Vintage IROC Dodge Avenger Track Day with Ray Evernham: Legendary Driver List and Still Run Hard!

the names of the drivers that have driven this thing we're a vir with Ray everham and he brought one of his Iraq cars out here it is the Dodge Avenger and it has two seats which I think we're gonna get to go for a ride in it what do you got going on here today whoops whoops this is uh actually a 1980 Camaro then on Daytona and then now it's going to Center but it's actually one of the cars that I worked and built while I was at Iraq and actually drove it several times it's a two-seat car it's something that we want to play with for us having track days and things like that it's just a really nice fun car some history you know you can see by the drivers who've driven it that you know it's pretty cool to say you've ridden in a car that's been driven by all those drivers now now you get to drive with me and uh we're playing with the ghost too you know it's uh uh love vir this is an incredible Place uh but two completely different cars so it's um it's good I haven't driven in a while so it's testing my skills this car basically ran every road course that they ran from 1984 through 1995. almost everybody drove it but I know that we ran Burke Lakefront Airport with it we ran Mid-Ohio we ran Riverside California with it it ran at Watkins Glen uh you know of course I just read that the old Nazareth Speedway we're just looking at this thing what is that that round gusset in there on the frame I've never seen that before is that something yeah so old style that's the way banjo match to do the frames you know you can all cannoli um of a car it was by how banjo changed how we did cross members and and frame rails but that was a piece that was put in there where the uh this year you know I don't know how many years banjo Matthews did that but that was a trademark of his where the front's now connected to the frame rails and banjo always felt like you know if you had a square there well you know that could really cause a problem to just hook that frame rail so he rounded it's like that looks that almost looks more modern than you would think it's weird that no one did that after that well you know again they've changed a lot of design but but the in the same condition that it was at IROC Not only would he Avenger body on it but it's the same suspension and and everything that was when I was I was there so you know you look at this this car you know this car is 40 years old and it's it's it still runs really good I told the guys I was pleasantly surprised you know of just how well it drove I'm not going fast you know racing fast with it but for what we want to do it's going to be fantastic what are some other things on the front clip that make it like you could look at it and say oh that's a banjo car the way the shocks are mounted you know this car still has the dual shock mounts in the early 80s we used to run shock mounts front mirror well this is pretty amazing this car is a bit of a time capsule because it's it's really not been changed that's the way the firewall was we put those plates on for the the brakes as I said into the Dodge Dodge engine which I didn't work on but from the firewall forward the chassis is the same as it was in 1984 there's no doubt you know it's basically a 65 Ford Galaxy front end design it's what we call a rear steer it's a it has front struts you know these cars I don't know whether it's got mono balls in it or not but they used to have rubber bushings so this this chassis from career it's really the same way that we raced them into 1984. a lot of these were sold to the to them so not only did it do it's Duty it's due in IROC for several years and it was traded to Marlboro driving school and got tons and tons of time on there so who knows how many how many laps this car has and then the drivers down at this other see and again it's it's it's not for high speed it's more performed the names of the drivers that have driven this thing kind of disappointed they didn't put my name on there you know even though they're driving but but you know you know Jeff drove it so that's pretty cool but all the way all the way down to like look at some of those names George Fulmer Jack Meeks understand Peter Paul you know they got answered but I guarantee all three answers drove this thing you know Terry Labonte and Steve Kinser yeah Hurley Haywood Rod Miller you know so again it's just a ton of ton of people Richard Petty there's how many cars really are there out there right now they can say all those drivers joke they're probably all IROC cars and half of them are in your garage not happy but we're getting there we've got about 11 of them in there right now so we're looking for more the last time we did something with you the phone started to ring so hopefully it does again you know looking for IROC Parts pieces and and cars were Matt Yocum and I are really trying hard to uh have a legitimate IROC registry so we can help people really identify their cars identify which ones they were because there's a lot of cars out there that aren't really what they're being represented at and that's not intentional but maybe somebody got the wrong information or whatever so Matt that's been spent a lot of time with Jason Nori and we've been buying up a lot of pictures and history and things from people and we hope to be able you know if you call them said hey I've got this Iraq hope to be able to track it down and register it and we're trying to find out how many are accounted for that's interesting so that last video actually helped you find some stuff yeah absolutely that's why again that's why I told Dad I said call him again when did you find some more stuff cool yeah if you got something you can how do you want people to get a hold of you if they know where something is either the Big Iron garage website or you can call Ray everham Enterprises and that's just 704-360-1506. you know I don't care if you if you're bringing it off the hook just leave a message I I just want to do my part preserving the IROC history because I think it's again when you look at the drivers and you look at the impact that that had on Motorsports through the 70s and 80s those cars I think are going to be in really good value and when you can identify and document that that is the car it did this race or what happened to it it even makes it more valuable if you look at every road course they ran from the time it was gen 3 Camaro so the time they went to run every road course in between but I know I drove it at blocking the plant I drove it at Riverside these chassis all built with like symmetrical framework