Mark Martin Drives His Favorite Car Again! Reunited with Legendary Roush Racing Chassis "JR51"

the car behind us right now is the car that Mark Martin won the very first race with at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in 1998 and he's about to drive it again now the guy who found this car and restored it Landon is over there and he's got a pretty crazy story of how he came to own this car which is a Jr 51 which is Jack Rouse chassis 51. Landon you know sends me a picture and asked me hey do you know anything about this car that's Jr 51 that's my favorite car and in 1998 and was my favorite car my Mainstay man we we were in that car race after race after race because it was so special how does this all start wait boards into this car this car starts two years ago or more I found a guy on Facebook he didn't have any pictures he was just listing and for a friend because they were both older you know so the guy that originally owned it wasn't on Facebook so this guy that I was friends with like I said he's older gentleman he listed a description of the car but never put any pictures up of it well I was interested in it so I messaged him I got some more info then I got some photos of the car and the way we found it or the way it was sitting was the last thing they ever did with it was they tested the car at Atlanta in 1999 and they had put the 2000 tourist body on it but it was primered white and I had a big core decal on the hood and that was all it was after that I don't know why or where it went or you know why they didn't raise it but that's the exact way it was found when I picked it up the shocks are still on it from that test the Springs are still in it from that test they're marked from that test wow uh that's his original seat that was in it the belts that were in it those belts in that seat were in it the day they built it because they're dated so that belt those belts in that seat and every everything else that's in the car that's dated was in the car the first time they built it and it went through every race and every win that the car had how many wins is that four four yeah it won this race which was Vegas in 98 which is the very first Cup race here this was actually the very first tourist that won a points earning race because if you remember I think Rusty Wallace won one of the duels or the 125 at Daytona that year but that wasn't a points race that was just for the qualifying order for the 500. yeah because we just did that video with Don Miller talking about the origin of this body style Taurus but this was the very first points earning win for a Taurus born here at Vegas Texas California and Michigan but it raced over 10 times and it finished second multiple times with Jeff Gordon it almost won the Brickyard in 98 it was the gold sin power car that was this car it ran the other Michigan race in 98 it ran Atlanta in 98 and 99 it only ran two races it ran the Vegas race here again I think it ran the spring or the fall of Michigan race and that was the last time it raced in this configuration well like I said when we found it it was primered white and everything [Music] and I was already I became pretty good friends with Mark so I had texted him a picture of the dash tag that's on it because it has a 50 a zero 51 tag over there on the far corner of the dash and I said hey man do you remember this chassis because I had to restore a Thunderbird prior to that and it was an older chassis and he didn't remember it you know the chassis tag on it was still there but he didn't recall that car I'll send him a picture of this it was like five minutes and he's like yes I remember that car I raced it a bunch and that was my favorite car at Roush so I went and picked it up right then like I didn't care if it had won you know whatever I went and picked it up because he had told me that I just was looking for one that he had raced because I was a fan since I was little this was the car I saw when I was you know my son's age five six years old so we went and picked it up brought it back started doing more research on it and through finding the research out that we did talking to Mark Moore uh Jimmy Finnick which was the crew chief for Mark back then there was like nine or ten crew members that worked on the car talked to all them they all had the same story on the car and all I did was show them a tag on the dash they all come back with the same story yeah that's the car we won these races with it was the best intermediate car we had you know all these different things you know how did you find it where was it and then the craziest thing was there's a guy that works at Roush now his name's John Armbruster he got a hold of me because he knew that I had it or maybe I messaged him first I can't recall but he still works at Ralph she worked there back then too he remembered it and two or three of his buddies that still worked there they remembered it and he actually found files in The Archives of this car when it was in the wind tunnel and he found wind tunnel photos of it and when everybody realized that that was the car that we had found that's when everything started ramping up like you know doing this and then I realized hey we got to restore back to the 98 body and hunt the 2000 body that was on it so we had to take it and have a new tail panel put on it Hood which is the 98 Hood that's the 98 tail panel it's got a 98 front bumper the front fenders had to be all redone and English wheeled all that was done by Ronnie Hoover in North Carolina did he reference those wind tunnel pictures so we weren't allowed to have the wind tunnel photos oh so but there was plenty of reference photos that I got from people of the car on track good carpet we were a little kid you would be so happy yeah that's like hopefully he screenshots that's right here so he can post it on Instagram when he's older they're if they're even using Instagram that who freaking knows yeah something weird I'm sure maybe my space will come back I don't know this thing have an engine in it when you got it so no motor or transmission but uh it did have the original Radiator in it still had the rear end in the center section all the axles are in the rear end I mean it had everything but the motor and trans so we come to Rousey it's a friend of mine whose name's John McKinney he's the one that just restored that Davey Allison 28 car that was at Talladega yeah he is got good contacts over there so he called them they had that C3 that they just built and uh had 10 laps of breaking on it so I was fortunate enough to buy the motor and trans from uh Rousey 8's engines this is like what the lake speeds engine yeah