Rockingham Speedway's Former Track Manager of 30+ Years Has Crazy NASCAR History Stories

you moved this whole building back here and then filled it with toilets yeah in the 80s yeah dale come on his motorhome walked in the shops around he said i need some some rags rags i don't know if i can get them yeah i'm gonna get up there we had to get rid of your old desk it had some weird things a little bit more discs am i culturally appropriating anything i'm digging up pieces out of here and i think i'm gonna be able to put this 76 back together i miss it yeah i miss i'd love to see another race here before i die i hope i do it's all about the dollar now it ain't about by the race fans so i'm driving to rockingham right now and i'm pretty sure that the transmission is slipping in uncle george i hope whenever i get there and let this thing cool down that it acts okay enough just for me to get back because so we made it back to rockingham with the man ronnie talked about in the main tour video how long have you worked here almost 30 years since what like 1981 i think he said yeah wow jamie where do you think we should go to get his story's turning why don't we uh why don't we why don't we roll over here we figured out that the drag strips were still an airport when that building was built so when did the drag strips turn over i didn't know i had to remember all these dates y'all right it had to be after that probably 97 98 we built this i'm not exactly sure to date but i'm just guessing because frank was dead and chris got here what was what was uh here before this building that was it was another building you tore it down in the concrete it wasn't uh it was small we tore it all down so here's here's something i've always wondered the the cigarette signs who printed those signs could pineapple who printed them because it says please put cigarette butts here please it's somebody very very polite we had a guy i loved him samuel shacker he was a sign painter here and i'm sure he did that yeah he would be a sign painting around him he was really good he painted all our signs billboard we had billboards all around he kept them painted he came in by hand painted my hand yeah he put them stencils up like he did the grass he painted grass every race always beautiful which one of these press box buildings is like the most original to the track from your recollection because we never went to the ones down there i'm wondering if there's any storage rooms or under areas or anything like that whales they still sing oh we had one we had that building and that building right there was the only two hills right right there where the sweets is that was original and that was original and i'll show you something else it's original when we wrap we built this building we took a dog a german shepherd had him down young we're looking they're looking for drugs we hid some drugs in the bottom of that now we didn't do it but the other people did hit some drugs down there in the cabinet they come down and took that jeremy shepherd and went all the way upstairs brought him down here he got that cabinet sitting down and stuck his nose to the cabin just sit there that drill was in that cabinet why did they do that they won't see if there's any drugs up here oh imagine that oh yeah here we go yeah right here you see that right there i thought it was a tractor trailer yeah [Laughter] the things that would go on the front of the trailer like between it wow mr dimmer took those and brought these down when they built this place you see this is one of the originals it's just been redone you know and they work fine they may still work i don't know i'm pretty sure it works but i mean that's the type of thing we had to go through because we didn't have the money the racetrack didn't have the money that daytona would have what palladega would have or whoever they we didn't have the money and we were like a little old family mr d which i mean we just we we just like the main office didn't have nine or ten people working there and they went with two of us in the maintenance i mean we had a we had to go so that's that's original 65. that's been there since the very first cup race here that's crazy let's go look at this thing i want to i want to look at it yeah we didn't go up to these buildings in the full tour video which you should go check out if you haven't seen that already this is kind of like the um wow so yeah we got them all the way down made in usa you know it's old that way he had just done too much to do with his people about he had a big farm in the middle and they did all this this this walkway here yeah the welders they brought the welders down here and made it bigger because it was real small back then but this is one of the oldest buildings we just remodeled it when was the last remodel in here like what era is this carpet and stuff when we built that build we remodeled this okay so like late 90s we always want plastic up to keep this carpet from fading see how it's fading yeah we all had to hang plastic after the race to keep them from fading that makes sense that's what we did you hang plastic over the glass over the glass to keep the sun from fading the carpet huh yeah see how it stayed i mean the front face of the stair is almost white see how it is yeah it makes it look red what color this so these used to be red yeah it was red like that i've gone but see we have a plastic here yeah keep the sun out these chairs say september 99 on them it's okay so was this carpet like red red or was that that salmon color back there red dark red right really back up here this this is the color right here look right there that's color oh okay that's cool wow yeah this does look like 1965 stuff yeah that's probably it did you write any of this semi truck thing wow look at those i don't even know what i'm looking at there but it just looks like vintage well there's a few little heaters that we'd cut them on in the wintertime to keep everything from freezing up we couldn't afford the fire bee on the so we just put little heaters in like that most of these still work oh yeah huh and you can turn them on low and they leave just enough heat in here from keep stuck and freezing up morning because he's singing tyler's buckle and everything else if you didn't keep the ticket here the same how did this place kind of getting removed from the cuff schedule alter your life being part of this place for so long and then it's just like not there how did it affect my life yeah i retired and it i miss it yeah i miss i'd love to see another race here before i die i hope i do what do you feel when you look at all of this stuff again