Jimmy Means Shows Us His Historic NASCAR Race Shop! 40+ Years of Racing Under One Roof

yeah we cheated but we had a cheap the cheap way I paid $200 for this chassis this door came out of the local hospital I don't ever throw anything away chicken salad out of chicken poop all these years you know when you say you didn't get rid of anything you meant it you got all kinds of cool stuff in here so we're standing here with Jimmy means in front of his original Race shop and we're going to go in there and he's going to show us the evolution of it all the things old picture stories and when did you move into this place 1982 1982 and it's still is that your old truck too it is when did you start hauling stuff around with that yeah about 78 I feel like I'm in a time machine right now this is awesome but you still do current cars in here too which is even cooler so let's check it out is this your where office always was H yeah this is it used to be uh just just this little four year forer and then uh this is part of it but then we expanded you know went through the shop wall and made it a little bit bigger yeah I used to when I first moved here I slept on the floor in this in that office really yeah how long did you do that for uh maybe a month cuz uh my family hadn't moved here we hadn't moved to you know my family my wife and my kids yet so uh till I could get you know something rented for you know this is my place so this was the first place you went outside of where you were originally from right this section here was this the was this what was here when you moved in it was just a section of the building it was 90 ft long that's all it was and Through the Years yes we maybe made a little money we just added on so we needed more room and added on and added on and added on so right now it's 3 380 ft long wow and it's full of uh memorabilia racing J so I don't never throw anything away you might need so we like to hear that cuz we like to look at old things with stories what was this room one time it was a dino room um now with our gear room and actually the dyno has been probably three or four different places in the building as we expanded and had more room uh we just put it in a different place cuz it was just simpler to do it that way and just like I said we had more room we made it a little bit better so you built this addition onto here after you moved in yeah that's that's an apartment up there it's got a shower and stuff uh I I got it for some of my guys that you know that work for me cuz it's hard to move somewhere you know and get sell and then you got to pay your uh deposit for utilities and all that sort of stuff so they come here and just go right to work and I had to work about getting all that stuff done so it's helped out yeah that's that's a big help and what kind of cars are you working on right now when I walked in here you were welding on this thing that's going to be a road race car I've just got so much stuff for to build a road race car so that's why we're going to make it and it's probably be I don't know where we use it or I sell it or whatever but there's a big demand I think for road race cars this year because we got seven races on on road courses so and I think two of them are back to back on the west coast so you better have couple cars when hit that way so you don't have to come back tear something up I just think it's so cool that you're in this spot you've been in the same place the whole time and there are still current cars coming out of here you kind of got to you know uh evolve with the times too you know because what we used to do in the cars we used to have you know they're no longer so you got you got to keep up with what's going on so and we've been been able to do that so but only way that I was able to maintain and still be here was that we made chicken salad out of chicken poop all these years you know we might had a crash car that we bought fixed it and uh went to the racetrack actually back when I still driving we sent uh Jimmy Spencer home from Bristol with a used card that I paid $500 for the chassis from Junior Johnson and I ined that I paid $500 for the cylinder heads and we sent Jim spener home and Jimmy had a McDonald's sponsorship at the time wow so I didn't go brag about it cuz they were good to me but I wanted to when you were in here in 82 83 '84 what was how did this floor plan laid out how did it flow well you know we only had uh at that time we only had two cars and we even built it one time we buil a paint room in that corner cuz we had room to but we didn't have uh I think we had a welder and a grinder and uh uh really no fabrication equipment CU we didn't you know they didn't need all the room but you know as years went by we you know we got more equipment stuff so uh we we could even pull the truck in here our hauler out there cuz we had room to so we like I said we just have didn't have much to work with yeah I mean how many I don't even know how many cars you got in here now but it's a lot more than two oh yeah there a lot of room for two cars yep when did you add the next portion of the shop uh it wasn't very long it might have been a couple years I think you it didn't take too long cuz you know we we raced out of Huntsville Alabama I started Cup in 76 and everywhere we went was a minimum eight8 or 10 hours and you know when we go to Richmond Heck from Huntsville Alabama it was 12 hours and if you go to Pocono is almost 17 hours so it was the best thing I ever did to move here because we had set so much more time to work on our race cars and we could get back in know a decent hour and kind of be a little bit more refreshed than we were when we race out of hunt by so naturally you know and and we got better our race team got better and we made a little bit more money so we we had a little bit of money to build on and make everything better it makes a lot of sense is you're not going to do very good work if you're tired and burned out all the time lot times you had to be be to racetrack on Thursday and uh that meant you live sometime on Wednesday and and coming home we didn't get home the Monday morning some races 12:00 you know midday so then you had to turn around and do the same thing again in two days we didn't have much time to work at the shop but I made a decision where you know if I'm still going to race I've got to move and and it was the best move ever made what do you have in here right now that has uh significance to you or a story behind it well uh this car we're we're waiting on our appointment time to get read reinspected at the NASCAR tech center uh we have to inspect them every two reinspect them