Jimmy Spencer's 90s NASCAR Busch Series Shop: Former Home of Mr Excitement! (Spencer Motor Ventures)

The only true asset you have in racing is where you're standing. Rod Austerin, what a crook. Nhard warned me about it. That's a whole another story. I wish I could get one for $1,400. Well, you can. It'd be a big junk pile. Exactly. Biggest mistake I ever made racing. So, we're here with Jimmy Spencer, and this used to be his Bush Series Shop. We're going to see how it used to work back in the day and get the story. Look down through there. This was the first building ever here. I remember. It's hard to believe. Kenny Schrader bought all that property over there. I had bought these two lots and how I built the building was I uh Myrick, he had built Dale's buildings and Dale said that's the best guy to use. So, we built a 8,000 ft building right here and it stopped. It's about ' 89. Started building it there. I was racing modified and I wanted to race the bush side race and that's right. I uh I wanted my own building cuz the whole my whole life I always worked for myself, my wife and I. And I felt pretty naked down here without a place to go. So that's why we built this building. Well, that was one of the questions I was going to ask you. So yeah, I guess we'll see what it looks like in there now. I'm pretty sure they just painted the walls in there like two weeks ago cuz when I came here a couple weeks ago, it still had the wallpaper in there. I didn't have wallpaper up. You didn't? Oh. Huh. My wife hates wallpaper. Wallpaper? I don't know. It's covers It covers up a lot of stuff. No, that's Yeah, we built those bookcases. How you doing? Hey, that's where my sister work. He's gone. We have that shop on for the tractor trailers. This is tile. We put this tile in. Wow. Let's go check my office out. What do you think about this one? This is Chrissy's office. And then this was the crew chief's office. So then that went to the point. Yep. Same thing. Yep. And then this office was I don't even remember. I know we added that section on. Buster Rottton's dad, Wayne, Buster Rotten. They're both working with NASCAR now. And their dad and those guys helped me build this in here. All this wood. He's been long gone. This was my office here. Wow. They really Yeah. Was it this big? We added this on. Yeah. We added all this on. Now they're just remodeling. And uh that was a rest room, man. Brings back memories. So is this was this been your office even for everything you did? Even if it was not the like you didn't have an office at your house. No, this was your I never believed in having anything at your house except your own family. I never put trophies up. I never did anything except we ate dinner. We raised two children. My wife raised the kids. No, we never brought race into the house. I was all That's why I needed this shot. Interesting. I I I I believe that the 5:00 comes, it's over. It never happened that day. You worry about it tomorrow and then it's time to spend time with your family. This is it. Then we went to the break room, bathroom, ladies bathroom, storage. Look at this girl here. This was our break room. Bathrooms. They didn't change a whole lot. They make it look nice. They must get a deal from Willwood. What do you think? Probably. I I was a Willwood guy since 1986. I ran Wwood my whole life. Oh boy. Good guy. And that was upstairs. That was all storage. Sheet metal. We used to do all our old sheet metal. Then you go out here to the shop. Oh, look at these cars. Holy cow. Oh, they added a lift. Then here like that went up to the shop. That went up to the storage. Then we built that. Then we had a forklift that would put the sheet metal. All all the stuff upstairs. Then this went in. This was the gear room, the suspension room, just similar what they got. We had a guy in here that would take care of the gears, transmissions, axles, wheel bearings. I think his name was Al Przinger. One of the best. Al was one of the best mechanics that I ever had on my race car. Don't get along with him now, but he was very meticulous. And that was the parts room from the other side. Ford. Look at this. This is a truck, isn't it? It is. That's why I figured it was a truck. [Music] Man, the shop looks bigger than it really is. But this was our shop. That's all we had. We had the cars lined up. Let me think how we did it. The cars lined up that way. And then we had a setup. I think the setup was over here. See if there's still marks on the floor. Did you have a surface plate? Yeah, we had a surface plate. expensive. Back then it was five grand. It's a lot more. They don't even use it now. They use roamings and all that kind of stuff. Then we had uh this was a setup shop. We set the car up and then we rolled it out. Now that goes into the other building. But be we didn't have the building. We didn't have the addition onto life. I don't even know how many years. I I don't even remember that getting old. See, this goes into this shop. And this wasn't here till