and think about those days when this carpet was still red and hot it bring back a lot of memories we had liquor and lock it up in there one morning see we had a we had a rod go through there and had a lock on people were breaking the cabinet still to lift well we started taking the liquor to the office blocking it up in safe because it wasn't safe up here it's different made my life different i mean i've enjoyed working here i mean it's like i said but back in then back then when we were working it wasn't it wasn't all this politics and and who got the most money and nothing like that we mr d would start here from nothing from scrap him and [Applause] the land mr land across the street i think they re-anointed it so mr d was the guy who like built this place yeah well there was i think four or five stockholders you know i guess i don't know we said we on the dry strip too and we used it as an airport like davey allison and bobby allison uh earnhardt that had their own planes they landed over there and we'd shut them over shoulder them over here he was in there one night that shot and uh me and earl was and so everybody he's talking about that white door over there in the corner sitting there that was my office on the right side of the shortest middle building there yeah to the right of the media center that that corner right there there's an office space inside that shop and so that was his office we're gonna have to go there we should walk down there i remember that with the tv on the ledge and stuff yeah yeah there was a picnic table in there and that every friday night after the qualifying they'd go big all the race drivers go up and party and find her i'm sitting there one night and i let everybody punch out and earl garrison i mean he was the only one left and i said you ready to go home he said yeah he said can we have a beer before we go and i had a little water cooler had some beer in online so we punched out we sit there and we drank some beer before we went home and by that time that door up and i think the first one was bodine then it opened again it was dale dylan and he wanted oils i said it's in that cover i said what are you doing here dale he said uh i get tired that mess up now he said that picnic table and he was talking he said you know he said you didn't ever ask me for my autograph i said i ain't never pulled for you i don't want you i said you can't win daytona he said uh one day i'm gonna win daytona well three or four years went by two or three years went by i didn't think nothing else of it he won daytona well jimbo was his motorcoach driver they jimbo come in here that monday and put his motor coach over yonder and come over with a hat and they always sign that hat i told you so [Laughter] so i got me a rock hat and i signed it i didn't want you autograph i mean we killed around like that you know i mean he was he that's cool that he remembered that like he was he was that spiteful too to remember that that's amazing yeah really yeah and uh i need to see a picture my boss man said you don't ask for no autographs no i didn't frank frank was strict about that he didn't want to us bother these drivers you know when they come but give him everything well rusty and dale i don't know what year well they got into the daytona hit but dale took rusty out the last lap of the race i think but the next race was here well right there with that tractor sitting under on that pad we put three motor homes yeah we put rusted motor on we put daryl walker's motor home and we put earnhardt i come to work that morning because after all that mess happened in dayton brookie was mad at dale and uh was in the shop there i couldn't work about five o'clock and they'll come out his motorhome walked in the shops around he said i need some some rags rags get my hand full of rags i got a bunch of rags we walked over there on what he unhooked the shoreline from rusty's trail and crammed him rags up in there well when rusty when rusty took a shower he flooded we had some times i'm here to tell you yeah but them days are gone i mean yeah it's all about the dollar now it ain't about by the race fans it's just i'd love to see it happen again here today we need to go down there let's walk down there no this ain't the original one goodyear put this up where's the original one got you under the barnyard sticking up i made a box stand out so the original flag stand the very first flag stand from rockingham that's being used as a it's got you under the field oh that's the one with the with the ladder on it one i'd fix i have no idea that's the flag stand right here use the original flag stand for hunting that's amazing i had no idea that's exactly what that is huh okay yeah we're gonna have to go back there too i need to bring a notepad we like to drive about now yeah we drove by we gotta go to the boneyard too i had to hand paint everybody at one time lord i enjoyed every minute divots they blew out their tires went down to the rim isn't that terrible you got a she was hot buddy she had that tire hot dish let's say the thing about the whole situation about the track being rough some of the drivers liked it some of them didn't repave the racetrack repaved the racetrack then you go up to one leave it alone it's a racer it's a driver's track that's what they tell me it's a driver's trap leave it alone but somebody else wants it paid because they didn't win i reckon rusty wallace said something about that tell them about that yeah roaches didn't leave it alone one time it's a driver's track now we're over pit wall going into the what was the former welding shop slash your office this is your this is your spot uh there wasn't one when we got here that's now now that's that's my generator yeah all the cleanup guys that we had working that i had working for me uh we met here because they had to have radios you know like the when they put the caution out or oil spill or something everybody met here that morning so which door did dale and her come in looking for beer that one no no he pulled that door by oh the big door yeah and then the hole was for the cat see the hole yeah rocky we had a cat named rocky he had a little tail about that long wasn't the time clock still there when we did the tour i don't remember those drills being there yeah i just put i just put all those up the uh the punch card thing is actually in the back of the safety truck right now really yeah yeah we had a tv so we could see if a caution went out everybody i had they was on point they was on the track ready to go and sometimes we'd be here eating lunch a few of us when we had to take a break you know and we'd watch