Ron Hornaday's Trophy Shed & Garage: NASCAR Truck Series Legend Still Building Race Cars!

Tell me when you're ready. Action. Action. So, most people say, "Hey, you want to go see my trophy room?" I'm going to say, "You want to come see my trophy shed?" Come on, guys. This is pretty cool. Sold a big house on the lake and looking for a piece of property and my father-in-law moving to Arizona. So, we had his house that we paid for and the property and I was like, "Well, we'll just throw this shed together cuz the kids were had a little swimming pool they were swimming in and somewhere to change." So, it's kind of just some of the stuff that I I remember about it. You know, the the Elvis trophies from Memphis. Um, some championship rings, uh, some races with Kevin Harvick and Jack Sprag. I We got a lot got a lot of stuff around here. So, just something we enjoy. I mean, if it wasn't for your beautiful wife, as they say, you wouldn't be able to do this. Cuz when we got married at 20, I was working on people's race cars. She says, "Why don't you build your own race car instead of work on them?" So, that's where it started. A lot of people didn't know that her dad and my dad raced against each other and their rivals. They hated each other. We got married. It took them 17 years to figure that out. So, they even talk. So, wow. I didn't know that. Awesome. BFW was probably one of the coolest. So, I got an opportunity to go to Iraq with NASCAR and uh really see what the military does because CNN, TNN, whatever you want to watch on TV does not do what a military justice. So, I go out of my way when I see a police officer and I'll introduce you to Travis. He's down there working on his race car right now. It It's so special to see what those guys do. So, I go out of my way to thank him and honor what they do for us. Got a lot of helmets in here. Is there like any kind of chronological order to the pictures or? No, not really. But I mean, this is like my mom and my first race car I bought. And then I got my kids race cars there and my my daughter's dragster. And these are just early photos, you know, my lake house back here when they did a magazine article on it. So, you know, when you you get rid of the big house and quit buying the beer and the steaks, you got no more friends. So, this is this is what we have now. This is This is probably one of the coolest, not the coolest thing. This brake pedal, they drilled a hole in it right here for a return spring. There's a first lap at Watkins Wind and went down into turn 10 and hit fourth gear. So, you got to probably run 160 to 175. And it broke the brake pedal. And you can see where it flipped over the fence, hit the catch fence, and landed on the wall. So, Nhard said, "Why'd you guys cut the truck apart?" And then he seen the pictures of it. And so, um, we had a truck that I've always wanted them to run, a Hutchin and Pagan truck. And Ron and Dick Hutchkins were good friends of mine. They helped me out in California when they came. So, we never can get it to run right. So, we always use it for a show truck, but we took it for a backup truck there and I end up finishing fifth. So, pretty special to record wreck one and start in the back of the the pack and still finish fifth. Whose truck was were you using the arts? I mean, like the the chassis builder. Hopkins and the the main brought um what am I thinking of? Um um Hustagan. Yeah. The moral of the story is don't drill any holes in your pedals that didn't come. We made a new rule. That's that's a cast aluminum pedal. Now they're all steel and reinforced and everything. So it's pretty cool though. We got you can't really see it, but I got a picture of my dad down here, my wife, and my mom. And then I got the kids over here. So And I do have a Martinville clock up in the house. How did your daughter get into drag racing? I have no idea. She's the first horn of day to go straight. So whatever that means and we called her Cha Horn a day and her her name of her dragster fits her well. Absolute all attitude was the name of the the drag strip. Uh, she was I mean my son was racing at 14 up at the Animal Valley Fairgrounds and she was drag racing the same day and she ended up winning her brackets so she came with her trophy and her fire suit and my son won that night. So it was really cool to to see both of them win at one time and had a lot of good friends helping them out. You got to ask questions. There's so many visually stimulating things in here. It's hard to like pick one question. Look, the coolest part on some of this stuff is like this helmet and this helmet and this BFW, when my wife had a graphic store, she wrapped them. So, she actually wrapped them and sealed them and everything. So, it's pretty awesome. And the detail in this one is just incredible with all the men and women on there. Had dog tags when I went to Iraq from BFW. So, that's vinyl with a clear coat over it. Yep. B with a clear coat. Interesting. And she uh you know, a lot of people