Norm Benning's Backyard NASCAR Race Shop: Underdog Favorite Keeping Old School Ways Alive

Norm Benning is one of those guys that's been doing it the hard way, basically forever. Norm Benning is the epitome of AR and what it really represents. He's been racing in NASCAR for the better part of 30 years, but there's really not that much about the guy once you leave the racetrack. Today, we're going to go over to Norm's house with his race shop behind it. Norm's going to show us his shop, trophies, old pictures. He's going to take us to where he ran the old soie car. I'm particularly excited about this one because Norm is from Pittsburgh. I got to tell you, this is my favorite guy, Norm Benning from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He's one of the automobile racing club of America. I grew up in Pittsburgh, and nobody there paid attention to NASCAR at all, it seemed growing up, but there was always one guy who was from there, and that was Norm Benning. Level Green, Pennsylvania. This is Nor Benning Racing. Sorry for the mess, but we're right in the middle of, you see, we just finished half of the roof, two floors. You don't even want to go upstairs. But this is the Speedway truck and this is something I'll probably never get rid of. It's It's really treated me good over the years. I've led races with it. You know, one year I was running six with I don't know 18 laps to go, something like that, and manual fuel pump went bad. What is the backstory of that chassis? Brian Scott. Remember Brian Scott? Mhm. That's his truck. That's how old it is. But for some reason, if you you look back in the archives, it's always always in the top 10 somewhere in the race. Never qualified very well, but ran really good in the draft. When was the last race you ran it in? It'll be two years. I crosseyed Owl out of Decar, Alabama, sponsoring me, and they were really I finished uh 15th or something like that. I can't remember, but they were they were pleased. They got a lot of TV time, and they said they'll they'll do it again. So, you never know. You may see them at Daytona in February. Is that what the deal is now? You are still running SB2s and taking the the penalty. Well, no. I'll be running our the uh you more engines now. But that's there's $300,000 for the SB2 sitting here. There's a couple of them are buried over there. Yeah, that's what uh reminded me of doing this is we were at prom motor and Dennis said something about Norm Benning and I was like, "Oh, Norm Benning, the Pittsburgh guy." And he gave me your number. This one engine here is actually is a Jeff Gordon 18° engine. I'm sorry. All this stuff's piled up on there. That's an that came right out of Hendrickk. I ran it a long time ago on the short tracks. I I have the Hendrickk valve covers and everything else for it. That's really neat for somebody that wants to make one of their show cars authentic. Mhm. That's got all the Hendrick numbers on it. Is that the sign back there? Yeah, that's it. I don't know if we can grab an animal. Grab Henry. Oh, that's a big one. That's probably good enough. You can use their imagination. All this stuff you see here came from Alcoa. Uh, I bought it uh their hanger. They closed up their flight department in Alcoa in Alageney County. Huh. Airport. It still says Alcoa hanger on it. Yeah. You don't see bending bricks manufactured in the United States anymore. Well, none of them are. I really don't want everybody to see my mess. It's not a mess. No, this is not this is not a mess at all over here. This is like a looks like a work gets done here. There's a workbench with nothing on it. That's pretty dang good. I never have a workbench that's this clean. Is that your engine pulling? There's one of them. That arm is 14 ft long. They'll swing 180°. I actually lifted up my hot tub with my hot tub. Did you have a soie deck lid or something? Yeah, upstairs. Oh, I mean if you really really want it bad I think I think people would want to see it. People love old pieces of race cars. Let me let me let me survey the situation. See how hard it look to get out. There's like 300 of those up here. Oh, that's a big one. Oh, that's the late model roof. Sorry about that. I wish I had the camera on a little bit ago. This spring just came flying down the stairs. This I'll show you. The trunk looked buried. But this is actually the roof off of that late model. Oh, wow. That's cool. What year would have this been from? 80s. That thing won a third of the races that entered. Is there a significance behind 11? The guy that owned the the the dirt car, that was his number forever, huh? Him and his brother used to race and uh Reggie Vasco owned it and I drove it and uh we were a great team. He would maintain that car. You very seldom ever had a failure, parts failure or anything. And then I was real good at making a handle. We went out the first night. Remember Joel's machine built the engines and uh we got the engine at 10:00 in the morning or something. He said, "Do do not try to