Ronnie Thomas’s Massive NASCAR Hoard: Earnhardt, Petty & Waltrip Treasures!

You know, I'm 71, but I've told my wife probably next 3 or 4 years it's probably going to come the time where I'm not going to be able to take care of this stuff. I don't have no kids. You know, I'm not going to have this stuff when I'm 85 years old and >> People you don't get to see this. >> Somebody sent me a poop in the mail and then [laughter] and I got >> Ronnie Thomas is one of the last independents on the NASCAR circuit. He was Rookie of the Year in 1978. This looks way different in here than what it did. >> since you was here. >> Way different. >> Yeah. I just went went crazy. >> I didn't know it was possible, but yeah, you do have a lot more stuff in here. You used to have your car in here. Now you don't even have room for that. >> have room. I ain't hardly got room for me. It's been a labor of love, so kind of glad it's kind of coming to an end you I guess you could say. >> So what in here are the most notable new things that weren't in the first video? >> That's Darrell Waltrip's uh banjo seat. I I haven't talked to him and he may not remember, but need to get him to sign this. Would have been somewhere in the '60s to early '80s, but um on the bottom of it you can barely read it where it says uh D. Waltrip R.G. So it's uh I guess the car that Robert G. worked on one of the cars for Darrell or built whatever. So it was technically a a Darrell Waltrip Robert G. seat. That's kind of makes it a little more special to me. >> Can you flip it over so we can see that? >> Yeah. Mhm. >> Yeah, that could have been from his old Mercury or uh >> You can kind of see [clears throat] a little bit on the bottom of it where it's just that's >> the Beetle fender, Camaro. There was a bunch of cars that Robert G. and D.W. were >> Yeah, involved in. So I have no idea what it looks like a an old cup seat to me. This is what we used to run the band they call them banjo style seats. >> Where did you get it? >> I got this from a guy by the name of um Aaron Brown. And probably know of him. He's restores a lot of race cars and he helped Darrell and I don't know he helped Dar- Darrell for many years back when I got this seat from him. He had um two of Darrell's cars I think it was the Mountain Dew car and the um ASA cars I believe. I'm not sure. >> car. >> I think that's what it was. You probably know what I'm talking about. >> Yeah, we know Aaron real well. I didn't know he had that seat though. Why did he How did he win >> He had two of them out in the building and I just um you know, he said, "Hey, I got a couple of things you might be interested in." This one was marked and the other one was was not marked and I said, "Well, kind of rather have this." And this one he actually didn't want to get rid of cuz it was marked. >> But this looks way different in here than what it did >> since you was here. >> Way different. >> Yeah. I just went went crazy. >> I I remember you had this Richard Petty Superbird suit here. You told us that story. You had Leonard Wood's um sneaky cheater carburetor. These This was not like this. >> Yeah, you got a good memory. No, I didn't have any of this >> before. Neil Bonnett, that's a cool one. >> That's from That's a uniform from 1983 at Charlotte when he won the race the World 600. And some of them I've traded for and I've bought a couple. Uh I did buy the Geoff Bodine from a guy. ASA IROC champ. This is James Hilton uniform and funny thing I got a picture somewhere of him and I sitting on pit road on pit wall on pit road. I've got a red uniform, he's got this uniform on. So I just thought it's kind of odd, you know, we I got a picture of that. I got to locate it, but I got that. This is Bobby Allison's IROC uniform from Uh I'm trying to say 80 I might be wrong on this. I'm trying to say 84, but I might be wrong on the date. Of course, this is Neil's uniform from uh 83 World 600 win. >> Haston Raymac, interesting. I didn't >> Yeah. >> I didn't know about 75. I didn't know Haston. Was that after Junior Johnson's? >> Before. >> And I think it would have been before Junior Johnson. >> Well, that's right, cuz he had he was with Wood Brothers, then he went to Raymac, but he kind of kept the Wood Brothers paint scheme and the gold numbers. >> And he was with Darrell Waltrip with that 11 and 12. >> Yes. Yeah. >> I think I got it from God way up up in um Worcester in state, I think. This is pretty This is AJ's May of '91 suit. So, it'd be his I think this was the last Indy race. This is a uniform I can Cale signed it. And this would probably been I'm going to say somewhere in the '64 '65 range, but if you feel this uniform, it's real stiff like >> Yeah. >> Hinchman uniform. I think this is one of the uniforms they used to You've heard about I used to dip them in this solvent and they would put them up on the fence at the track