don't know, and I'm going to point this out. Um I won a lot of races and from the Saturday night shows in California from when I first started racing. All my wins have been in a Chevrolet. I've never drove anything else. We put a Ford body on our car and lasted two races and we took it off cuz I just didn't fit right. But my dad did work. We got him for 50 years. So why did you have to help us out? 75th deal is pretty cool. What NASCAR's done for you and everything and it'll give you a stopwatch and if you read it, it's pretty unbelievable. We got most of most of the boys in the what's still alive for the top 75 drivers. Then Darlington gave us a nice look like a big old diamond but it's not. It is a diamond. That's probably one of the prestigious. Getting in the Hall of Fame is really cool but you know when you're racing you didn't think you're going to go out there and be in the Hall of Fame. you know, and then all of a sudden you get elected in it. And I didn't that's cool. I did my job. I put food on the table. But um Mark Martin said, "You don't realize what this means until you get inducted. Go home and think about this." And just all the people that you touched and what you've done. So it's pretty cool. I told Jimmy cuz he got inducted. And I said, "Hey, you you won't believe the people that really helped you in your career and come along and they start thinking about from when you were 10 years old, that little kid gave you a spare tire for your bicycle and you were racing or stuff like that." And that that's that's pretty cool to see how your whole life comes along to be in the Hall of Fame, man. I mean, for me growing up, you were like of the the era when I was, you know, starting to understand the world and watch racing and get into it. I like the trucks more than anything else and you were like a staple of that. Yeah, that we we had a handful of us that really, you know, did it. But, um, I guess you can say we were trying to make a name for ourselves out here cuz the truck series just started in '95 and, uh, you know, Jack Sprag won a lot of championships and races out here and Mike Skinner won some out in California and out here and he he came out earlier and I did. So, it's like you're putting a lot of short track drivers and when NASCAR started the truck series, they weren't going to go over over a mile and then they started going to mile and a halfs and stuff like that. It's changed a lot of racing with Arrow, but I mean, hell, we we'd be banging and be pretty cool. Yeah. Back at that point, the truck series wasn't considered like a development driver series. It was Yeah, it was. I mean, we had we probably had a lot of retired guys coming out of retirement to drive them. Um, you know, Joe Rutman, he wasn't no young pup, but he showed showed us, you know, I didn't start trucker series until I was 35. And, uh, the 30 32 car, no, 43 cars started the race, and we would be on a half mile racetrack. And we'd send seven or eight trucks home now. So, they're down to what, 36 now. So, Mhm. it was all different back there. This is pretty cool. Other than this fire suit, there's so much stitching in this fire suit. It was really, really hot. And I don't have a picture of it, but I got a picture of the Can't get it out. No kidding. I didn't even notice that. That is insane. Yeah, that's that's I I don't know the number of how many. And then that's pretty cool. A buddy of mine painted all this for us, Eric. That's awesome. Yeah. I never put my name on anything. So, some of my fire suits, you won't see my name on there other than when there are trophies like this. I was always felt that if people walk around and go like this and have to look at your name on your fire shoot, you didn't do your job on a racetrack. That's a good point. Yeah, it's cool that it's an open face helmet. Never really That's all we ever wore till Mascar made you would start wearing. See, some stuff I see the junior, some stuff I don't. Which which one are you partial? Which what do you mean? Like when people refer to you, do you like to be referred to as Ron Hornady Jr. or just Ron Hornadyday? Just Ron Hornady. I mean, um I guess NASCAR said when your your dad passes on that you drop the junior. The stupidest thing I ever done is name my son the third. So his his insurance went up one year and my insurance went up one year. We couldn't figure out why. Well, my dad got in an accident and hit two parked cars, fell asleep at the wheel, and we ended up So, naming your sons or your family members after you exactly the same, and just add a junior or a third. I recommend don't do it. It just it whittle everything whittleles down. So, my son just called me this morning and said, "Hey, Dad, uh, did you use my credit card? Somebody put $1,200 in my credit credit card." So, but interesting. the the biggest deal my wife and I have had made when we got married. We've been married 45 years now. She said, "Uh, you'll never race an open wheel car." And if you know when I made