lights and stuff they actually have some offset in them but it's in the suspension and it was only a little bit so you know they they probably weren't the greatest Road Racers but again that's what made Iraq unique because they were all the same and you know that it's not supposed to be about making a perfect car it's supposed to be about making them showing up the best driver talents so so they probably Mark the best road race cars but uh don't the guys had a lot of fun with them and they put on a very good go did the quirks and nuances of driving this thing come back to you once you got back in it um after driving a ghost it's really hard the biggest thing struggling with is the transmission now we're just used all this really trick stuff now and you don't have to use the clutch and just short throw or that's got a standard you know old board one or T10 in it so you're shifting like miles apart you got to use the clutch and so we're uh probably the shift oh they're getting sued up to riding this thing be pretty interesting this is never designed to have a seat in it but they put one in there get yourself comfortable with your shoulders be in there tight yep I don't have to ride around like this well I'm not gonna blister 115 right now was it 115 right now I'm thinking okay he's just you know getting the brakes warmed up and all that I really don't know what to expect here and then he starts rolling into it and I'm like all right I'm gonna find out what this actually feels like starts to turn and I think oh it feels pretty good really nothing uh when we're going on here now we're gonna find out how far he's actually gonna push it and that's going to be the interesting part thank you [Music] [Applause] thank you that's freaking cool I will share my thoughts on what that felt like in a moment but we could start with that was freaking awesome well we're getting ready to make another run as you you gotta you got a good ride I hope and got to see what an original IROC car feels like but we overworked the brakes a little bit so we got the brakes now we've um we've got another passenger and Logan are you ready what are you anticipating I'm excited you're not gonna be scared you're almost scared of drifting you're only scared when I'm driving in a truck it's not a car that's capable of that tank race cars [Music] again you know um I'm a little worried because I'm not gonna probably be as good on the right-handers because I have less right side weight but it may help the brakes I'm just saying 100 pounds lighter you know yeah what and I'm not sure but I'll let you know but um just really had a blast of the car we've got a couple things we got to work on I gotta make that rear spoiler on Alexa little cars are behind me um we've got to work on the transmission as much as I don't much I'd love to run the original stuff I'm just not as good as the original IROC drivers and it's just it's it's uh driving that old transmission those guys were good but that's you know hey that's 40 years ago so you know it's ready to go a couple things when we get it home but I'm really it's just neat I haven't driven this car since I think 1984. quite honestly I've been really impressed then it's just been pretty far he said it did have some offset in it can you feel that it turns left better than right when you're out there oh I'd love to tell you I was good enough to feel something that small but I'm just not uh you know it's only about 3 8 of an inch offset in the front end wait banjo Matthews used to do that with the old cars he would just drill the lower control arm holes a little bit over so I think these snouts were basically all the same just three eighths moved over but instead of shortening the lower control arms I like the NASCAR cars did back then for more offset the lower control arms are equal length so there's only 3 8 of an inch of offset in the front end and no I can't feel that that's interesting look at some of the chassis of the early 2000s where they started to get like every corner of the frame rail was something different and they were all over the place yeah these parts have pretty simple you know but so they don't it doesn't run anything like the new cars run you know that's Evolution whenever you you know you can't put the genie back in the bottle when it comes you know certainly to Machinery equipment tools and Engineering but it's just really you know 10 me it's impressive to to get in a car that's 40 years old and have plenty of fun with it and it as I said it's a happy car it's not driving all over the place and I do believe that these cars are going to become more and more popular at vintage racing because where are you going to get a car for vintage racer I mean you here you see there's three four five hundred thousand dollar Porsches and whatnot running around here today or even a good car that you say yeah I've driven with a list of drivers that are on that you know some of these guys are they're world champions or NASCAR champions IndyCar Champions Daytona 500 winners Indy five Le Mans winners and you know the stickers on that window I can't think of myself hey you know I'm certainly not any of them but it's pretty cool to say I may not be sitting in the same seat thank God does the seats weren't very good back then but I'm holding the same steering wheel I'm stepping on the same paddles and I'm driving the same car that these Legends drove yeah this is like something that could be in a museum and in a glass bubble and never touch again and you're out here doing what it does well we and we hope to do that with the rest of them you know not all of the ones we have are going to be able to run at speed like this car I think it's important that people especially young people to get interested to see them going around the racetrack and see them moving and it's really cool we've got so we don't have any Porsches obviously but you know we've got we've got gen 1 Camaros now that run we've got Gen 2 Camaros now that run we're working on a gen 3 Camaro and when I say gen I'm talking about the IROC generation because everybody goes that's not a gym I'm not talking about Chevrolet talk about the Ottawa Generations we've got a fire bear so we're trying to to to be able someday to take all of the generations of Iraq to the racetrack and I know some guys that have legitimate Porsches so it'll be pretty cool to have one of them join us yeah like you say about having young people see this stuff and that's a big reason why we do what we do is we don't want this kind of stuff to get lost to the even tech people my age don't know about this they don't know what Motorsports was like back