and let them dry. >> Well, explain that to people who might not know what that is. >> Well, it's Of course, now they're what do you call Nomex fireproof. Back then the uniforms a lot of stuff wasn't fireproofed. They would take the uniforms they would fire They had a some kind of solution. Can't remember if I I guess my dad would have done it because, you know, he started in '65, so I can't remember, but they would dip them in some kind of solution and it what would do I guess you'd get another I don't know if it's 15 or 20 seconds of fire proofing, but this I would say is probably one because its uniform is so stiff. I mean, it's just >> Yeah, it's >> You know, I mean, you feel this uniform and then this one, I mean, it's just >> Feels like a tarp. >> Yeah. It feels like a tarp. So, I would say and I never asked a Kale. So, didn't think bad, but and I can't I've not been able to find a picture. So, maybe when people see this or into this stuff, maybe somebody might pop up and say, "Hey, I got a picture of him with that uniform on." >> Yeah, somebody will know. Is there anything on the Nothing on the back. >> I'll tell you getting off on thing. I think these, I think I can't remember if I had these in the last time you was here or not. >> I think you did. Your car was sitting on them, wasn't it? >> You're right. Yeah. I just think these are neat pieces. I mean, to think that Richard Childress, mid-70s used these or whenever he got them. And then, you know, he kept them and then when Red worked for drove for him, used them, set Red's car up. Dale Earnhardt used them for years and later on, Bill Blair bought them and I got them from Bill Blair. So, I I just think it's pretty cool knowing the history on them. The thing about it I had to find out was when I got Kurt Shemperdeen to sign the Earnhardt nose back. I got with him on these and he verified the story. I mean, Bill's not going to lie about it. He where they come from and all. And then, when talked to Kurt, he's seen everything. Yeah. We use these scales and he said, "Actually, on Red Earnhardt's car, I would set the car on the scales and string it and everything cuz he'd kind of slide in under it and, you know, make some a little adjustments, I guess, on the track bar or something while it was on the scales. But, he said, 'Yeah, I used these quite a bit.' So, to me, this is real history when you think about it. I know uh the thing about these things, it you have to have room to put them uh cuz they do take up some room but I just think these are some cool piece of course now everybody uses this digital stuff. >> Mhm. >> And what four scales and your computer stand is probably a third the size of one of these so I can and you know they're heavy you know they probably weigh a couple hundred pounds a piece so you know I just something like this means a lot to me. You know it's not worth a whole lot to anybody but me but we used this from 81 till I quit at the end of 99. Bead roller, tube notcher and a lot of people had they call them blow buck tools and a lot of people a lot of local guys used these things. I don't know how many cup guys but it was a little cheaper way to go than the high dollar stuff so we made the stand and everything. This is our old I didn't have this out last time you was here. Um this is our old grease pump or when you see back in the day you'd see people yanking their rear ends out and putting another chunk in the practice or qualified. You see some around there with their hose and they you know be sticking it in filling it full of grease so I don't even know if the guys still do this type of deal or not. Probably they've got advanced from this I'd say in the technology today. I don't know. >> So for somebody who doesn't know who you are tell them how long you raced in Winston Cup. >> I ran Cup I ran a first races I ran four races in 90 See, getting old. Forget. In 1977 I ran four races in Cup and in 78 we ran the full year and that was the four races to keep us eligible for running for Rookie of the Year in those days. You could not run over five races. So in 78 we run for Rookie of the Year. I've got a list and I seen the other day there's 20 people and I didn't realize and some pretty big names ran for Rookie of the Year in 78 and they really should have beat us out for it but I don't know if they ran out of money, crashed herself out. Uh we were pretty well out dollared by probably 60% of people and there was some other people like ourselves, some had even less, but we were fortunate to win it. And this was our main competitor here guy with the name of Roger Hamby out of North Wilkesboro. He was tied in pretty tight with Junior Johnson. And I went down to see him about a I'll tell you a quick story. I went down to see him about 3 years ago and I have not seen him since the '80s. And when I went he still runs a muffler shop and