Ray Evernham's IROC Race Car Fleet Getting Ready For IROC at Lime Rock Reunion!

as you can see walking into here there's a bunch of them ready to go another one of those kind of barn find cars we want people to see it fans are sending me stuff like this if you didn't know Ray everham is bringing irck back and the first event is actually about to happen we're about to show you everything he's got going on in here and give you a preview of all the cars that will be there so what you got going on in here uh well as you know we're really working hard to get ready for July 19th and 20th irck at limrock and been very fortunate to find and be offered some really special cars this car is probably you know I don't want to say it's my favorite car in here and offend somebody but I actually worked really hard on this car this was one of the first generation 3 Ira Camaros that we ever built and a lot of my work is still on this car this car is on loan from Richard chis and the folks at Richard chis racing this car was driven in several Races by D Aron har has a ton of time on it many many many of the original irck parts from the 1984 1989 Camaros and these cars really got changed into Dodge daytonas and then the roofs got cut off and they changed them to Avengers and as far as I know there may be only three of these that exist that was not changed over and this is one of them and really thank Richard for putting it on loan but this is going to be a car that is be a static display only up at Lime Rock but I encourage everybody to take a look at it because this this to me is truly a time capsule of what the cars looked like when we built them in 1984 I've only ever seen really old pictures of this car in like early versions of the RCR Museum and never anything after that I always wondered where it was until you posted a picture of it well Richard had it had it hidden had it put away you know obviously when Dale passed away you know I I think uh you know Richard took some personal things and put them away mostly you know the font on the number is not correct but other than that I'm telling you there's very few things that I can find wrong uh with this car and as I said when I look at it I see a lot of my original welding and work and I when I saw this car at Richard several years ago I knew right away it was one of the cars that I actually had hands on how can you tell the difference between one of your welds and somebody else's because they weren't very good back then they held up but they weren't they weren't pretty I was still pretty an apprentice probably can't weld that good now cuz I haven't hell I can't see plus I haven't practice practice but early in my career when I was learning the weld aluminum and learning the weld steel you know we did a lot of that stuff at irck and as the years went on certainly got better but looking at my welds you know they were good and hot you know but they they weren't pretty going to start somewhere everybody does yeah that's awesome they got a regular zbar linkage in there but they have a hydraulic cylinder pushing it how often do you get to lay on the ground and look under one of these things try to do this for for those of you who like to see the details and you guys who build models I've um come to be aware of how useful these detail shots are for you guys want to help you out if I can and then the other car over there that again that's another irck car we've been working on it for a while you might have seen that one that is the uh cookwoods uh car that was bought from iro changed into a Trans Am car and George Fulmer won his last ever professional trans am race at Laguna sea with this car so we're restoring this actually back to its Trans Am history because you know with Fulmer uh a victory with George Fulmer one of greatest one of the greatest American Road Racers is is pretty special because George Fulmer was also the irck test driver so again this car has got a double Legacy for me was this the Nikki L car no the Nikki L Car ended up being the car that bill wner has there were two there were three cookwoods team cars so once in California a man named Don Bell owns it which was George uh George Fulmer's number 16 then there was this car which was the O2 and the other cookwoods car which was the two the number two car is the one that Nikki L actually drove as an irck car and we had them swapped and and through Matt yokum's just Relentless paperwork and history we've identified that this is the O2 car was the O2 car sat on the pole at lawn Rock Connecticut with with Brian Redmond behind the wheel and then one at Laguna sea after George Fulmer got out of one car and then cook wood said well you jumping in the O2 so he this wasn't his normal ride wasn't driving for for cook Woods at that time put the car on the pole and won the race with it 1982 that's a curve ball but that's cool that you you think you got to figure it out and then oh yeah no changes you know we Relentless documentation to do something like that because when one the hardest thing with these cars is really verifying their history past Iraq and that's what we had to do and sometimes you do that with pictures and history and and you know Matt went through hundreds of pictures spacing pop rivets looking at DSE you know holes in the a pillars all those things because you know numbers get swapped paint jobs get swapped but pieces of the chassis and timing don't get swapped and we had two of the original mechanics that worked at Cook Woods come here and take a look at the car and verify it huh was it easier to like did they modify it to the point where it's easier to restore it back to the that configuration than on doing what they did to make it irck again yeah and because we have irck cars we felt it would be more valuable to maintain the history of George's last win but cook Woods did several things you can see that car's only got two right side door bars in it where where all the others have three they took that out they extended the nose and and put the radiator in on an angle they also moved the frame rail out on the left front subframe part to add a power steering box so there were several structural things that they changed when they changed it to a Trans Am car they really went on a lightning kick cut off a lot of the body panels the steel stuff put on fiberglass stuff everything they could do to make it lighter interesting this one and this is the other cook Woods car this is the bill wer car that you asked me is this the car that Nikki L drove this this is the car that Nikki La started a race with the whole story behind that was Nikki La was paid to come over run an irck race Bernie