then or the coming Generations they will accept less than they should get because they never know what people used to have well somebody's got to document the stories and the documentation now is a lot easier it's a lot it's a lot better than we used to have and you know documentation is everything with a mini Trace car so and just being able to tell those stories accurately [Music] which towel goes in first that's dude this one yeah all right well if you just get in we'll figure it out oh okay yeah we'll try it without it first all right let's go then back it out I want to fire it up thank you [Music] thank you want to hold on I thought he was telling me to hold on to my seat belt where I think he actually said if you want to hold on you can hold on to this but for your own [Music] thing small world if you've seen the Bahari racing shop History tour video that guy right there Kelvin owns that building and we saw that newel in that shop it was just full machines and looked like a motor shop that used to be Matt kenseth's was it fun it was really fun not scary no no it was almost scary because some a-hole and an orange yellow one almost hit us but that was their fault not ours [Music] all of a sudden I heard Ben and I looked and there was the orange Fender right there and I moved over it but he still went in the grass but I couldn't catch him that thing's fast whatever it is I was like and I'm thinking okay before Logan's going to get it right everything was great so let's see how one Camaro came along that's the kind of stuff that's why these parts get tore up I'm honestly honestly very impressed it's got no power right because you know you get out of the ghost but you need some power and then if it's the power but after the brakes foiled sitting on Pedro putting Kate in there after loading that out and took a lap and a half for him to come back just from the air pulling in the front and they came back and the car went back out and ran I mean it ran honestly this is good you know just don't need to be able to see out of the back better again those tires are 10 years old we don't even know how many laps they got on they came to the car right um the more you know again the motor is a little bit weak but uh we can fix that if we want but again a 40 year old car it drives nice it's fun to drive I think it's fun for the passengers both of you wrote in it you know um is safe [Applause] maybe they find it hard to believe but the seat fit you got Logan was a little bit loose in it yeah yeah so if I fit it at all it's going to be loose for her no I was good thank you both for coming in as I said there's a this is fun we're gonna do it some more uh we're gonna try and work on this and make it a little bit safer for passengers to go we've got to come up with some kind of a seat insert or something but I mean it's a great it's a great fun ride again 40 years old hang on for just a minute for some cool bonus footage about one of Ray's IROC engines being rebuilt in a pro motor but I would like to say if you enjoy this video if you enjoy racing history please help us out hit the thumbs up button at the bottom of the video you can do it from a TV remote too um you know a lot more people find the video it'll help it get recommended to more people which will help us be able to make more videos it'll help Rey be able to find more IROC Parts it's just good for everything it doesn't cost you anything to do it either and if you're not already subscribed you should make sure that you are that doesn't cost any money either all that does is it's basically a follow button and when you log into YouTube it'll tell you when we post something new at least in theory that's how it's supposed to work and the car behind me is one that uh I'm putting together to run into a series called Grand National Super Series which runs like short tracks we're running short tracks around the Carolinas and Virginia and stuff with the like the old Bush cup steel body cars they got a Dodge R5 p7 to put in it it's gonna be a lot of fun so you'll be able to see videos about that too and Logan's Mustang you got more more build stuff and doing stuff with cars coming up which has always been our goal and if you'd like to support the channel even further you can go to staplesautoworks.com and check out our shirts hats and stickers get a sticker for your toolbox or something if you have not seen the other video we did with Ray about all of his Iraq cars at least all the ones that he had at the time of filming which was I think in January over his shop Big Iron garage you need to go watch that video there's lots of History it's kind of like a general overview of the whole history of IROC demonstrated through his own collection it's it's really cool and that is the video that sparked this one happening hopefully there'll be more with track days and I would love to hear the firebird on the track I want to hear one of those x-pipes in those cars so badly I grew up seeing him on TV never got to watch an IROC race in person so Ray if you're ever gonna take that thing of the track please let me know we want to be there what is this thing on the stand right now so this is a an IROC motor that uh Ray over and have to restoring the car and uh I believe from Ray I may have this date wrong but it was around 1979 is the last thing time this car this engine has raced it was an IROC series then it ran a Riverside Ray could correct me on this 79 or 80. and this engine is actually in the car that Daryl won the race with so it's kind of a time capsule for us it hadn't been taken like rebuilt since then we thought well usually engines you know you get them they've been rebuilt 10 times well this one still had the the bearings dated from that year and all the associated parts were pretty much period correct did you reuse all those we had to replace the crank because the one in it is here it had a crack in it and the main Journal had a crack in it the rods are still the same rods it was a Corolla rod from from the late 70s so Pandora in great shape like Paul you just had to go over size on The Wristband yes with the engine same cylinder heads same intake um that Edelbrock intake it it almost it predates me I was a I was a teenager at that time so um that was probably one of the real early single plane edelbrocks like that are these the bearings from it they are yeah but these are like a yeah where does it have the date on there I remember seeing it yeah yeah you look back here you can see 779 sure yep 779 yeah that's uh that's pretty special yeah it is that was when my dad graduated high school somebody put that engine together these things came from…