he's owned up there I guess around mid-'80s. To make a long story short, he did not know who I was. I went in there and I said, "Hey Roger, I need you to put exhaust system on my car. Can you do it?" Sure, I got try to get to you this afternoon. And I said, "Well, I got a a '75 Monte Carlo." And I said, "Just like you and Ronnie Thomas run against each other for Rookie of the Year." So it's it's it's like that. I uh So you know what I got. He said, "Oh yeah, Ronnie run against me for Rookie of the Year and I only reason he beat me out we had a lot of mechanical problems. And he had his dad helping him and that probably was ace up for him. And then I stopped him and I said, "Hey Roger, I'm Ronnie." Because I didn't want him to get >> You didn't want him to go too far. >> Too far and then him say, "Uh-uh." But maybe he wouldn't have bothered me any, but he [laughter] told me he told me we spent about an hour talking. He told me before we left there that he spent about $200,000 with Junior Johnson. He got two of Junior's cars, I think a Monte Carlo and a Oldsmobile or something. He said he was getting his motors from Junior. Said, "Now, $200,000 in today's world in Cup is nothing, but in 1978 $200,000 was a lot of money cuz we spent around probably around 70 or 75,000, which was a lot for us to spend, but you know, we got enough on our um little bit of sponsorship we get from different individuals and Louise Smith helping us that we we pretty well paid all our bills in 1978. And Roger said it it put him in a bind not winning Rookie of the Year cuz it was $10,000 down the year and we got $1,000 next year for every race we competed in. So, he said that his words to me said I made Junior fat in 1978 trying to run for Rookie getting engine and cars from him, but I don't know that's true. I'm just going by what he said. So, you know, I don't I don't have anything against Roger. I guess I would have liked him since I you know, it might have been somebody else, you know, that had more bucks behind him would have beat us out. So, >> Like the guy who won it the year after you? >> Uh yeah, I good thing he wasn't running in 19 uh 78 cuz I wouldn't have been Rookie of the Year. Hey, it don't bother me anything cuz I've always said about Dale Earnhardt. Like it or not, I always say this and this is no disrespect to Richard Childress. I always said I think he made Richard Childress it took both of them, but I always felt like he made Richard Childress uh you know, they had this story about he could have went race for Junior Johnson. Dang, he would have ran for Junior Johnson. They would have won won a lot of races and a lot of championships. And I know Waltrip did too. I don't know how much more success he had, but I tell you, he was Dale was one of them guys, you know, you only have a few unique individuals. Somebody like Dale, uh Cale Yarborough, Richard Petty's, you know, people that's kind of way out there. Bobby Allison, you got a few unique uh unique individuals and they are some of the few at class. But Dale Earnhardt's one of those guys, you like it or not, he just would get that extra half a tenth or so out of a car when it come to qualifying racing. >> I noticed that Dixie Annett's seat over there, That name comes to mind. I think Mark Martin used to use those and he ran them in ASA. Who's is that? >> Yeah. I have no idea. I've had it so long. I think I might be wrong. People I'm sure see this. The trail you're into the old school stuff. If I'm not mistaken, they were made in Kentucky or built in Kentucky. But I might be wrong on that. But yeah, Dixie Anna was a very popular seat. But the legend of the racetrack with Dixie Anna on the seat now? >> Probably not. >> Probably not. Okay. >> They just make you call it Anna. >> [laughter] >> That's really interesting cuz you bought a bunch of stuff from Mark Martin's auction back in the day, didn't you? Like whenever you went >> I don't think I can't remember, but I You know, you're talking about something. Is it a chance it could have come from his auction? Yes. I mean, it's 1983. At the end of the season I got um I bought a band saw. All these jack stands. I got two sets of jack stands from him. Um Golly, I don't know. Some front end stuff. I got some these templates. I got several sets of these templates. Just quite a few things cuz you know, you're buying it at like 10 or 20 cent on the dollar. So, you know, like everybody else, we weren't all we weren't only ones struggling. Some people were struggling more than me. And uh anytime you could get a bargain back then, you had to jump on it. >> Did you ever use that seat in your own car? >> I can't remember. >> You don't even know You don't even know what What's interesting to me is it looks like it was red and somebody sprayed it black or dyed it. >> I I cannot remember. And you know, people come It's a lot of people