it's the same motor it's a C3 yeah uh I saw your video on that the only difference is this one had just had all that work done to it that they're doing to his now so so what's the compression ratio uh this one it should be right at like 12 to 1 13-1 okay I haven't personally checked it but I take their word for it yeah I would too yeah yeah but I mean it runs really good compared to the other ones I've had I've had three other cars I had a C3 in it and one that had a D3 which is the brother to this engine it's just yeah yeah you I mean you've seen I guess maybe on the on Facebook when I found it I know we were friends at that point but I don't know if you knew I had the car but if you would have seen the car when I first got it compared to what it is now you wouldn't believe it like I did see the pictures yeah I don't have to go back on there and harvest them to add them as b-rolling just later what are you gonna do with this after this event so after this I would like to Vintage race it a little bit you know if I can you know I'm not going to get too insane with it I don't want to go and do it like via or svra and HSR just because they run you know wheel to wheel but and I'd like to display it some more too I mean everybody needs to see it I mean I would want them to see it you know yeah it's history this is important smart you know I mean we've talked back and forth a little bit who knows maybe he would be interested in I don't know he has two of his favorite cars he owns the other one and this is the other like he has two 10 and 51 and he owns 10 and this is 51. like hey it's for sale but only if you're buying it yep I mean that's what I've told everybody they're like well I've had two people uh you know asked to buy and I told them it wasn't for sale and then couple of my close friends asked me you know if I would sell it what would it cost and I said I don't have a price for it but there's I mean he would be the only one I'd sell it to I feel like that's the only fair thing to do you know and that would be it would be a good in good hands then you know what else is unique about this car are there any cool like old dates scribed into it like I saw you had some stuff on the radiator so the radiator scribed here from other chassis that this radiator was in and the races that it ran uh all the oil lines are scrubbed for this car 51 that's the filter in and on the other end it says motor you can see here on the front of the distributor it says Ralph's racing on it even the oil cooler that sits under the radiator which you can't see it now it's got the Scribe dates in it this whole Line's got a scribe mark on the bottom of it uh a really cool one you can see is actually on top of the tag you can see where they calibrated it 8 500 to 9000 to what is that 214.98 and then that RM is Richard melentine so Richard millentine was the one that wired all these cars and he also built the rear gears and transmissions for them and his stamp is on the rear gear section as well so it's still got the original Center section that was erased in it wow I mean everything's like the ignition boxes that's the original boxes that were in it that's the original steering wheel the steering wheels Mark the boxes are original where's the wheel marked at right here I'll actually pull it off and show you so there's that and then there wow that's crazy and this is a good you can get a good view of that tag on the dash over there the 51 yeah and you had to redo all the decals on the dashboard yeah all that's new the decals are but the dash tag was there when I got it and this this is the coolest part I think of the whole car that decal on the roll bar yeah this is It's supposed to say Big Brothers Big Sisters that decal was in this car the last or when it ran here in Vegas in 99 and I have screenshots of that in-car footage that shows that decal right there in the same spot zip ties are the same everything's there so that's why I didn't take it out because it's original to the car that's really cool but everything like I said everything was on it when I got it the steering wheels in it the original antennas that were in it you got your dummy camera yep that was on the car when I got up it's a little little thingies how about this boom tube so I had to do all that we have to ask you about the boom too oh I know y'all are big into that so the two so I bought the car from the gentleman in North Carolina and he had an original left side exit exhaust which are super hard to find because I've tried to find them for other Restorations I've done and it's hard for me to find them and you could cut a right side up and flip some stuff and make it work but he had that exhaust and I was scared to death that when we built the car and put everything together it wouldn't fit and it fit just like where that's where it fell and that's where it should be so when this car was last used did it have this type of Boom tube on it or was it like the double pipe one it was just like that and then Mark's cars back then always had driver side exit and uh I'm sure if you asked him about it he'd probably tell you how hot and how bad it got the brace that goes on top of the fuel cell that black race that's original the car and it's marked [Music] oh yeah no problem greatly appreciate that awesome thank you it was a pleasure to do it one of my favorites oh yeah absolutely thank you uh the spoiler is also original the car so what's funny is in 98 when they first ran the Vegas race there was a rule it was a five and five Rule and I'm not 100 sure what the rule on the spoiler was but the Taurus is as you all know now that you've done the whole video about the Taurus it was it was extremely cheated like because it was a four-door car and they let Ford basically build what they wanted yeah you know they raised the rear Quarters on it they did a bunch of crazy stuff with the roof well the rule back then was on the Taurus I think it had a six and a quarter inch spoiler so right after the Vegas race they chopped them on the spoiler I think they took a quarter inch off of it so this spoiler is original to the car and it measures six and a quarter so this is probably the spoiler that was on the car when it won in Vegas probably I've seen a couple other his cars from back then that the spoiler you could see where they had cut it and then they welded it back because after a couple Races they went back to the six and a quarter I'm not sure when and what time but uh this one never got cut no I would like to think this is the one that got because I didn't put those marks any of those were there sure it is that's crazy that this is this had the 2000 Taurus body