go out and race tonight. Wait till next week." We took it home. It was still warm from the dyno and we put it in this late model and went out, started fourth. I have videotaped all this stuff, but started fourth, had the lead going in turn one, let every lap, won the race the first night. You'd hang that thing up in here. Well, when the walls get done, all that stuff's going to be hanging up. When I was trying to race and do this at all, one, it just doesn't work. Not enough for me to go around. But it's just incredible mess. I mean, clutches and blah blah blah blah. But this, you know, this beautiful Yeah, it is. I should have wiped it off before you took pictures. It's uh it's got authentic patina. People like this stuff find. Yeah. You got some belts up there. Oh, you pipes. You got any X pipes up there? We can do a race car with what's up here. That's the cool stuff. that last year. Did you build those stairs yourself? Yep. I love my Harley. I do a lot more riding now. Cal Petty's asked me several times to go on their rides with them. One of these days I'll do it. And I've got the boat to scare up boat. Goes 85 miles an hour in the water. Supposedly this is what they use down in Miami to chase all the drug runners and stuff like that. We've heard some stories about that. So, and I bought that one down in Florida. For people who don't know, what is your uh day job? I fly airplanes. I'm commercial pilot, but I never flew commercial. I flew corporate. Flew for mind safety and corporate jet, people like that. Teach people how to fly. See, I didn't know that until uh Dennis told us. This is like stuff's cool. you're just like, you know, regular guy, except you happen to be a a NASCAR racer and have been for such a long time. And I I have bragging rights. Uh in fact, that that year that Crossey was there, all of my crew members were from NASA. They were all NASA engineers. How did you and how did you find that? Well, one friend of mine who helped build the shuttle, he asked us the other I have huge amount of fans at NASA for some reason and uh it's cuz you're they all wanted to go and so we had six of the guys that helped build the the shuttle on our crew. And that was that was bragging rights. Yeah, that's cool. But they I'd ask them to do something and they'd do it better than I could ever do it and then they'd take it apart cuz they wouldn't like it. They do it better. So it it was a lot of fun working with those guys. That picture there is I had the poll at the World Dirt Track Championship years ago. Went down there. There were 136 cars. We qualified on the pole. Is that Pensboro? Yeah. So, this is the car I remember when I was a little kid going to Arca races. I dug a bunch of stuff out. You can look through it. What did this car used to be? To be honest with you, I don't remember. They're just old cup cars. Every one of them. Man, what a great run for Nor Benning. Long time contender again. Underfunded team. I don't believe he came in and changed tires one time tonight, guys. Didn't you run 84? Cuz at one time you had 84 lumber just Yeah, there's pictures in there. Uh, I had 84 lumber at the brickyard the first year. You still have that fire suit upstairs? As a matter of fact, that's cool. A lot of uniforms. So uniforms. That's why that's my dad. I found that picture. Why does his helmet say Ben? That was his That's my nickname, too. Oh, Ben. I was He was Big Ben. I was little Ben. Oh. Oh, is that why there's a clock on the on his I don't know about the it's you know I wasn't around when he did that. I don't know who who designed that that they should have been shot. [Laughter] So was this the car that you said was Nhard's bird car? Yeah, as a matter of fact it was the one he hit the bird at. He was leading the race. Kind of ruined his day. test. I noticed that in some of these pictures it's still got the um the red interior. Yeah. How did you come to acquire that car? I actually got it through uh I believe it was Dave Dave Marcus somehow got me hooked up with that car. H and uh you know Dave worked with them quite a bit. I actually led that race and the side window came out with 18 laps to go. They black flagged me and that's the that's the car I ran at the brickyard 84 lumber. Then we ran it again at Charlotte. How' the 84 lumber deal come about? Cuz they're local, aren't they? They're local. I That's why I had that number for so many years cuz Joe Hardy kept saying he was going to get involved and he ended up getting involved but not for a whole lot of money. Mhm. But then it was it's was crazy like 2 weeks later Lowe's was involved. They came out and Home Depot got involved and it was all because I came out with 84 lumber. They're the third biggest in the country. That's interesting. So the other two had to come out and they got big money. I I didn't. But uh and then what did they decide they weren't going to try to compete with them or what? I mean, they they sponsored me here and there, but they just never never spent enough money