every two years the certification goes away so you had to redo it but this car I paid $200 for chassis and it was the first I think the first Toyota that bill uh Davis you know ever built but that being said you know we put a lot more money at you know we bought the chassi but this car has finished in the top five at Tega uh fished top 10 at Daytona multiple times and a ton of top 15s and we paid $200 for the chassis so you know the it don't have to be new to to run that's awesome yeah I think uh kind of the general perception of NASCAR now is that this stuff doesn't happen anymore that it's not out there it is you're you're doing it I mean the people the people's got money's not going to do it like this and you know and they've got the money to do it the other way we don't so we have to do that if we want to be a part of it you know the driver that I had when we ran those top 10 he's hasn't had a top 10 since he left so I think we're pretty proud of that that is something to be proud of and most of my cars were uh uh this was an RCR car and that was an RCR car uh that was a user or crash chassis that we refurbished and you know that's like I said that's the only way we're still in the sport is the way we do it so if that was the first chassis that Bill Davis or built for Toyota you know what year it was see we'll see it on there yeah it does say TRD on it 0207 and maybe that's February 2007 is that something like that yeah huh so when um said it didn't take very long to add this onto here a couple years and uh got a real good deal on it because the guy that uh came friend with was a builder so uh I don't even remember what it cost to do this add- on and then when we built this part on we uh built the paint booth in that corner cuz we had room to CU moved it out here so you just moves it from that corner to that cor the next farthest corner and then later we scaved a paint room on the side of the building so that's it's about ready to fall down probably but it's been there 30 something years so that's that's where we do a painting body work you're still painting in the same spot too y yep when you built this was this like uh your heavy Fab area to keep it clean from over there right but actually this building used to be a a heavy Fab steel building huh you know uh what to matter of factur in the the floors beat all the crap from all the heavy steel falling so I mean I have spent a ton of money on these floors trying to make them nice but they'll never be really nice because CS off the gouges in the in the floor but you know it's got epoxy pain and it stays a lot cleaner than just just complete floor yeah the GU just give it character yeah well it's got a lot of that during the season when you're in full swing how many guys are working in here usually well probably five you know right now you know I had to tell my crew chief uh Tim Brown that he been with me 14 years I said man you know way things are going you need to do what's best for you and that's find a job because I can't keep continue to pay in you what I've been paying you because I just I'm not making any money so unfortunately he had you know had to leave and uh so right now there's only we got two other guys and right now uh I'm 72 and a half and I got one guy 74 and the other guy 76 so that's what we got working on these race cars right now is that about the same amount of guys that you had back in you whenever you were still running when I first started you know the reason I moved to city was there's two guys uh that uh help helped Cecil Gordon and Cecil ran out of this town for a while and they told me said if you'll come to you know if you'll move to for City said we'll go to work for you and that was Mike Connor and David B David bid so that's what happened and then that's the only two guys that were on payroll back then but we were fortunate that we had a ton of people that wanted to work on these race cars and wanted to go to the racetrack and and help us and they weren't paid so back then and we're fortunate that people wanted to race like that but now everybody wants money yeah yeah I wondered how you ended up out here cuz you're you're a couple hours from moresville took me a while to get here I say and they found they they responsible to find in this building and it was cheap rent back then I think it was 325 a month so and also there's a guy here named stud Murray that was a a sponsor for me and uh I think uh he gave me $500 a Race So You Know I moved to it's hard to move somewhere in nobody vouches for but I fortunate that stud Murray and and Mike and and David Biv you know they were known so I I had a little bit of uh people that spoke for me highly so you know it was a little bit easier do you think that uh moving to a place that's a little bit farther off the beaten path helped you find volunteer help because the people around here didn't have any other access to this world probably so and then at the same time you know uh if you're if you're working back then you know most of the race drops are around Charlotte not morisville and you could quit one place and go you know block or two down the road and get a job here you know we're kind of isolated so you're working for me or you got to move and that's it's got it drawbacks too because you have to move from Charlotte where you can probably go 30 minutes and have a job if you've come here you got to drive an hour and a half yeah so that's but we also like I said you know we even bought a a trailer we put in a lot up here that people could come to work and it didn't cost them anything you know they had free room and board and stuff we paid the utility so they just come go to work have a place to lay down and clean up so huh that's pretty cool so you had like a whole little uh ecosystem out here well I mean you had to because like I said it was hard to get PE personnel and that just made more enticing to them that it's not going to cost me to come to work yeah if you don't have as much living expense then the money you're making is you know so to speak worth more right doesn't go away right as soon as you get it s so much like normally when we walk through these places there's just you know the building that has history is something else now it's not full of new stuff that I'm looking at like a the kid in the candy store wanting to like ask questions about so I'm like flip-flopping between you know back then and right now hopefully you're following along or being entertained by all this yeah this this is going to be a that's an RCR car that's we've got all the updates and safety stuff done we're just waiting for an appointment with NASCAR it's kind