Larry McReynolds Reunites with King Racing: Inside Kenny Bernstein's Former NASCAR Shop!

This was King Racing owned by Kenny Bernstein, the famous drag racer. Might remember the Quaker State car Larry Mcrenold was the crew chief of back in the day. Well, Larry's actually going to meet us here any minute now. Show us everything how it worked inside there and paint a picture of what life used to be like back at King Racing in the early '90s. Was this front part here when you were here? It was. Yeah. Yeah. This was uh Oh my gosh. But it's substantially different. This was like the secretary's entrance way. She had a little office here. Uh it was pretty wide open and then this was a hallway and then there were offices down this and then believe it or not which is actually pretty cool to see. This was my office right here. Really a window where I could look out to the shop and so yeah that was my office right there. Had a I don't remember the window being there but we definitely had a window there where I could look out the shop. Yeah, this is pretty much all different but the one thing that definitely is the same is my office. When was the last time you were in here? So, I walked out of here after about I think race number four uh of 1991 and left and went to Robert Yates racing. But Kenny closed King Racing down. I I want to say it was maybe 93 or 94 and Robert Yates and I came back. They had it right in this this was this was the main race shop here. They had an auction and Robert and I came back for the uh for the auction. So yeah, this was the actual race shop. Like right here, there was a we didn't park the tractor and trailer inside. We didn't have room. So the tractor and trailer was always out there against that brick wall. And this right here was a big setup plate. And this is where we set the race cars up every week before we went. They've definitely closed it up some. It was it was a very big open shop area. Um did the floor look like this? No. No. No. It was just a It was just a an epoxy floor. But right here, again, I think it's still under here. It It was a It was like a concrete, perfectly flat plate that we had laser cut and everything. And uh that's again, that's where we set the cars up each week. It's right here. You can see it where the where the tiles cracked. Yep. Right there. That's green paint. Yeah. The last thing we would do is uh the car would leave this plate and it would go out there and be loaded into the hallway. And yeah, the only room that was actually in this big room was over here. It doesn't look like it's here anymore, but right in there was the only room in the shop. We wanted to keep the shop wide open. I hated shop cuz Kenny actually built this building. We built it during 1988 cuz we were located in Travelers Rest, South Carolina, just outside of Greenville. We relocated between the 88 and the 89 season. So this building, Kenny actually designed it and had it built during 1988. That way, soon as the 88 season ended in November, we could move here and be ready for 1989. But the only thing there was a room right there that was kind of a a suspension room. It's where they'd rebuild all the the the brakes and calipers and all that and repack the hubs and all, but other than that, I hated shops that had a lot of rooms cuz it's like your guys could go hide from you. They go hang out in the room and not really be doing anything. So, we tried to design it where it was kind of a wide open. But one reason Kenny did this out here and it was interesting. Now, this this was here, but it was just a wall here. what these were. Kenny just when he would come to North Carolina, he had a really cool twodoor. I can't remember if it was a Mercedes or a BMW, but he wanted a secluded place to keep that car. And in one of these bays was just completely a single bay. All that was in there was his car. But one reason he wanted a pretty big area out here is our truck and trailer would park pulled in against that wall, but when his drag racing guys were on the the east coast because they they were located out of Newport Beach, California, and it was didn't make sense with they were racing up and down the East Coast with the drag car to go all the way back to California. So they would come here and they would work out of this shop, but they never work in the shop. They would almost just set up. They'd pull the their big tractor and trailer in beside ours and they would just put the canopy out and they'd work there outside just like they would at the at the racetrack, you know, if they were there with the NH. So yeah. Did you guys have a lift out there back then? We did not. Yeah, we did not have a lift. Yeah. Yeah, we did not. And I I walk out there cuz I was trying to remember a little bit about It looked like it was a top-of-the-line place back then. It It was And that was there. That was the body shop. Yeah. We did not have all these. We only had the one right there. These these look like they didn't I don't remember