to make a big difference. Now, where were you preparing these cars at back in this era? They were all down Morrisville. So, you lived here, but had uh did you have like a different team putting those together for you? Yeah. I mean, I always had people all my stuff always came from down there in Morrisville. That was banquet there, Arca Banquet. I was I was up to third in the points that year. ended up fifth in the points. That's the Cup car that came from DEI. Back then, how did you buy cars from teams like that? Did you just know people or Well, I I had Show Dean Homes out of Chicago sponsoring me and he's the one that was paying the bills and at the time that was when the Coot Cars came out and that was I thought was the best car I could get. So, we went and ran Daytona with it. And and then that was Charlotte. Also, I ran I don't know how many total cup races I ran, but a lot of them were Daytona and the Winston Open, which they don't consider that a race because they don't give you points. But I I ran at least 10 of those Winston opens. And did you have 57 because of Hines? Right. And if we had a board meeting and there was there was one lady on the board that just I couldn't get her to do that. So that Hines football field was the money I I was supposed to get. Oh. Oh man. She uh they spent all that money on on the Hinesfield back then. And now it's not Hinesfield anymore. Yeah. Now it's Acush or something something. I don't even know what it is. I don't even know. But it was such a perfect fit. You know, I'm from Pittsburgh. They're from Pittsburgh. Yeah. Oh, I tried for I don't know how many years. And then like I said, I did. That's why I had the 84 cuz 84 lumber. This picture is my dad. That's why I brought it out. I figured it was. Yeah. He was in the Hall of Fame. the uh you got the Dapper Dan Award which is a all the news people, news writers every year they they vote on different people from different sports and the year my dad got the Dapper Dano award he was sitting right next to Roberto Kmente. Wow. Who also got it. That's cool. And I don't know how old I was then. 10 10 or 12 or something. But it was so cool to see him sitting up there on stage next to Roberto Kinte. That was like he was like the guy back then. Yeah. We were here. I mean I wasn't old enough to even be around. He was alive. Even when I was little, he was like a mythical figure, right? That's your baby. Well, that's you know, you didn't see too many race teams with dogs. I started it. That's Harry. And he uh he went to every race. All the officials knew him. And uh I remember Steve Park came over one one time to talk to me and and Harry bit him. And but uh yeah, everybody everybody knew Harry. Why didn't he like Steve? Well, he didn't like anybody. Just he was very protective. He liked uh he protected me. anybody come around around me. It was uh it was not it was not good. It only weighed 20 lbs, but he was fresh. I told Steve, "Don't take it personally. He bites everybody." He laughed about it. When you had this holler, did that serve as your motor home, too? Yeah. Yep. That's pretty cool. Yeah. In the ARCA deal, we'd just drop the trailer. So, you have to drop the trailer then go park in the RV lot. Yeah. Huh. It worked out really nice. That thing was 75 ft long. I remember going to the California race and pulled onto the scales in California and got a $300 fine cuz it was 10 ft longer than what they allow. This is intense. Oh, is that the Eldora truck? Yeah, that was half the outdoor qualifying race and every team except Clay Greenfields of course was over there working on that truck and Mike Hillman is one of the best crew chiefs there are was underneath that truck fixing it. And I remember, you know, I was doing a bunch of interviews and Kenny Schrader came over and put his arm around me. I'm doing this for you. And you he finished and he said, "Norm, I know you're enjoying all these accolades, but have you looked at your truck and he laughed and he said, "I'm taking it with me. We're going to take it down the haller and I guarantee you it'll be ready for the race." And I'll I'll never forget that. I mean, Richard Childress was over there. Steve Turner had all three of the crews working on my truck after that qualifying race. Wow. So like everybody was determined to everybody in that infield wanted to see me in that race and there was a lot of damage that you know the rear end housing was bent, the right front frame rail was bent. There was a lot of damage but they fixed it as best they could and I went out and ran the race but I'll never forget that. That's really cool. Like I said, Mike Kilman jumped underneath it. They My guys couldn't even get near the truck. There were so many people working on it. They were just standing there in awe and I was standing there in awe cuz I I raced like that a lot on dirt and late models and stuff and I I never got that kind of response before. But I guess it was because it was Aldora and it was I remember Tony Stewart