I put the second team in. That's when we used this for storage and the two tractor trailers. And you could back the tractor trailers in here. Then you could load the cars. These guys are using it now as fabrication. Try to keep this clean in here. And it's all the same. And I think that was fab shop. We had a David McKay build a surface plate. We had a surface plate frame jig. He would put the bodies on. Oh, David was a great guy and memories. That would have been in the '9s. We were we were we won races and a lot of great memories. Yep. Does more stuff come back to your memory standing here looking at things than it does if you just tried to recall it sitting somewhere else? Well, I had a lot of good guys. I you know I a lot of young kids come through. A lot of young kids come through and uh a couple of them are the older guys are dead and I used to have a guy come by uh was worked in NASCAR. He painted my cars. Uh so he said they need a paint booth. So we'll go to the paint booth. You know, it was just a matter of you you build it in time. You build it in time. It wasn't where you could just build stuff overnight. Today, they just, you know, the money is so different. Back then, you had to beg borrow to get money to go. These guys do nice work. Look at this car. GTO. That's badass, man. My favorite car. C2 Corvettes. I have two of them. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. I love them. Cuda with a Timmy. Damn, man. Plum crazy. Then we had stuff back along here. This is where we mainly we would take the cars from there and then this is where we would finish with aluminum work. This had all that was a band saw, shears. I had a a shear for sheet metal. I had a shear for big steel drill presses. Then this was the aluminum shop. We had a brakes, 8ft brakes, pan pan brakes, I forget the small, I can't even break brakes. And this is where they put the aluminum and stuff all together. Then they roll the car through the door outside to the paint booth and that was the prep area. We only ever had like six cars was the most we had. I built a bigger building in in the late I started it in the early late 80s early I'm sorry late 90s and I think I moved in around 99. So I was here for about 10 11 years. What was interesting was is that this place started and then uh when I moved I quit racing my own teams to concentrate on cup and Tim Brewer came in here and rented this whole shop and started Cranopus Hos racing Michael Cranifus it wasn't Hos Cranopus and another name but Michael Cranifus started his cup team in there where John Andred drove for John's past but they uh number 37 I believe it was a Ford. Yeah. Kmart car, wasn't it? Yeah, it was Kmart. And they had they had built their they started building their cup team right here in the shop. Didn't know that. Yeah. Other shop in Morrisville. Big shop. A lot bigger than this. Three time four, five times the size of this. I put the two teams over there and then decided it was, you know, it I guess I got ahead of myself, but we were we were doing really really well. But you can't compete with Hendrickk Roush. We did we we we won some race against Rous and Hendrickk and G and Children's was the main competition with Harvick and um Clint, those guys. In fact, I helped them after I quit getting sponsors. I helped him get BB and T for Richard. I helped Holiday in and Jeff Burton won in the holiday in car, but I was tired of it. I I don't look back and want to change anything. You always would. Never look back. Just keep looking forward. But was interesting there is when I decided that it was time to just start cut back as in my 50s that it was time to uh figure your future. Uh you know, you don't race till you're 80. Yeah. And uh Michael Walrip built his team in that shop over there. So it was pretty it was pretty interesting that we had two two uh two guys start their operations in in my shops. Yeah. Then we went into the body shop. Same thing. Whoa. Firebird convertible. This was our body shop. Still the same paint, but Look at that. See, they're experimenting with colors. That's cool. This was put up because this is a firewall. I added two buildings on the other section here for rent. Two 5,000 square foot buildings. And then I got the brain fart and that's what it was. And we could build our own motors. Biggest mistake I ever made racing. Build my own motors. end of the one building and the other one I built for motors. So after we built those two buildings, Tom Daly, Tom Daly is the one that added this onto this building. Then these two buildings, that was my motor shop. Big mistake. Wow. I lost my ass. What did when I look back now, you you know the mistakes you made. That was one of them. Rented that one. Then I got rid of the thing and then I rented the motor shop to a guy and then uh we actually outgrew this building because the two teams I had Dick Trickle, Schneider, Zippo, All Proa Auto Parts. I had a bunch of sponsors and it was time to move to another building. That would have