all these right here being like this. But this right here um was the body shop. One was the body shop and one was the paint shop. And then yeah, all this has kind of stayed the stayed the same. They've kind of opened that up right there. So yeah, I think this was where they did the bondo work and the body shop part. This over here was the the paint room. So this really this hadn't changed a whole lot. They've kind of opened that up a little bit. It's hard to believe though over 30 years ago last time I was in here realistically. But it's surprising with these things like you would think, "Oh, there's no way that's still there. There's no way it looks like this." But most of these places are pretty Yeah, they they definitely closed up the main shop a little bit, but uh it's it's definitely has a lot of lot of the similar look. I couldn't believe how much they changed the the office area though, other than my office is exactly like it was with the the picture window looking out at the shop. H Do you have a lot of influence on the design of the building? You know what? I I didn't I kind of I kind of gave Kenny some some feedback just from my standpoint that that to keep it as wide open as we possibly could. Uh, and my office put it as close to the shop as you could and I could have a window to look out. And I remember when we were up here racing uh in the fall, the Charlotte race in the fall of 88. I remember my wife and I coming over here with Kenny and Cheryl. Cheryl, who is now his wife, was his girlfriend there. And we kind of, it was still, it was in the dry, but it still had a long way to go. Still probably had a couple of months to go before it was going to be ready to move in. But I remember coming over here and that's really the first time I'd even seen where it was or anything about it. So your first win as a crew chief was at the other building down in down in Travelers's Rest. Yeah, we won um Watkins Glenn uh in 1988. That was my first career win. It was King Racing's first win with Ricky Rudd. We were still in Travelers Rest. Our first win out of this building would have been Sonoma of 1989 with Rudd. With Rudd. Yeah. And then we won uh we only won a race a year 88, 89 and 90. 88 was the Glenn with Rudd, ' 89 was Soma with Rudd and then Brett Boddine started driving this car in 1990 and we won North Wilsboro. But the funny story about how this whole shop came about is when Kenny bought the team that I was working for in the latter part of 1985. It was a little team again in Travelers Rest and he brought the Quaker State sponsorship. He brought uh Buick. He brought Joe Rutman as a driver. He just needed a team to go to. And he bought out the gentleman that I was working for, Bobby Hawkins. And I had kind of picked Kenny's brain along the way. Did he want to relocate to Charlotte, North Carolina, where everything was? And he said, "I don't. I like being away from the rat race of Charlotte. You know, we're 2 hours away. I'm good with that." So each year I' I'd ask him, "Are you sure you don't want to relocate to Charlotte? You sure you don't worry? Every year was the same. No, I like where we're at. We're down here by oursel. And only thing I kept telling him, it's hard to find good help. You know, when you're in Charlotte, you got a good pool of people to pull from. When you're down here, it's a little more complicated. So 1988, we were really fast. Everywhere we went with Rarkey Rudd, but we had 11 engine failures, and I think seven of them, we were leading the race. three or four of them we were leading the race with less than 20 laps to go. And when you've got an oil sponsorship like Quaker State losing 11 engines, especially up there leading the race, it's not a good thing. So Kenny had an opportunity to hire pretty renowned engine builder by the name of Lar Rosa. Lou had been with Richard Childers Racing. He had been with Austerland. He had won races. He'd won a championship. But Lou would not move to Travelers Rest. And I remember between 87 and 88 asking Kenny again because my wife and I, we were living in an apartment. We we hadn't started our family yet. And I remember asking Kenny, "Are you sure you don't want to move to Charlotte?" He said, "No, answer still the same. We're staying right here." So my wife and I bought a house. We started our family. She got pregnant. In fact, the week we won Watkins Glenn in August of 88 is the same week I found out we were pregnant with our first child. So here my wife is pregnant here. We just bought this house and Kenny came to me at the end of 1988 and said, "I think we're going to have to move it to Charlotte, North Carolina." And he said, "The reason is I can hire Lula Rosa to for our engine builder." I said, "Kenny, this is a no-brainer. We have to do it. We we can't you're not we're not going to make it if we're losing 11 engines and you've got Quaker State as a sponsor. That's not a good It's not a good look." So I told my wife again my my daughter was due April of of '89 and we just had bought that house. I said I'll commute for a year. It was over 2 hours from Taylor's North Carol South Carolina to Huntersville was 2 hours no matter how slow how fast you went. Finally about August of 1989 I said uncle I can't do this no more. This this is crazy. I I get home. Y'all are asleep. I leave you're asleep. I'm on the road 4 hours for a commute. And so we we bought a house up in the the Moorsville area. Uh October September October of '89. So where was Lulosa's venture? Let's see if we can go figure out that hole. You're reading my mind with these questions. I got a question in my mind. Then you go tell the story that answers my question. So I don't I don't remember a lot about this this this right here. This But this was this was the engine shop. this this side of the building and uh the entrance way I don't we didn't have any upstairs that I remember but the entrance way there was a hallway from the racetrack right through there that brought you into the engine shop and all the equipment was in here one of these rooms here that I'm seeing boarded up which must be part of the other side now was actually the dino room but yeah that's you know the the the building was built u nothing's been added onto the building that I can tell. But the building was built where the race shop was over there and then this was going to be the engine shop. I'm curious. So, it looks like these were rooms. So, did they like do like engine assembly? Yeah, the the Now, one of these rooms here, and like I say, they've got them boarded off, but I get a feeling one of these there was several rooms behind this wall, and one of them was an assembly room. One of them was Lula Rosa's office and then as I mentioned one of them and I think it may have been may have been this one was the dino sale. We had a dyno uh but no these rooms here one of them was like a tear down room. All the big machines like the the the lathes and the the the meals and all that was in this big main part right here. But one of those was like a cylinder head room. just just different areas of the room where they did different different things about the engine itself. But yeah, this I mean they've changed it up, but for the most part it this is exactly what it looked like other than they kind of boarded off those different rooms there. So you sometimes there's uh labels on phones and breakers that'll tell you where things used to be. We didn't have cell phones back then, that's for sure. and Lou Laorosa did have a uh a pretty big hand in designing the engine shop. And the good thing about bringing Lou on board is from in 1988 we lost those 11 engines in races, DNFS. 1989 we came here. There were used to be an award called the dieh hard race team of the year and it was the team that completed the most miles over the course of the season. We actually won that award in 1989. I think we maybe had one engine failure in 1989. So Lou definitely fixed our problem. We maybe didn't have the horsepower that we had in 1988, but Lou definitely fixed our problem. What is that saying? Uh if you want to finish first, you got to first finish. And we were not doing a good job of of first finishing. No, I mean we we let a lot of laps. They knew they we and I think that was the problem. You know, back then engine durability was a big deal. You know, the components, the pieces, the parts, the RPMs we were trying to turn, nothing like today. Nobody even thinks twice about losing engines today. But it was a big deal back then. Our guy Ron Armstrong, who was a great guy, a smart guy, I think that was the problem. He was making so much horsepower that we were stepping across the line of durability. And I think honestly in Ron's defense, I think he was close to figuring it out, but again, Quaker State was was breathing down Kenny's neck pretty hard about 11 engine failures, scattering their oil all over the racetrack. Wasn't what they wanted. You know, we like to dive deep into these subjects. So, I wanted to do some research on this Ron Armstrong guy that Larry mentions. Ron Armstrong and one other dude were the guys who invented Race Pack. I'm sure everybody's heard of Race Pack already, but they were really pioneering data acquisition of engines and motorsports back in the 80s. I asked Larry about this while I was editing and he said that they were one of the first teams to have live data acquisition for test sessions. I thought, dang, that's really cool. I wish he told us that while we were filming it, but figured I just add it in after the fact here. Uh Ron Armstrong also raced hydroplanes in the 70s. We did a video at the Hydroplane Museum in Seattle. You know, motorsports is a small world. This is pretty cool. How many cars did you have out there? Oh, back then we probably had we may have had seven to eight. We had our two speedway cars. We had a road course car and then we would maybe have one short track car and maybe maybe three to four intermediate cars, you know, for the