Morgan-McClure Motorsports Former NASCAR Race Shops History Tour! (With Owner Larry McClure)

thanks to leather honey for sponsoring today's video this is where the daytona cars came from how did he end up getting out of his contract to go to gates what was the mechanic he said and i said if you can't afford to do that you don't need to be doing this there was things that i could have done different when was the last time you stood in this parking lot and walked around 86. so you haven't been back here since 1986. make some test runs through here no one cared well they they may have they didn't say anything we did we were outside of bristol virginia riding in a 1960s volkswagen bus about to see the entire storyline of morgan mcclure motorsports so we are in the parking lot of the very first morgan mcclure race shop with larry mcclure how many times in your lifetime do you think people thought there was one owner and his name was morgan mcclure probably a lot you know i thought you were better so i thought about it i have a uh i have a niece that her name's morgan mcclure really yeah yeah so if those who didn't know this is the mcclure side of morgan mcclare's two guys yes yeah and this is your very first building very first building two bays had a little office there was a little mezzanine upstairs we used for storage when did you move in here moved in here in uh 84 84 yeah 1984. so when you when you started the team where you bought out gc spencer's stuff did you buy this place right away or did you run out of his garage first we ran out of his garage first for about six races and we knew that we were going to have to get a little bigger and a little more serious or get out so we needed a place to work on our cars we bought we bought this uh of course we had the chevy dealership over coburn tim and i decided that we need to go ahead and buy this building to have a place to work on the race car and get it out of the dealership and keeping in mind we kind of financed our racing out of the dealership so it took a lot of money back in that day so it was like a a leap of faith to do that did you did you do it with a business intent or did you do it because you wanted to you know we kind of did it because we wanted to do it and have fun in that time we were going to run just a select races i knew i had to have somebody to run the shop i had gc who was an ex-race car driver and a mechanic and tony glover became available he wanted to come back home from petty enterprises so we talked to him and hired him he was the first crew chief for us if it's if it's 1985 and you're getting ready for a race we had uh two race cars sitting in here one new one and one old one and then i sold the old one and bought another new one so we ended up with two race cars you can see where the building was added onto too that's where we added them to you added this on here what um what did you put in there well we had a parts department we had storage we had we built not only did we build that bay the same size as the existing building but on the other side we built two more bays so we had a lot more room so from 84 to 86 you were in here okay and in 1884 we had tommy ellis as a driver 85 we had joe rudman and and folgers was our sponsor for joe revlon uh tommy ellis it was morgan mcclure pretty much good sponsor so was this the building you have when mark martin raced for you no we when we had mark we raced out of gc's basement really yeah wow so that was what did he race for us four races i think he raced about four races that's pretty cool was this brings back memories remember that old kenworth truck that we had or peter built whatever it was sitting out here going to daytona sitting in there at the desk just hoping the telephone is ringing and somebody want to sponsor the race car so and it did really yeah was that a cab over um box truck or something had a uh 671 detroit diesel in it where'd you park it right there you parked it right along that fence there well over here when was the last time you stood in this parking lot and walked around oh i guess when i sold it back in uh 86. so you haven't been back here since 1986. i've been back here and come back here all the time baby hadn't been in but that was the start over here so you oh you did you put that on there too that's what i said we built that on when we built the back big parking lot there's a lot of room in here to do this really so cars out front right here had cars for sale oh did you have like uh used cars for the dealership out here too it was a pretty good pretty good yeah at the time you know when you built cars for rick wilson you got the osmo bill deal and you started building new cars you had to have space so this was a bad shot right here that you built on this whole extension so this over here was fab shop when you started building cars this is not small this is deceptively large but you said it was just like a little two guard garage i thought we were gonna you know we started and then you know then added that and captain cody's came and osmobile you know wow this is neat did you do pit stop practices out here too you know at that time i don't think we did we didn't practice did we no wow we just put them together from the people that we had working on the race car all the time and then we had todd yeah worked at the dealership my brothers a couple of people who worked at dealership that's why we went to racetrack and we weren't very good but we looked good so back then pit stops weren't even a priority you didn't even practice you're just like well we got to change the tires we will yeah but that's it we wanted to run fast and we knew if we could run fast and then eventually last we could get a sponsor so that was the goal when you started just to get a sponsor again it's sponsored you had a good sponsor too we we had a couple we had folgers for a year then rick hendrick got that he slicked that away from us and then we had uh go back well you had captain coach captain cody rick wilson brought that yeah he was friends with the restaurant he was a restaurant down today you move into this bigger building whenever kodak came on or did you move here and then kodak showed up uh actually we we had kodak but we only had kodak for a certain amount of races and then we knew we were kind of outgrowing that facility this became available and we took another dive hoping that we'd have some success and then be able to keep the sponsor but our first sponsorship deal was uh for 10 races with kodak and it was kind of an interesting deal how that all came down how did how did that facilitate in the first place they called us kodak had made