been about 99 2000. And uh I remember Rick Hendrick and mainly Joe Gibbs telling me that at the end of the day, the only true asset you have in racing is where you're standing. That's dirt. So that's why I always overbuilt because I knew I could get my money back for real estate cuz that's where I did in Pennsylvania. Sold used cars and dealt in real estate and uh never lost a piece of never lost any money on real estate. I still think it's the same today. But anyway, then we went back in here and then decided that the tractor trailers were getting, you know, the heat down here is bad, so we can move the tractor trailers in here. And then uh, you know, we just kept growing. These guys, this guy's got some nice stuff in this shop. Look at this truck. It's cool when these these former race shops uh, still do cool stuff with cars. Not all the sun. Oh, there is no sound in the world better than a big block Ford or a big block Chevy or a big block Hemi. Ooh, they got a thump. I raced a big block in the modified. Them sons of bees with a torque fuel injection. Badass. Anyway, we go back into the body shop. But this is pretty cool. Brings back a lot of memories. The stuff they change. Old babe Jensen. Good guy. Oh, I had uh he's dead. All these guys have died on me. Gut died. Gary, my other painter, died. Time moves on. My god, Eddie told him. He worked for me. He worked for Gary Belaloo. Great guy. He could he he was a a tuner. He would he could read the plugs, carburetors. Eddie Eddie was Eddie worked for me. He was good at what he did. We won races with Eddie. Blew up a lot of motors. That's when he said, "You got to tell the engine builders to back up." Should have won Charlotte four times and five times. We won it once. We blew up leading twice. We blew up at Texas. Leading Mark won Texas. Nema checkek won Charlotte. Joe was going to win that race. I wasn't going to win that race. Joe was hooked up that day. That was Carl Wagner's car lo motor. But I still blew up. But I wasn't going to beat him then. Mark beat me at Texas when I blew up lead. Mark beat me twice at Charlotte. But I did beat Mark when I finally put a motor in. It didn't blow up. Las Vegas leading the race in Las Vegas blowed up. Funny story there. We go to Vegas. I had two engine builders, Kevin Blanks and Hutter. And we were still in this shop. No, we were in the new shop. And Hutter had built the best motor he ever built. Kevin Blanks had built the best motor he ever built. And I had won Bristol the year before in a at u in a my bush car. And I and I said to my man Jerry, he was my main guy. He was he was uh my he was my one of my best guys. I could trust him. Jerry uh was fantastic. It's gone. Anyway, I said, Jerry, tell him to rebuild that Bristol motor back. So, no problem. make sure new pistons, whatever we need. So he does. So we go to Vegas cuz the year before Vegas, I was leading the race and the motor blowed up and Jeff Green won the race. I was leading to Texas and the motor blowed up. I was leading the Charlotte motor. I said, "That's Tire blowing these damn motors up." And I put that Bristol motor in. So we get to we get to Vegas and uh Hunter comes over, he looks, he goes, "Huh, that ain't my motor." And then he looks Kevin blanks himself. He says, "That ain't the motor I told Jerry to put in the car." Jerry says, "Oh, you got to go talk to the boss." So he's in the trailer. So I go in the trailer and uh I said, "Oh, here they are." So I popped the door open. I says, "Hunter, that's the best motor you ever built, Kevin. That's the best motor you ever built. But the motor that's in the car ain't going to blow up. I'm tired of blowing up." Kevin says, "It's going to run a cam." I said, "I'll handle it." We ended up winning the race. 96,000 bucks. That was big. Um, it didn't blow up. But he was right. It It ran out of power at the end of the straightaway because it was a short track motor. I don't know what they did. Cam heads, all that kind of crap, but but uh Ernard Jr. funny funny was cuz Junior said he was he was faster and he had a hotter motor in and Rous was third. I forget who was who was driving. I think Burton, somebody else. and and Junior come on the radio to his old man and he says, "Uh, I can't I can't get to him coming off the corner. I can c catch him going in the corner. I'm going to have to move him a little bit." And Nhard said to him on the radio, "There's two people you don't f with. You're talking to one and the other one's in front of you." So, when Nhard told me that the next day at Vegas, I was I was pretty proud of that. He says, "Uh, but I was good friends with Dale. Uh, he helped me get this building started. uh could go over there all the time, talk to him, was fortunate enough to drive his car for him at uh he was struggling. He was blaming his crew and I went to drive for u I was over here in this building in Enoville living and he he said, "You have to come and drive my car where we're off on that cup weekend." And I said, "No." I