it on tv if they had to caution we'd take off you know everybody knew what to do yeah it was over there yeah i was beating up right here yeah well my boss man with frank wilson damn being here i've been fighting and frank won the spray paint something it was cold he said a count of paint that up under here the heater was on but it was over there it was all outside well he forgot about that counterpart we come inside when we open that door that thing went off and it blew paint this thing you had paint all over it bent it all up what color was the paint a little blue is there still like any remnants of it over there it probably blew but it blowed up scared it i thought you might drop the ball that's hilarious i'm looking for evidence what is it this is my little we had to get ready we had to get rid of your old desk it had some weird things a little bit more desk at all where was your desk how was it set up in here right there is this your handwriting i have my handwriting on that old paper i don't know what it is phone number and that phone number yeah that's phone numbers so you wrote all that yeah yeah it says it says ronnie right there yeah wow and it's been a long time [Music] lord have mercy wow wow it's not very often you get to walk through a place like this and see something that's like really old on the wall and like i wonder who wrote that i wonder what they're doing right now he's like here telling us about it that's the coolest thing ever yeah that's the doordale human believe it brett beaudine rusty is this cage thing original we built that the tools kept leaving somebody from our working on the car didn't run against find a wrench and they needed it forgot where it come from we started losing tools so we started locking it up this is functional again this is kind of our in-field base of operations now we're fixing it up it's a work in progress we just started a few days ago well the thing about us we were so small and if they needed me out there on the pit road or something i mean or in the grass introduced you know we had we had a trailer where we pulled out there and introduced the drivers on and if anybody needed me i'd be around this area now on the outside i had guys sitting like in the pump house over there and on that end and i had plumbers on each turn i have a plumber in here that way this plum rank got to get through all that traffic to get over there so we had one in the tower one on each end and one here this man here took your whole infield if sewer problem or water problems happen this man was in here so you had four plumbers on staff on during the race during the race wow we had more than four we had about six or eight wow but we just put them out so we call them on the radio didn't have because if you go out that tone during the race it might take you an hour to get around there traffic that's right we had people scattered electricians also the kid in the campground down there on uh outside turn three yeah cut a tree down at 177 and hit that line and that one line fed this place right all the power went off then on when they built that building yeah we had a generator sitting down yeah that switches up yeah yeah i love it if the power went off in about two seconds then costs a lot would work yeah no i mean we were wondering what the hell is this plug for and then we we followed it we're like this is for a generator backup for the caution lights yeah amazing wow that's awesome do you think there's anything in the other side of the welding shop that might have storage attached to it like that blown up heater building when i first came here goodyear worked out here before they built the garage area here they worked out here really see this this right here that right there was 76 station huh the gas pumps was right here really is that why this is like cut out here with the gas pump and that was a 76 where johnny didn't use all 76 and unical use and then goodyear was in that building all out there what was the reason for them moving the uh gas pumps to the other side of the building no they moved them down they're in the garage oh they took these up put new ones when they built the garage so and then over there at the end of the garage huh they had them over by the end of the garage right yeah yeah okay that's where unicow moved to i guess all that noise you're here in the background is guys tearing out those sleepers over there are those bleachers that are getting torn out getting replaced uh we're gonna build out a like a big party deck kind of thing huh yeah that's gonna be cool yeah right mm-hmm yeah you like this we haven't gotten to this room yet um yep that's unical door that's unical orange yeah tnn was here one time and they were uh tnn was uh do some filming here and uh so they had their own booth up on top so they shot a lot of commercials down here and uh when they have commercials they can put stuff up like that you know yeah they supposed to take it off commercials for what well like budweiser with uh bill elliot and uh they'd be at four o'clock in the morning watch the sun come up and budweiser had a commercial uh they've made that movie but andy i forgot the name of the movie now funny guy what's his name will willfur oh talladega nights yeah that was filmed here yeah part of it was filmed here some of you shot i think some of it was a dog on daytona or something but then you crashed cars right out there huh and hillary he took care of all that uh what'd you guys put in this that was in the in that building right there i can't remember what was in there do you have any stories about mark martin no i know one thing he was very athletic he was uh he was a little fella but he was a man man i i've seen him race a lot he won a lot here he was real good in bush series they couldn't nobody touch him here i mean he was just very smart i was learning if he had any uh any stories like him shoving a rag into somebody's rv sewer pipe because he's gonna watch this video [Laughter] and dale earnhardt came by to to get a you know to get some food and he said something to her like well that that blouse looks awfully nice on you young lady or something like that and she literally took the took the spoon that she was serving the potatoes with and flung it at him and the whole cafeteria just goes everybody just goes silent and dylan hart looks down looks up and just starts just starts laughing a whole cafeteria just blows up laughing and then the the gentleman that came by told me that story and that was the day he met her and and they got married wow he was the guy that told me about you really yeah oh that guy uh-huh okay yeah because i remember…