stop by, fans, and they'll say, "Well, you can't remember?" You got to realize, I started in '75 in the baby grands. So, '75, '85, '95 on up to the end of '99, you know, we we had probably 15 different late models and cup cars and you know, I run a few bush races and I helped other teams and it's just hard to remember at sometimes like this and and you know, like a tow in stick or you know, like the door I could remember where it come from. I got the newspaper clipping on my old door and and I got that here a guy from West Virginia brought it up and actually traded him had a few extra checker flags so I traded him a I don't I don't like getting rid of my stuff cuz some of the stuff I got you can't replace but he come up we made a agreement I'll take a checker flag for the door so that was with Jimmy Means in fall race 83 and I've got a picture of Jimmy and me crashing on coming out of turn four. That was the old Richmond track before it was reconfigurated. A lot of people may not remember this guy. His name is Bobby Waywack and um really nice guy and this he had an auction I guess it would have been 80 I don't know when the He was from Midland, North Carolina. People he was one of the independent drivers. >> I remember these springs from last time I think. How how were you able to ID them? They didn't have tags before. >> I had a lot of this stuff wrote down in a little some of this stuff down the book. This was Billy Harvey's I remember it. This is my spring from Talladega. This is one from Daytona and Talladega. You you'd use these a lot times the same spring at Talladega and and Daytona Bristol. Uh cuz back then you know, you couldn't drop the cars down low so you had to put some spring and shock where the car wouldn't drag so bad through the corners. This come out of um This is out of a Hall Hall of Fame and Hawaiian Tropic car that Donnie drove and the I remember this he had two or three of these springs when I got it. It just kind of one of them deals where he said, you know, I got back and do Do I say give it to me? He might have said, you know, here, or I'll give you 30 bucks for it, but I went to his shop in the late '70s and you can't see it, but this picture up here above the James Hilton car, that's rookie year and that's uh the last race of year at Ontario, California, when we won won the championship, and that's J.D. McDuffie beside of me, Cecil Gordon, James Hilton, and the '64, I don't know if Elmo was driving that or Tommy Gale was driving it. And I That's two West Coast guys behind him, but what I was going to say, you can't see it here, but we would go down Hoses and get used parts, engine parts, and sheet metal parts off of them. And you can't tell it, but that come off the highway or tropic car, and it got sandblasted, and you can see where we didn't We was in a rush to get it painted, and we didn't even sand it down good, and the number one has come back through by my say, you can see it, so I I'm going to say I don't think I got this at the track. I probably went down and went through his part stuff, and you know, [clears throat] and I would probably have bought this from him. I don't feel like he would have given it to me. We would probably purchased it probably when I got some of the engine parts and sheet metal parts, so, you know, we go to Juniors, we go to Hoses Allingtons, um Pettys. That was the main people, the three we would go to. We didn't go to the Woods brothers cuz they were Ford people. No. So, you know, none of their engine stuff uh would work with what we were doing, but and and you know, it's kind of bad cuz they were only You know, they're only 70 mi from me, but those are three people that that we usually would would get part used parts from. >> How'd you get that uh piece of J.D. McDuffie's truck? I don't remember seeing that. >> I got that. Yeah, that was not here. That I got that from a friend that is a collector, and we've traded stuff. And honestly, that was an extra piece. >> [snorts] >> He had that piece, and he came up here a while back. He hadn't been here for, I guess about 15 years. He came in last year with a friend and visited. And he said, "I got something I'm bringing you." And he bought that piece. And I said, "You don't want to get rid of that, do you?" And he said, "I went to Jay JD's auction." And I was at it, too, but I I got a a little piece or two, but he got several pieces. He got a a uniform several pieces. He got this, and he said, "I want you to have it." So, pretty neat to me. It's off JD's old truck. I got a picture of it. So, pretty cool, I think. >> Yeah, that's that's the kind of stuff I like seeing, cuz it's >> not have these headers, I know. >> You didn't? >> I had them, but they were not I didn't have made a frame for them, you know, a a display stand. So, that's the old 180° headers that people in the '70s and I guess they quit…