on it but it still had this Wing So did this deck lid not change no so the only thing that changed on a 2000 Taurus was the bumper cover because this is the 98. and the back window area is different it has this big ugly oval Circle window yeah I hate it I hate it the 2000 had a nice square one yeah but you know when we built the car we wanted it right so we put it back this way and like I said Ronnie Hoover I want to give them credit Ronnie Hoover did all the Metal Fab work he built my windows he did everything and it's perfect he did a amazing job Brian cram who does he did some work for the garage shop too he painted a couple I think one or two of their cars he did the paint and body work and then uh Brian at comp cow Carolina he did all the decals so everything was done over there by guys that have worked around these cars their whole life that Brian did the decals for our Harvard cart okay yeah yeah I saw that yeah right so I mean as far as original original items in the car you know like the oil cover or the rear gear cooler cover all that's original that's the original oil box and what's funny is the lid that's on the tank we're on top of the box yeah the in-car cameras you can see that box they never changed it that's the same box because that's got I mean it's that's a unique design like you would never there was only that I know of there was two chassis that had that style oil box and it was this one in the sister card of this car because they built this one and it was such a good intermediate car that they tried to build another one and copy it and that was the next chassis in line which was 52. uh which 52 its first race was the Winston in 98 and it actually won that race did Mark race that yes okay yeah it was the Black Eagle One car but Mark was the only guy who drove this car never got past the Jeff burger no it never got past anybody this is the only the only so even funnier he was the only one that was in that seat up until like two weeks ago I had a friend of mine come over that was his size to help me bleed the clutch and he was the first person to be in the car since Mark drove it last and I've now gotten in it because I can pull the cover and cushion out of it and I can squeeze into it I was wondering about that when I saw you running around the neighborhood I was like did he put a different seat in that or or what pain but I mean I had my brooms my ribs were bruised where that rib support was hitting me the whole time but I had to make it work I could pull up a list of people that I've talked to that either worked on it or around it even Chad canals they see him over there he helped us push the car up here and he was like he's like dude I can't believe you found this car I remember we were trying to beat this car every weekend he's like I remember he said I can't believe it's still around he said this is amazing so he was super cool about it so people who do stuff and there's people who do it right and you're one of the people who's doing it right you're validating your sources and making sure that all the details are there like this is this is how you do it this is not like you know some booger together tribute car if you're gonna do it you do it right you do it like he did it yeah we had all also too when we found it the bottom of the car had been you know sandblasted from where it raced so much and the bottom at it like some spots that had surface rust so the entire bottom of the car was stripped off and repainted it's got fresh that like chassis gray color it was all repainted underneath rear end was pulled out of it the truck arms were out of it the front suspension was out of it and they sprayed the hole on other side before they painted the outside of the car so it's all like it was going to be coming right out of the Roush racing so there's a bunch of neat stuff that's there like the shocks those were on the car when I got it and you can see on the back side they still have the Atlanta tests on it like I can see it says it playing right here have you fired it up yet it feels warm in here oh yeah I'm fired up for your video if you want yeah fire it up I hope they don't care that that guy's playing up here somebody playing we don't want to listen to him anyway foreign [Music] I feel like I'm 10 years old again not not 98 but when I was 10 cars still sounded like this that's what I mean I was four when this car raced and I vaguely remember like I watched it with my dad who's over here with us uh he always he started it off and that's where the bug got put in me I would watch it with him when I was a kid he's doing the same with our son he's five now and he watches we go to all the races and he comes with us and he watches it on TV he was out there with me in the garage you know I was working on this thing until two or three in the morning and the days like he had fall break and he was out there with me you know he would get on a creeper and roll into the car and help when I built it and I bought it and I wanted to make sure it was right I went like really deep into the rabbit hole in like doing my research because you know you never want to be wrong and you don't want people to tell you you're wrong and you just want to know everything anyway right exactly you just have that burning you I want to know every single thing that everybody has to say about this that ever touched it over the last 25 years that's something else my son did with me like we sat on our days off where he was home from school and I didn't have to work he would sit in the living room and watch TV with me and we would sit and watch the races for 98 like just to see people talk about it just to watch for like in-car footage You Know audio there's audio from the like the commentators like Vinnie Parsons and all them they were talking about the car what it was you know they talk hey this is the same car he won these races with this is they called it the West Coast Car so the festivities are starting to ramp up we're standing here hey guys how you doing be mad Martin but yeah I'm out here with Dad and uh we got Jr 51 out here and uh be pretty cool I think he's gonna get to take it out on the track and be posting it on social media I run Mark Martin archive that you know focuses on the history of Dad's career so you can check that out on Instagram and Mark martinarchive.com Straight Talk he's got lots of cool shirts too yeah yeah I've got a lot more planned as well so uh all based on original uh designs from the 90s so you've got to Win Dixie one coming up so that should be pretty big yeah yeah there you go it's crazy Landon it really is everything feel the same yeah unbelievable but yeah…