said, "I'm not I'm not going I'm not doing that, Dale." I said, "Uh I promised Pat the kids I was taking them to Carolyn." He said, "You'll be at Carol." So that went on for like 2 3 weeks. And he said, "You you need to drive my car. I promise that you will be back." And he when he said that, I said, "What if it rains?" He said, "I promise you'll be back." Cuz Dale had his own airplane, everything. So I I went with him. Best time I had ever at a bush race. Got in the truck at Tony and Tony Jr. He had a black hauler. We drive up there. Got my own motel room. I couldn't believe that. Nobody but myself. I was like, "Wow, this is cool." went to the track, practiced, didn't do nothing to the car, told him what it was doing. Tony Jr. and and the senior fixed it. And I said, "You guys got it pretty damn good." I I tell you, it it it's it's excellent in my opinion. So, um Dale flies in. He was at Michigan at the IRock race. He goes, "What do you think, Jimmy?" I says, "Car's car's a little on the snug side for the first few laps and then it just comes dead neutral." I I would think you're in good shape. That some came from the rear of the field to the lead to race. He was a race car driver. If you looked into the dictionary, Dale Nhard's face would show you race car driver. The next one is Kyle Larson. Uh wow. They're just they're incredible drivers. And unfortunately, Dale had a bad pit stop. I think an air gun broke. He ended up getting third. But uh we get on the airplane. We're coming home and he goes, "Jimmy, what'd you do to that car?" car. I said, "Nothing." I said, "I told you I didn't do a DM." He said, "Oh, you're lying to me." I said, "Dale, I didn't do nothing." I says, "Tony, you know, Junior and them, I told him what it was doing. They changed the camber. Then they said, we got to stop. We got to change the A-frames." I didn't do nothing to just tell him what I was doing. He says, "Uh, I figured that." He says, I I He said, "What do you think's wrong?" I says, "Last time I won a Bush race, I had a Moroso motor driving for Dick." I said, "That thing had more power with five cylinders than your motor with six." And Dennis Fischer had built the motor. And he said, "That's what Richards told me. Children's." So, he finally, which was not good for the competition, he finally got better motors. But Dale was uh that was gifted. That's all I'm going to say. That was the That's the identical color to my first ever Corvette gold hard top. And that's a 60. That's a 6. That's a 72, I think. I think it's a 70. 70. Yeah. Mine was a 68. And you had to push the button. Boom. Boom. That's the first year for the C3. Four-speed car. That was the color. I bought it for 1,400 bucks. How old were you? 16. Wow. I wish I could get one for $1,400. Well, you can. It'd be a big junk pile. Exactly. I've been looking and they're all garbage. They are. Here's another one. See, I don't like this. I don't like that. I don't like the wheels. I don't like the headers. Yeah, those those were in style at one time, but hey, a lot of guys do. I like the original like that Mustang. That's cool. Yeah, it is. I like that stuff. But I have a lot of great memories. It's really cool that you have an appreciation for all cars, not just race cars. Yeah, I was in the carpets. That's how I raced. I was in high school. I was flipping hamburgers $1.25 cents an hour. Deal was it was we were selling food and the salesman came in and he had these pepper steaks. He goes, "Look, Jimmy, I could sell you these and I forget it was like 48 in a case and he could sell them to me for like 30 cents a piece or whatever." So he he brings one, we make them. I said, "Give me a case and I'll try them." Two days they're sold out. So the next week comes and I do it again, but I buy three cases. And believe it or not, my uncle Joe was the manager of the restaurant. He said, "You ever do that again, I'm firing you." Listen, you son of a I quit. When you can't see the writing on the wall and I says, "You know what, you son of a I'm going to own this restaurant one day." 3 months later went out of business. I bought the restaurant, my wife and I, my girlfriend, which is my wife for 40ome years, Pat. We started our first car lot. That's awesome. But I was selling cars in school. Uh, I remember Mr. Croy. I had a 72 Chevy Malibu, 307 automatic power steering, and boy, it was a nice car. Bought it from Hassai Chevrolet. Cleaned it all up. I drove it to school and Mrs. Croy saw the car. I sold it to her for,00 bucks. That That was a good time. And uh she drove that car till I graduated high school. But uh you know I I realized then I could make money selling cars and I loved cars. And then my wife, she went over the end. She she went off the deep end. She started cleaning cars and she started scrubbing the headliners. She started scrubbing them and they were like bring I mean they were incredible. And I and I she went to school to be she worked for J C Penney and and and was in marketing and stuff and and sales…