eckelstone told him no didn't want you to do that on the pace laps somehow Nikki L burned the clutch out of this car never actually took the the green flag got credited for last place but this is the number the yellow number two when it was an iral car that Nicki lder drove so since then it's had again several different lives it's now owned by Bill Warner who was the originator the actually the founder of the Amilia Island concore so people who have been having these cars have been sending them to you to be prepared to take to Lime Rock yeah we've been doing we've got a bunch of them that we've been doing you know this is uh again one of the iro Firebirds uh ran from 96 to 2006 several different people drove this car right now this car is is in Livery of the U Jeff Gordon's only win it it uh in an IR Ro car so obviously J my buddy we want to make sure that he's represented and this car we're actually taking this car because this is another one of those kind of barn find cars we want people to see it this is one of the three now there may be four but I can account for three Camaros that were never changed into Dodges and this is one of them another this is another car that that I had hands on and built we sent this car over to my friend Aaron Brown at the garage shop to have some chassis work done on it and they they they did a beautiful beautiful job this car was crashed and as you can see they repaired uh the frame put new pieces in and really did a nice job and as you can see how beautiful the welding is in there so I know I'll know it's not it's not an original uh original Ray car but if you if you come back in back and and look inside you can see you know some of the welding by the seat mounts and and the you know the switch mounts now all a lot of that stuff are still my handiwork when I was a young man this car will be on display up there as a static display right near the ear Hort par now we also you know for this irck reunion we have four irck former iro Champions driving in the exhibition Mark Martin Jeff Bodine Mark Martin Jeff Bodine Bobby leonte Al Aller Jr then there's eight cars representing other iro Champions like FY Bob yaner Kurt Bush how many total irck race cars are supposed to be on the property right now 24 to 26 we lost one got some adding there's probably going to be 16 or 17 16 or 17 on track and then there'll be um some static display again this has been our our kind of our test Bay Ronnie's been working on the carburetor of uh of cast's car he says I think Ronnie's just having fun driving that one because he fits good in it I told him he's got more time in it than iio did uh and the local police have been very patient with us testing these cars uh in the little uh uh industrial park that we have here I waiting to get that call that they've ounded one and as you can see walking into here there's a bunch of them ready to go the Peter Greg car this car won at Riverside I believe 78 uh one of the Riverside races there's a a uh that car it was a number blue number two Camaro Daytona Avenger and now it is in Livery of Dale Earnhart as he won the championship with a carard 95 I believe this car is owned by Mark Martin that is Mark Martin's car that is one of his championship cars it's been in his collection for a long time we got it running Mark is going to come out to Lime Rock and drive it himself this car is ready for aloner Jr uh he's formerly driven this car a bunch and again both of these cars were originally Camaros um we call irck generation so the irck generation one Camaro which is like that number 12 is there that would be an irck generation 2 Camaro this the uh nhart car and that other car that I showed you inside there that we're working on that would be irck Generation 3 Camaro so the way we identify everything is irck Porsche irck gen one Camaro irck Gen 2 Camaro irck Gen 3 Camaro Dodge Daytona Dodge Avenger and fireberg they were the the the generations of the cars you know for for me uh and some people go that's not a gen 3 Camaro that's not a it's like no no we're talking about the iro Generations those were the cars that they ran this car really another super cool car we actually replaced the glass windshield in this car because it was broken with a axan windshield but this this is a irck gen one Camaro and it has never been really restored and if you look at it it is it's a pretty cool car so we didn't restore it we went through it went the mechanically um it doesn't have the correct engine and transmission in it but the you know again roll cage and all the things you know this is what this is how they ran these cars so we're going to take this it it it is going to be not only on display but we're going to uh use it for driving another irck gen one Camaro um that car up top is Bobby labon's 2001 Firebird Championship car that was driven by Bobby to his championship and that is Bobby's car another guy dropped it off here my deal with the guy you drop off here I'll get him running you come drive them and and uh the guys had a lot of fun with that well it's oil change time now we're doing it on the old Audi here so we're going to go to Advanced Auto Parts and get ourselves some penzo Platinum the V10 and car calls for 5 w40 Peno has that formulation in the Platinum Euro line and they got a blend of platinum or Ultra platinum or platinum high mileage for just about everybody this is the right one for us right now and a helpful tip our local store doesn't have tons of variants on the Shelf but if you ask them they often have a lot more behind the counter so if you're driving something weird like our car here you might have to ask for it but they got it what's neat about these things is they put the oil filter on top so you don't have to go under the car it's not that bad can I do it without making a mess oh all right there we go we're smoothing out now I actually use ultra Platinum Z w40 in this dodge R5 p7 in the race car here if it's good enough for my race motor it's good enough for my daily driver that's for sure next time you do an oil change with Penzoil take a picture and tag me in it on Instagram Facebook or whatever and I'll share it test me this car will be driven by Danny Sullivan that that's owned by my partner Rob Kaufman that car was a also a gen three Camaro it was a black number 22 and then was changed to a a Daytona an Avenger I this is a car that I actually drove when I used to test drive at IRA and we always kid around because we get the books with these cars but that's the car I spun at Daytona my only spin at Daytona that's it so this car here is the one that you've probably read about you've done some things on it Daryl