of hard to come by right now with those uh new new cup cars all the inspection stuff they do on them so think we've got the first inspection date we have is January the 2 you know and that's only a month you know from Daytona and that's a day to on the car so we'll be up you know and we got to get everything else suspected too so we're we're going to be up against the wall but what is that that shift lever connected to the that's that's how we uh bleed the clutch before we put the motor in the car we roll the motor up to this this and plug that into plug that into the to the um clut U what cluts on and uh push that that and and then we have a transmission in place then we'll make sure that releases before we put it in the in the car that's neat you got a lot of little gadgets like that that you make yourself to make your life easier oh yeah well actually that is one of the slave cylinders the size that we had for that hydraulic clutch huh something just like that and then we had to rot it go in there with a t- handle and we push that which would push the the sellers in the truck like I said I don't throw nothing away this this part of the building was built after that building was that was my motor an engine assembly room that that was entirely building s you know on by itself and then we came in and tied these two buildings together huh and then put this Hall back here it was two separate buildings and we just tied them all together to be able to have some have some storage and like I told you I don't ever throw anything away so just Stu here for for a while oh that's awesome this is neat you know it's not you know with NASCAR's rules like you know we got stuff that's not usable CU they've changed what's legal so but maybe you know we can't get a penny on a dollar for the stuff probably maybe you could you never know I kind of wonder what you probably got all kinds of interesting stuff back there if you never threw anything away all the years I raced you know in cup and stuff we did our own Motors when did you start doing your own Motors in this building here originally 1990 90 so that was Alka-Seltzer era right these are Distributors we ran back in the in the late 7 these These Are A Tac Drive uh ball bearing distributor huh and uh this probably a worth $1,000 today yeah some restoration guy would yeah be all over that I got four of them brand new who made those back then General Motors okay that's what we ran in with their their electronic ignition back then same stuff that came on Corvette but some of this stuff like I said it's been here forever when did you switch to Ford uh 92 92 yeah they were they were doing you know we're running ponx and getting our butts beat by Fords and uh I said well you know we got to get more competitive and was fortunate uh uh that Ernie Ellet would sell us parts and I think we've converted some ronac to Fords and Ford was good enough that we got some sheet metal from them and it was definitely the way to go cuz they just drove better better better arrow and you can make good power out of the engine out out of Ed stuff so it was a good move like a a handful of places switched from GM to Ford back when the the C3 head got hot cuz you could have the the caned valves versus them all in a row yeah did you have any C3 heads sitting around here I just saw the blocks I didn't see any heads I got you got a few couple I got that's no that's d3s that's those are C's but that's a d heads those are brand new I got a couple sets of C's or one set of C's anyway yeah that's interesting got 1997 C3 2007 D3 you got these ones all epoxied up there must have been a restrictor engine back then I you really do have the whole setup back here were these Dino rooms or one of them built them just for assembly rooms huh so and you know they haven't had whole lot of use the last few years but uh uh I have a guy in queny Illinois named uh uh Steve Nelson that does a lot of engine work for me and uh he does a lot of engines I do a few of them but he does a lot of them Triple R Performance and does a great job for us at least you're equipped here to kind of fix things instead of we can do it you don't have to rely on other other people Dino eventually ended up there is this the same dyo that you originally had in the front of the building and got moved back here it is it's it's uh like I said it's been moved two or three times and uh it's a it's a stusa dino with a dpack you know and then it doesn't have all the bells bells and whistles but it's it will tell us what what we have yeah powerwise so uh and that thing is pretty pretty old that uh that original Dyno came from uh engine builder back in the day named parking all and uh I might have gave you know $3,500 for the whole setup at the time and since and I've had to have the uh the breake rebuilt I spent six grand on just having it rebuilt but it like I said it does uh what we need and that that uh cooling tower uh over on the wall there came from uh Saco racing back in the day oh really and John Wilson was the engine builder and I think I paid 100 bucks for that cooling tower still worse that's what we need um had a qu I've had quite a few uh late night calls from the police depart Police Department because with back in the day uh a lot of times we'd run an engine 12:00 at night and neighbors didn't like that I was wondering about that it looks like you got just exhaust sticking out the wall there like what's you can hear this thing if the wind's right you can hear it five miles away so we try not to you know run but because it's not you know necessity now but then we had to cuz they're going to run that where we get there or not yeah so so when you were adding these additions and stuff are you in here cutting plywood to make doors and all that too well you know we did a lot of the stuff but I had a builder do that so it wasn't uh you know like I didn't take away from the race cars AB building because I was fortun had enough dollars I could spend a little bit of money get to get it done but we did do a lot of the work ourselves and everything wasn't bought new like this door came came out of the local hospital so what about those did those cabinets in there come out of somebody's kitchen they came out of my kitchen when we remodeled see that's that's awesome but they do the same stuff y our mom's like Oh do you want this table I'm going to throw it away yeah I'll take it that that counter came out of uh actually the counter in the other room in the uh had assembl room that came out of my house also this one right here yeah huh and this road is Just Junk how do you end up with a door from a hospital the builder…