a deal with a gentleman in uh north wilkesboro to run the season and it being their first venture getting into nascar they uh paid all the money up front and they they went to uh i'm thinking about 10 races and didn't make one so uh didn't qualify so they called us and we were running pretty good they called us and said hey you interested in running think five races and he said we might be we'll talk to you and uh so we we made an appointment to go to rochester i took uh rick wilson and our ozmobile rep would be interested in doing this for you but it would but i asked him twice the amount of money that they had offered me and i said if you can't afford to do that you don't need to be doing this and the guy the guy got up out of the conference room and left he didn't say kiss my butt anything no yes whatever he just left so we were staying across the road at the hotel so we went over there and was talking about her meeting and their pr guy from north carolina was in the meeting he didn't know what they were doing nobody knew anything thanks to leather honey for sponsoring today's video much like morgan mcclaire motorsports leather honey is a family-owned and operated business based in virginia since 1968 people who truly care about their leather have been trusting leather honey their american-made products are premier all-natural made for your daily leather care needs leather faux leather vinyl plastic rubber basically any type of material that is inside the car you probably drive every day logan used this stuff on the interior of her new car new to her car already and it worked really really well see how it doesn't leave like a weird residue yeah no it does not it's not oily or slick or you know you sit on some cleaners after you condition your seat and you like squeak around in it it's just you know it makes you not want to clean the inside of your car with it because it's uncomfortable unlike other products on the market that just sit on the surface and evaporate quickly leather honey leather conditioner is uniquely formulated to penetrate into the leather to hydrate each individual fiber which means just one application can last six months or longer leather honey understands the value of quality leather and how important it is to keep it looking like new with thousands of five-star reviews customers agree making it the number one best-selling leather care products on amazon this is treated this is untreated you can see a former product actually left streaks on here it didn't sink in it just stayed on the surface and the leather honey came out great my fingers are not greasy or weird feeling see all the ways leather honey's cleaner and conditioner can help prolong the life of your leather by clicking the link below enter my code stapleton20 to save 20 on your leather honey kit so we flew home and monday morning he called me up and said let's do the deal so we did and the first race we attempt to to run for them was michigan and that same guy was there he was responsible and he was on top of the truck when we qualified and we at that time qualifying wasn't over when we went out but it was mostly over with i think we were eighth he got off the top of that truck he never did say kiss my butt to anybody he just went down that draper and left and we said wonder what the heck's going on and he was so excited that we'd qualified for that race and i asked him i said well why why did you want to get back to rochester's fast he said that's the first time i've been able to go through the front door all year long so he he went in with a big smile so it was a real good relationship with us and we we did winter race that year we started in 90 with uh phil parsons he ran four races and we let him go and i guess i hired grit i mean ernie then did i called jenny don levy i said jenny i'm in search of a driver i said i'd kind of like to talk to to uh ernie i said you got everything worked out for this year and he said buddy i'm glad you called me he said we just had a meeting today our sponsor pulled out and was not going to pay us so you're welcome to talk to him so i called him up talked to him and asked him if he'd meet us in atlanta and that was for a pre-race uh test session open to any of the race teams so the weather was very inclement and rain and rain most of the time we were we stayed down there three days and ernie rode that tractor he wore it out one they used to take a brush and run around the racetrack to drive the racetrack so he wrote that thing and we ended up getting about an hour's practice the third day and he went out and made five laps and come in and i said well we'll let you run atlanta and we started uh a provisional start i'm thinking it was about 22nd or third and that was the position our card number had been the previous year that's how they started since it rained out qualifying and uh we started there and finished second so before the next race i had signed him up for five years which didn't mean a hell of a beans but he raised he drove for us for two and a half years i think how does he end up getting out of his contract to go to gates what was the mechanical he said he said you can't afford to keep me i said what do you mean i was right down there in my attorney's office he said i'm in control of the gas pedal the brake pedal and the steering wheel he said i'll show you you can afford to keep me and he did we went to bristol that was a bristol race weekend and he uh he wrecked three cars and blew up two or three motors on purpose well we had been pretty stable until then so that's a gray area that's a big gray area yeah he probably didn't remember any of that but that's the way it happened so anyway and then after that how did you tell him that he could leave i didn't i didn't tell him i just i don't know who would i don't know who we told but that we didn't need him anymore so i filled in with the two three drivers uh nemechek i hired him a check didn't i thought yeah jeff purvis and that didn't work out for us so uh ryan had been my engine builder had been uh that is with sterling and of course i had been buddies with sterling so the race team wanted to hire him he hadn't won a race and he was currently driving for james johnson so ernie was gone after that that bristol race with the ernie was going after that bristol race yeah and the next week was he in yates car he's in yates car interesting remember after allison got killed or in this helicopter i think i called the gates and offered to see if i could help him anyway i didn't know they'd go directly from a driver but they did and believe me when we started we had no idea that we were going to be