thing that impressed me too with Ford with General mors was if you remember GM with DN art they always did every year for the dealerships they did a calendar all about Dale Earhart's car and about his racing pictures about Dale nhart after the death they actually did a calendar and then we took the picture out of it of Ellen and Dale's car together and that was the first time they ever had a Ford in their calendar because they were always General Motors so but the amazing thing about that picture also too is if you really think about it alen's gone Dale's gone too so it's kind of a unique picture but yeah we had uh the original check that El had one from the championship is also hanging inside the room here that's a million dollar check that is the original check this one yep these are some of the posters that were made up that uh Dave Cook jie Barnes all the people that made up different posters through the committee we had kind of put together a lot of fundraisers that we did going from car shows going to different places and raising money one of the things that we actually created because a lot of people asked about it was I'll walk you back out here again come back here and look at some stuff AK sign the elen cooky Fark sign it's actually a miniature that was made up of it and cuz if you look on out on the grounds when you pull into the park you'll see the real one that used to say Greenfield Park or used to say Cold Spring Park so we had it made up into Helen Cy Park a gentleman actually donated all of his time to actually hand make these for us and we actually sold these to the park I was the one that did all the painting but he actually made all the wood parts for it and we actually sold these and all the proceeds went back to the park so we could help build a park here and we sold a lot of those AK signs too along with this one we had the AK sign which is up on top of the building here uh if you when you when you walk into the uh building you'll see the AK sign that came from his shop sitting up on top funny story of that County Supervisors were involved with this also too because again it was Milwaukee County Park system we were building the park and we didn't tell them about that because they were very L what they wanted to do here since it was a county park they want to make sure certain things weren't done right well at one particular point I got a phone call at work and they said what's happening here at the park I said I'm not sure they're I'm standing here in front of the doors oh yeah we're putting the new doors in they're putting the door in front no I'm looking up at something what what's going on there I don't know what you're talking about and she kept saying to me on the phone County Supervisor she said what's going in that big hole up on top the AK sign when were you going to tell us about this stand back look up surprise there it is all the fans wanted that sign up there so cuz we had actually gone back down to his shop and brought the sign back here uh and when we picked up the sign if you really looked at the sign it looked like a huge Granite you know piece of of rock and you know big metal thing weighs probably about maybe 60 70 lbs that's about as much as it weighs cuz it's all metal really yeah so it's kind of cool so a lot of people that we took that sign to a lot of different car shows when we were raising money too and I remember it being one of the car shows we had the sign on display and as I was talking about the park and showing them the conceptual joint two guys in the background were laughing and were kind of saying things out loud and I said is there a problem back there and one guy said well yeah you're trying to tell us this is the real sign I said said it is he goes no it's not he says I'm sure it's a duplicate come on up here the guy walked up here touched the side held out there and he said are you kidding this is actually the real sign yes we bought the real sign and both guys started to tear up it was like really kind of cool so Ellen had a lot of fans he had a lot of people that you know really loved him uh and that's why we wanted to build a park here for the little league for the kids to enjoy it for families to enjoy it and to have all his trophies and all his memorability here on display and uh as you met earlier gentleman from the Greenfield uh Lions Club they rent it out on weekends they rent it out during the week they let people use the park uh and the money goes back into the park plus goes back in into their pockets too the nice thing about it too is the Milwaukee County Park system a couple of years ago kind of they've got a lot of parks in the Milwaukee County Park system here and they decided to run out of money to help keep all these Sparks so I sat down with the mayor and now mayor over the we Greenfield we went in front of the Milwaukee County Board and got it turned over to actually the city of Greenfield so they have a lease on on the park right now that they take care of the park and that's why they cleaned it all out so you can see the balds back there they city of Greenfield takes care of they cannot come into the building because the only people that can come into the building is the committee members or the Greenfield Lions people but the city of Greenfield is not allowed to come in here they can do repairs on the outside of the building but the lions are responsible for everything that's inside the building have to make sure none of the artifacts get messed up or St items that we got here a lot of these items were either donated by different people or through Ellen's collection also too I had heard that whenever people went into his house to get artifacts to bring here that he had his Winston Cup trophy in the guest room with a sheet over it is that true myself one of the committee members went down to the house we flew down there met with Jerry and th quiry and I was expecting to walk into a room in his house cuz everything was neat in the house uh matter of fact I stayed in 's room that time when we were there for a couple days nothing was touched and I said to Jerry I said I noticed all the After Shave and all his uniforms were in the closet and everything else he goes that's right we have a cleaner that comes in here cleans everything but has to put everything back exactly the way it is has to hang everything back exactly the way it was he said I