Charlottes, the Atlanta, the Darlington's, the Michigan, tracks like that. You know, we didn't run a near the extensive schedule that they run now. Is your ex handle or Twitter handle Stapleton 42? Yeah. Somebody on on X, I still call it Twitter. When I talked about doing this race shop deal today at King Racing, somebody said, "Are you doing that with the Stapleton42?" I I said, "It's got to be." His name's Stapleton and it's got to be it. Yeah. Yeah. So, guy used to work for iRock called me this morning. He said, "Are you going to the King Racing shop today?" I'm like, "Yeah." How did you know that? I said Larry Max said it on the radio. You were okay with that, I guess, right? Yeah. Yeah, that's fine. That was cool. It is cool. I haven't really looked out here. Th This here simply was employee parking. Um, let's see your parking spot. Yeah. Where'd you park? You know, honestly, I always cheated. I pulled up right to the office in that the main there. So, I always kind of cheated. But one thing as a crew chief that I always prided myself in is is I wanted to be the one and this maybe is part of the micromanaging. I wanted to be the guy to unlock the door and cut the lights on. I wanted to be the guy to cut the lights off and lock the door. So I was always normally the first one here. Even when I was making the 2-hour commute. So what were you driving back then? Well, we we as a crew chief, I had a u uh a GM car that they supplied to me. They they Buick, whoever you were with, Buick, Chevrolet, whatever, Ford, they would normally give the owner, the driver, and the crew chief a a comp car to drive. They didn't give it to you. It was on loan. Believe it or not, I drove a Buick Lasaber wood grain station wagon. Yep. Wood grain station wagon. So, I have to pull up a picture of that and show it up on the screen. So, this is this is what we want to know, like paint the picture of what life was like back then. Yeah. This is where all the employees park and um you know we had a couple of other company vehicles. We had a little little uh S10 pickup truck that we would run parts with and it would park here. But yeah, I'd normally cheat even though we tried to keep the parking lot open for for guests or people that would come to visit us or whatever. I'd always cheat and just pull up out front and park. Do you have old pictures of like doing stuff in the shop? Gosh, I have no idea where. I mean, like I say, we're talking 30 years ago. Yeah. Was that window there? I don't remember. I don't remember that door. It probably was there. I definitely the the window was not there. I tell you what I do have and I'll take a picture and text it to you is I think it was for Christmas 89. We brought and and you can see the king the the king king racing. Kenny was I'm telling you what, Kenny had Kenny Bernstein was pristine. He always told me, "We might not have the fastest race car every week, but we won't have the best looking race car every week." He was adamant about keeping stuff neat and clean. But, uh, on this like this 45° wall here was, uh, was the the King Racing logo with the word King Racing on it. Yeah, it was right there on that on that wall. But what I've got, I'll take a picture of it in my office where I do the radio show. It's a huge picture. And what we did, I think we had the tractor and trailer pulled this way. And we had six cars, three angled this way and three angled this way. And then all of the employees, and we had a photographer come take a picture, and then we blew it up and had it framed. And I've got one, but but that's what we gave Kenny for Christmas in 1989. I'll take a picture of it and and send it to you, text it to you or whatever. Yeah, that'd be that'd be cool to see. Yeah, I just it's hanging right there on the wall in the office where I do the uh I bet the holes are still in there or what it was hung on or something. He had uh you'll see it in the picture. He had the word king and then the logo for King Racing was was a crown. He had a crown. King Crown racing. The same one that's on your sleeve. That's it. Yeah, that's it. the walls, the brick wall, the the the two, they were not electric gates and they look like they're steel manual. All that was part of the original build. Is there any uh anything you witness through your little office window that sticks out as I don't know, funny or annoying or Oh, we uh Kenny finally I can say his name's Bernstein. It's not Smith or Jones. He would make a dollar go a very long way. I mean, he would let us get whatever we needed, but at the same time, he'd hold our feet to the fire, too, on budget. And I kept telling Kenny, "I really need to hire a janitor." Why can't the guys clean up? It's like, "We're working night and day trying to build race cars. I don't need one of my guys in there cleaning the bathroom or vacuuming the office floors." So, he finally obliged me hiring a a janitor. And it took about three or four janitors to find the right janitor. I remember looking…