my success with Arnard was with Fred Graves. Well, Fred Graves came from Open Wheel Modifies. This is a faded picture. My son and I went up to an exhibition race and we were helping him, you know, get the class going and everything. We raced it. So when you started driving trucks for Dale, how did that come about? Like how did you get approached to We uh Tucson Raceway Park put on the races right right around New Year's Christmas time where everybody sat at home and all that stuff. So we had raced I think it was 13 weeks every Saturday night and we go down there and and do that and it was televised. That's when Buddy Baker was doing all the stuff and everything. So, um, just fortunate enough to get that phone call from Dale and, uh, he said, "Do you want to drive my truck? We're, you know, the track truck series." I was fortunate enough to Wayne race for Wayne and Connie Spears and they built the truck for the six exhibition races. And I asked Wayne if he was going to run the whole deal. He goes, "No, we're just going to run the Winston West stuff." So, I ended up taking a job with Dale. Glad I did. And then Wayne got mad and started running a full-time truck deal for the next seven years. Oh man. So it always it always spruces everybody up. So um yeah, just fortunate that we spent every penny we ever had to go down there and just got that phone call from Dale. What are you thinking? I'm trying to think of something to think of. There's still I'm still championship for Harvick. One of the first ones. He won the race and I ended up winning the championship. Were you friends with Kevin when he was racing through Spears? Yeah, Kevin and I raced against each other. We always called him the kid. He was 16 years old racing at Mason Marin and he was never 16. He was I think he was 15, but they kept calling the kid every week cuz he never grew up. He's always that babyfaced kid. And um yeah, he actually when he moved out here and I actually put the deal together with him and Richard just calling Richard. Richard called me and said, "Hey, Kevin's got a contract. I can't talk to him. Can you talk to him for me?" And by that time, you're sleeping on my couch. And when you sleep on our couch at the big house, that's part of the couch, too. That that right there, that's the couch Jimmy Johnson and Kevin Harvick supposedly slept on. And they were just too drunk to go upstairs to go to bed. So, they're in the game room. Um Kevin ended up buying a house down the street. Jimmy stayed with us for 6, eight months, and Lindy found him a house over here. So instead of them renting a house, wasting their money, I just told them almost save it and put a down payment on a house and it worked out for both of them. Well, that's cool. You were kind of like a the billet family for those guys then. Yep. Yep. Was that part of like uh your mindset of like paying it back to the the younger guys? No, I just enjoy I mean I can't think of anything else. Like this guy's doing my shower inside and I'm trying to get excited about it to help him. I don't want him. I'd rather go down and work on this race car. I'll show you here in a minute. But, um, I just like welding. I mean, the thing about doing work in your house, when you cut a 2x4 too short, you got to get another one. When you cut a piece of metal too short, you can like weld onto it and make it longer. Yeah. So, you can fix it. So, wood guys will say, "Well, you put glue and you put this wedge in there." I don't understand it. Don't care. Made my living by welding and building race cars. Yeah. That's really cool that you used to build your own race cars back in the day. We did. Yeah. We had Victory Circle race cars and I think our biggest claim is uh going to Phoenix, Arizona. 36 cars started the field and 27 cars that we built at Victory Circles started that race. Wow. Do you ever like go back home to California to where you grew up? That's not California no more from what I can see. It's really changed a lot. Um, we go back to Atlanta Lewis, raced a couple races here at Portland and Monroe and Sears Point, but actually back in my hometown, drove through there and said, "Hey, hi to everybody and pulled out." Pretty cool that they named a street after me out there. And it's not one way either. It actually Ron Hornady Jr. Boulevard. A lot of streets are named one way and they said it was me, but no. That's funny. This is your drag racer, right? No, that's my granddaughter. One of my granddaughters. Yeah. Yep. Wow. That's my Yeah, she's in the second picture down there. My daughter in the middle. Oh, this probably this probably the best one. This is a drag racer Ronnie when he was racing and she went drag racing. That's what age they were. Yep. Did anybody give her a hard time for being interested in drag racing? No. No. Kept the car for a long time. It really cost me a lot of money because she said it was really boring. You know, it was it was bracket racing. She'd get on it and other other dragster was spinning the