successful we just wanted to have some fun how far into it did you get before you realized like okay maybe we could we could do something with this well when we got our first sponsor uh we got folgers and we knew we were going to have them for a year we felt like that we we had a chance so and going through those periods it was a growth period for us our drivers were probably better than we were most of them we decided we were going to be make a commitment to to having some success and we did and then the lord blessed us so big night in bristol our first race we won what would you say your favorite time period was like from what year to year do you think was like the the top of the story when you were just when you have the most fun oh well i'd say anywhere from 1990 to 97 98 98. we're pretty good we're pretty competitive you know i i can see where i made a lot of mistakes there was things that i could have done different uh i had opportunities to have a second car didn't take them didn't want to hit opportunities we can move out of having i didn't want to do that and just i don't know should have made some different choices we spent a lot of money on our own engine program and uh after after like the 1998 season somewhere along in there we just didn't have much success and i should have leased motors from or i mean childress or or uh hendricks that probably would have helped us you know the technology and resources of everything else and charlotte was growing faster we were growing faster than we could we couldn't keep up with them we couldn't have 25 engineers we couldn't we just didn't have the money and they saw a lot more they uh they had a lot uh different materials in their engines or valve springs things like that so they were they were just ahead of us and we couldn't catch up so there for a while until they got all these engineers coming into nascar we were able to work harder and and compete and work smarter and compete that after a while when they had all the money and all the engineers they had the best drivers the best people you can't compete with that so i guess it was probably my fault that that our racing went downhill so if you go back would you move to charlotte when you have the opportunity to move to charlotte and start a second car well i don't know it's certainly been something to consider but nascar was always nice to us they helped us and uh we were that single car team and you just couldn't you just couldn't do it but like i said we had some opportunities and actually we were down this little shop right then here our first opportunity so we're almost there we're almost there right around the curve you know what's in there now um a store hospital merchandise they bought it for a warehouse so they bought it from you and they've been in there ever since yes right here's food countries racing they were neighbors oh wow and then we had we were raced out of this shop right here so this is where the daytona cars came from this is where the daytona cart came from yeah this is a nice building i bought let's see about this much of a building you know built on there and it built onto their back so the original building was there i could see that yeah you remember that time yeah because i remember you had two buildings yeah we ran them together we ran i think five show cars out here so we housed them and took care of all the merchandise that we had for uh several years the engine shop was on this thing yeah yes so did you keep this building for show cars when you moved to the other building i sold this one okay the fans for the dinos up there yeah and it was that where the the pipes would come out the bottom of the with their water tanks back there let's see that big pipe sticking up there yeah there's an exhaust huh and on that through there they're assuming that they cut off but that's funny yeah the forensic evidence that people drive by this place and nobody would ever know nope nobody would ever know now this place uh that's a pretty good building to me like they've never cleaned out your gutter there's nothing but they've taken pretty good care of it they took that awning off of it yeah the 18-wheeler went in right there yeah that's where we parked it so you could park the hauler inside this time well half that building was our fab shop let me show you there was one stall here we had a truck and then it was separate and then about right here back was a fab shop and went all the way through including a body shop and then from this section to the front that's where we did our in our car assembly okay you think you got a lot of room you don't have anything do you i mean really having success and you know like you do yeah these people have got a nice place but they've been there you said they've been there ever since you moved into this place yep since the 80s wow our old crew chief chris carrier works there if you ever want to get in there and do anything i can set that up they probably got some cool old stuff in there if they've been there since the 80s they have and it's full of 5 6 and 7 thunderbirds he's probably got 25. this way this building was the museum and that was open until when two thousand five probably four or six there's your three flagpoles the race job flag poles center ah maybe i don't know i don't know if they'll let us in or not and we'll find out that pressure washed the checkered flag off or did you do that in that went over about halfway and then there's a another storage room storage room well the storage room back but in the front here we had a place for to sell uh souvenirs that's t-shirts whatever oh yeah you can see where you say mcclure motor sails on it yeah that no it was a nice nice place yeah it is yeah that was the body shop right there the middle okay little building we kept your lawnmower in about that little thing just for the lawnmower yeah wow there's a lot of offices in there oh yeah what was going on and all that well seemed like everybody had to have an office my brothers that was the parts uh parts department uh on this end and then just past that was a hallway and then we went into where they assembled engines machine shop and then the assembly was around so there's probably a lot of equipment still left like the fans and everything in there you just took the cells out you know that that's one sail right there see where that building's been expanded yeah we had a fruit dyno in there huh we had plenty of room so you sold it right to the the national guard that's all the state huh did you even have it for sale every day just ask if they could buy it oh i had it for sale and it's not something that was really in…