Waltrip 179 I believe Riverside but this is the card that was driven by Paul Newman Clint Eastwood Jean Hackman um Bob bonger they were they out James bro and they they did a kind of a a promotional day out in California at Sears point one day and and they all drove that car this is Ken Trader's personal car his personal car dropped it off this is Kenny ran this car bought it after the 95 iro series that he ran in and we got it all ready Kenny's going to come out and drive it and then we have the you know again fo that's another one of our Championship Cars that AJ used uh through the years that that he ran but as you can see there's a there's a bunch of stuff here really ready to go and I think that as far as Gathering Ira history and then being able to see this many generations of Ira cars on the racetrack it's going to be a pretty neat day we unfortunately don't have any Dodge daytonas really hard to get those there's Dodge Daytona bodies around but there's no Dodge Daytona cars that that we could find the other thing that we had trouble getting was an a a legitimate um Ira Porsche cuz they're a couple million bucks and people don't like to bring them out much we haven't given up uh but we do have a couple of really nice irck replicas so there'll be Porsches represented on the racetrack as well man there's just like there couldn't have ever been this many Ira cars Under One Roof since they the shop last ex not since irck and certainly not this many different Generations yeah you know that that's the key part there's there's several Generations right now we've got basically uh so 22 22 years of Iraq history represented oh no 30 I'm sorry 32 years of Iraq history represented I don't know if you if you get to see this last time you were here but it's pretty cool little deal you know this is the this is the original Iraq flag from when Bobby uner won the championship in 1980 how'd you get that um Matt Yokum again you know really a big historian on finding things and he also found me if you want to walk up in the office here he actually found the 1975 flag and Bobby oner's jacket so you know Matt Matt being you know quite the historian that he is constantly is on the lookout for Stuff you know again this is from just from being on Facebook and whatnot fans are sending me stuff like this that's awesome so that that comes to me from a man who used to be on the safety crew at Michigan his name's G Hillard and he said hey rash look got my jacket you want it I was like hell yeah again here's Bobby aner zyck jacket from 1975 huh and the flag which this thing is in incredible condition we we actually called the Flag Company and said hey this did you build a replica this thing is way too neat and it turns out that Bobby Yer put it in his trophy case immediately and and they said no that's the original flag judging from material and the way that the letters came on and the stitching rather than just patches you know and the logo absolutely the real flag that used to be in the uner museum they just moved in the uner museum so you know again cool stuff and we continue to find you know more and more things I I have my old irck jacket my uniform shirts again stuff from the mid 80s you going to wear it ah I'm probably you know it's going to be a little bit too warm for a jacket but but you might see me in an old shirt yeah that'd be cool yeah it's the full effect so the other the other thing this was a gift from a friend of mine scetta and he knows I'm a big iro fan and originally there was some discussion on whether or not this was George Fulmer's helmet because George had a paint job around this turns out but a little again a little bit of research it's Bobby rol's iro helmet so really really cool deal and and said people continue to send me things because they know they know how much I apprec appreciate about the Iraq history you're going to be able to have a museum exhibit of even stuff outside of cars or my kids will have a lot to sell it's you know the key thing is you get it you protect it because if you don't really care for this stuff it disappears and then that's a part of racing history that would be gone is that the uh the chief that he talked about in the book from hendrik the with Chief walking stick or something like that what was what was the name Chief cranking witch yeah something like that is Chief cranking wit that that is that is him yeah that is the the that is the true Chief from uh stood in the in the 24 shop that book was fun to read I'd recommend that for anybody I'm not like a I didn't read ever read a book that wasn't forced upon me to read outside of high school until recently and now I read books all the time that was one of them that um that was an experience writing the book but you we've gotten a lot of good positive uh positive feedback uh about it so again if that uh we still got autograph copies and and uh we're going to do a book signing up at at the uh irck irck at Lime Rock as well myself and Jeff bodino both be autographing books up there which one of these are you going to be driving um I'm going to make sure that they all uh stop steer turn you know and make sure they go but I I'll tell you that I'm going to be I'm going to be up in the to making sure everybody behaves themselves because even though we want to put on a nice show for the fans we don't want to put any dents in these things yeah I'm really looking forward to being there and seeing this and seeing all the all the people and the cars in one place cuz that's when the stories come out is you get all that Powder Keg put together well you figure we've got you know from Jeff Bodine Ira Champion raced with you know Al Al Jr and then you know Mark and you know then Danny Sullivan and you know the the guys so Jeff braam is going to be there in a car Davey Jones is going to be there in a car Greg biffle's going to be there Hornady day Skinner just a great great list of you know besides Shader Martin you know guys like that Scott speed is going to get into one of the cars for us so it's really we're going to have a great great group of drivers and uh off the top of my head I I I keep losing count because we keep adding but I think there's 10 nine or 10 guys who have competed in Iraq and four of those have been Champion wow what time are the the Iraq specific festivity is going to be happening because this is like within the other the bigger event yeah we you know we we just load in set up on Thursday the 18th on Friday the 19th I believe it's around 11:30 11:40 we have our first kind of practice Shakedown then there's so really some cool autograph signings 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