tires and hers wasn't. So, I talked to a buddy of mine and he rebuilt the motor was $10,000 for a little Brian Stratton 5 horsepower motor, but she done burnouts. We had to watch that. It's interesting how many women uh make really good drag racers because they're good with reaction times. Yeah. I don't know why, but Yeah. Yeah. I don't either. Then Lindy with all her dogs used to go to the racetrack or shi. Oh yeah. I grew up with those. Oh yeah. It wasn't taking a lot of time to put all these up here and paste all these to the ceiling. She did it in two nights. Wow. Put that then. I've never seen anybody do something like this. It's really What else you going to do with them? Yeah. I mean, put them in a, you know, Yeah. they go in a scrapbook that you look at a couple times a year, maybe. Yeah. When somebody like us comes around, it's like, "Hey, do you have a cool scrapbook with stuff in it?" They knock the dust off. I'm going to go We'll go We'll head downstairs and I'll go get a book about that car that I built for Travis. It's pretty cool. Yeah, let's check that out. Pictures is the pictures on the wall. We use them for the video. So, this car is my first first championship. So, a lot of people don't know that I've got seven championships. I got one in this at pop co vans and I've got two in southwest tour which is all NASCAR sanctioned deal and then foreign trucks. What was the origin of the 79 or 97? I see that in a lot of places. 79 was John Kovan. I used to race against him and he started a business. He couldn't run it. 97 was my dad's number and I've always ran 97. So So it was a coincidence that you drove 97 backwards. Yeah, it was. And then won the championship for him. Huh. All yours we tried in ours. You want to turn that light off? That would be nice. The glare makes it kind of hard. I got a plan where I put it. Oh, that's cool. This is pretty cool. Jim Manning, he's the preacher with us. Just follow the truck surgeon everything and gives you that little prayer before you take off. Man, that I'm going to fix this floor. She's a little soft right here. These little Alba brought trophies. They're about 70 lb. Can't even pick it up. Is it made out of like solid metal? It's some kind of billet something. Then I got my first credit card with Dale Earnhart Incorporated and then uh my Rena car one with them. And then Lenny keeps all of our hard cards. Those are all hers. And then you can see all these all the hard cars. All the years of racing. Should we got more? I was like that can't be all of them. Back in the day they didn't have die cast. So Lindy had paint these up and give them to the kids at the racetrack. This was my Winston West car. So she had hand paint all that. Oh my god. She's very artistic. I see. Well, she painted on fingernails and made a lot of money. She bought a motor for him. He painted on fingernails at night after her job. Who came up with the designs for your helmet paint? A couple my like that one, this one, that one. This is a buddy of mine did them. Can you just do them? Cuz you charge me half price. I didn't really ask about them. So, she's like, "Hey, here you go. That Oh, that looks cool. Yeah, I'll wear it." Y only thing you got to worry about is getting the sponsor's name on there the right way. Do you have a favorite paint scheme? It's hard. But with Kevin's was a lot of neat ones. Like I said, the BFW is pretty, excuse me, pretty cool cuz they've done a lot of stuff at the racetrack with a lot of military. But I mean, Tide, a lot of people ran Tide, but the mine wasn't bad. Yeah, mine was pretty cool at Martinsville. Um, Longhorn is probably my favorite sponsor. What they've done, just how they understood racing and no pressure if you did good or bad. Just that's nice. As long as you treat the people with respect and whatever they bring. So, what's the thumbs down for in this picture? I was I was uh 40 and I won Bristol. My birthday was that day. Oh. Oh, is that why they're all wearing hats that say 40 on them? Yep. It was my 40th birthday and I ended up winning. I went cuz I'm getting old. So, I am a preacher, too. Wow. Well, you're ordained and everything. That's cool. Yeah. I married my granddaughter in October. They asked me to. Did you just fill out the thing online or Yeah, they did. I didn't do anything. So, you got to hang out with Kiss. Yeah. That I mean, what was that? Unbelievable. They're they're showing. So, it's like, "Wow, look at all the cars you're already, you know, we're getting through tech and all that stuff." Well, he's in there and just people are he signed probably 5,000 people to kisses and all of a sudden he was ready to leave and it's like, "No, there's no more fans." They all came to see Kiss. It's pretty cool. So, anybody wants to buy a fire suit? I got the helmet. I got the thing. Got the t-shirt signed from him. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Was Jean Simmons a big character? Yeah, he's pretty cool. I can't say the stuff I seen on the note from…