was the first one of the truck. He stuck his head inside before he even got out. He said, "Norm, doesn't matter what happens the rest of the night, you just made this show a success." So that was pretty cool. And that truck is now in his museum up there at Eldora. Really? Yeah. Like is it still in its after the race form? Like exactly. Never cleaned it, nothing. Did he buy it from you after the race or something? Well, that's kind of a funny story, too. Everybody wanted to buy it. I put it on eBay. I was getting all these offers to for this truck and then uh his manager, can't think of his name, up there at Aldor, he called me up. He said, "Norm, you can't sell that truck." I said, "Why not?" He said, "It's history. It's a part of history. You need to get it over here. Tony wants it. So I I took it over to Aldora and it's, you know, Tony owns it now. So you donated it to the museum? Well, no, he helped me out. He did buy it. I thought they were just windowed you out of selling this thing and like, "No, just park it here." But it's really cool that it's enshrined like that forever. Yeah, it is. Just the way it came off the racetrack. Same tires, everything. We'll have to go see that someday. That's really cool. It's a shame Hines didn't go for it. This is a really neat looking Yeah, that was Is this like a render? Yes. Is that what you were supposed to do? Yes. Oh man, that sucks that didn't happen. That's a good looking truck. Yeah, I still would like to see it happen, but I know their marketing department, everything. They moved out to California and Hines isn't really there, I don't think, anymore in Pittsburgh, but yeah, they got bought by Craft or something like that and they're not really like It's a shame. You never know, though. Somebody might value that at some point. I hope they do. Yeah. I'd love to change things up a little bit. You know, everybody wants to sponsor these young kids and Mhm. They really don't have a lot of experience. Mhm. And they go out and destroy stuff. And uh a lot of them buy their way in. They don't deserve the rights, but family money gets them wherever they want to go. And I'd love to find a company that would sponsor an a veteran. Yeah. Somebody with a story. Yeah. I just last week I was watching Ryan Newman there at Martinsville. He's still one of the best drivers out there. But because of the equipment he's driving, he's struggling. And it's that simple. You know, if you're a football player, basketball, baseball, whatever, it's your talent. In this business, if you don't have the equipment, you're not going to you're not going to be successful. It's that simple. Yeah. And it takes major sponsorship to to buy the equipment and the people. The people are very important. So, I'd love to just for once just have a company support me with top-notch equipment just so I could show them what I can do. At Daytona last year in February, I had the fourth fastest car there. That was the first time in my life I ever drove a Toyota. And I remember Luke from Ilmore was so excited. He came over. I told Luke, I said, "Luke, I don't think I got full throttle." He says, "You're fourth fastest." Yeah. I said, "You better check it. I don't think it's full throttle." It He really loved that. Then the crew changed some things before qualifying and shouldn't have done it. It destroy the speed in the truck and that was the end of that. But I'd love to go back there again with the right people and the right equipment in February. I guarantee it'll be a big story. I certainly would be. I think NASCAR needs something like that to happen. Honestly, be good. Well, Eldora, you know, and again, I people want to talk about that all the time. I'm kind of bored of that. I want to write new chapter, but I went viral on Twitter for for eight hours and I was more popular than the Kardashians. And that's that's saying something. Yeah. And I didn't know that till years later. Somebody had told me. But uh I remember Chocolate Myers talking about me on the radio all day long the next day. I was driving home and my uh serious radio had broke and uh the day before that so I didn't I missed it all but he said that's all they talked about the next day was Eldora and that qualifying race. I wasn't going home. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, they talked about the Chastain riding the wall. had never seen that before, but if they look at the Aldora a qualifying race. I was into the wall about as hard as you can get and uh and finish the race. But uh Did you ever have a conversation with that Clay Greenfield guy after afterwards? Not too much. Is he pretty salty? Yeah, he uh he was sure he was a better driver than me and he found out that he wasn't. But I had loaned him a this is a story that not a lot of people know and this is I had I he called me and begged me to bring a truck to I think it was Kansas City for him to drive. I did and it was actually the truck I was supposed to run the following week. It was my better truck and…