want nothing touched all right well we're here to get the trophies so we're expecting to walk into this Immaculate Trophy Room you know because that's the way the house was so he took us downstairs we walked into off the garage we walked into a room open the door and we just stood going all the trophies were laying on the floor half of them were falling apart the windsup trophy was there with a blanket over it it was just everything was just laying in in rubbles there I was like Jerry really this is what what you know all the trophies are so we spent a couple of days putting everything back together and cleaning everything up and then loading in the truck and driving it back to Wisconsin they were in the garage or what room were they in it was kind of a room off the garage so he even had a lawnmower there that uh sat down in the lower part of the garage and had four flat tires on it and we didn't know cuz Jerry and th would always go down there for the winter and they spend the winter there and I said to him so who cuts the grass well we have a company that cuts the grass I said well there's a riding lawn wear down there I said you want us to pump up the tires and move it cuz it's kind of in the way of everything nope when Ellen won that from one of the pole positions he got that as a as a gift that's exactly where it stays I but it's got FL there is that's exactly where it stays well that lawnmower just sat just right there I think Paul Andrews has that lawnmower now so Jerry was he was a great guy and like Jerry and like Ellen if you ever met either one of the two either they liked you or they didn't like you if you rubbed them the wrong side you weren't their friend for long but if you were you were the right side you're their friend forever so and that's why we didn't push a lot of things with Jerry Quicky because it was like he had a a certain side upon himself that don't touch this don't touch that don't this and when we were doing the park and selling all these items he gave me authorization to okay a lot of items so if people would come up and say well we want to sell this we want to make this and sell proceeds to go to the park well I'd have to find out how much is going to the person that made the part the product how much has coming to the park and how much are they getting off a profit and if there was a profit there we' turn it down and it would be like yep no it's either 100% comes with the or otherwise we don't we don't back the product and so there are a lot of things like that like the posters like the Dave Cook poster and the genie Barnes poster that you saw earlier now how many years after '92 was it like what year was it that you went down there to get his his uh it was short it was probably about a year right after it had passed away okay so they would go down to the house sometimes but it sat vacant most of the time cuz we wanted to you know we wanted to start this project right away uh mayor Jim at the time which was mayor of Greenfield knew Ellen also too and he was very proud of Ellen so he wanted to make sure we got this project up and running very quickly one of the trophies that Jerry quickie did not like was the hin ketchup bottle he didn't like that one no cuz it's a ketchup btle and if you know anything about the trophy was if you start at the back of the track uh the pack it caught up all the way to the front you catched up to the front and won the trophy so we that was a unique trophy it's a ketchup trophy so we did have the winds Cup trophy here at one time and it was actually on display but now that's been gone down south at the Museum down there and thma Quicky had donated the trophy down there to stay down there but we did have the entire trophy here at one particular time so the Nascar Hall of Fame has that now exactly yeah how many fire suits were in there whenever you I'm sorry how many fire suits did he have in the closet whenever you were in there jeez I'd have to think about that I'm not even sure so have you ever seen a promotional piece that the Hooters ever did um ever seen one possibly so that trophy right there is that one this was the promo piece that actually who's restaurant put out uh when they were doing with it with Ellen there's all the different pictures of it there now the funny thing about it to is a lot of people after the crash actually hated Hooters because the car was pulled off the track and it wasn't going to be racing anymore and a lot of people got very upset with Hooter's restaurant said you know why you know the car should still be out there but when Bob Brooks came down here he came he met me here one night he flew in here and we had the park pretty much opened up we sat down here talking about it and I mentioned that about it I said you know a lot of people hated Hooters cuz you pulled the car off he go just so you know nobody knows the story but he said I didn't pull a car off the track I said what he said I actually paid the team another whole year celery just to keep racing I so who pulled the car off the track Jerry Quicky his father didn't want the car in the track anymore so a lot of people actually hated Hooter's restaurant for no reason you know Bob Brooks actually wanted to keep it up there well cuz they didn't they didn't race It Bristol that weekend cuz they came back with Jimmy Hensley in a different car what was the story with Hooters wanting to go with uh they wanted ly Allen in the car and Allan had said that he wanted Jimmy Hensley in the car and so they ended up not uh that's why Hooters left the team from my understanding yeah true did you ever talk to him about that again again a lot of that was Jerry Quick's decisions too you know and I can understand that you know you don't want to see his son was in that race car going around the track your son just died in a plane crash you don't want to see that car going around the track so I can understand why he want it off but yet the story should have been out there who actually pulled the car off the track so these are some of the pictures that when we kind of met mentioned you about the trophies were in a disarray when we were at the house there pictures of we brought them back to high school but I'm going to just show you one quick picture here there is his house there we are with Jerry Quicky and tell me Quicky like I said nothing was touched anything that was moved had to be put back again…