|
Traditional Sprint Car FanSite |
See You At The Races!!! |
| A
View From The PAS by Scott Daloisio |
|
|
|
Bubby Jones Interview (PERRIS, CA, APRIL 14 1999) Bubby Jones, the sprint car Hall of Famer, had a smile on his face and a chuckle as he related a grand, old racing story on the infield at Perris Auto Speedway on a recent Saturday night. The episode he talked about took place 25 or more years ago at one of the toughest tracks of them all. The “Action Track” in Terre Haute, Indiana. Two of sprint car racing’s most celebrated drivers were fighting for the lead in the main event. One was down low running fast. The other was braving the renowned Terre Haute cushion a foot or so away from the illustrious red, white and blue “Action Track” guard rail. The master of velocity on the groove was Gary Bettenhausen. The rim rider fighting the bruising cushion was none other than “Stormin’ Norman” Bubby Jones. Unexpectedly, a caution brought the howl of the robust engines back to a rumble and the tremendous dirt roostertails stopped as the spindly cars slowly idled around the track. Planted firmly in his cockpit, Jones had a brilliant idea. We will let him explain what happened next. “Bettenhausen was runnin’ down low. Way down inside, there was a bunch of mud. So we came down there on the caution and I dove down into that #$+@, got sideways and flew through it. I did it two laps in a row. Nobody knew what I was doin’. Sprayed mud and #$@& all over that groove. When we came down into one after taking the green flag, Bettenhausen hit that stuff and went from second to about tenth. I went on to win. Man was he &@$$+# off!” Bubby Jones was wearing a big, mischievous smile when he related that story. He is customarily quiet, almost shy by nature. He does not say a lot. However, when he talks racing, you better pay attention. Whether that playful smile is creasing his lips or he is serious, pay attention because Jones is a wealth of racing wisdom. The afternoon before the dreaded April 15th, we sat in the Perris Auto Speedway meeting room for well over an hour. Jones talked and talked and talked some more. Now 58 years-old, the man who gave up motorcycle racing to race sprint cars and one day the Indianapolis 500 had a lot to say. S.D.:
You talked about the early days racing motorcycles. When did you make the switch to racing cars? JONES: I was 20, almost 21. My brother in law had an old modified and his driver got hurt. They wanted to know if I wanted to drive it one night. I really had no interest in driving cars. I was going to get my pro (racing) license for motorcycles. I thought, “Oh what the hell, I’ll try it.” S.D.:
At that time, did you ever in your wildest dreams think that this could be a
career for you? JONES: Nah. I thought it was just going to be a weekend warrior deal. S.D.:
Was it the same with the motorcycles? Did
you figure it was a weekend warrior deal? JONES: No. Motorcycles? I had a backer. The local Triumph dealer, he kind of took a liking to me and I got anything I wanted. Like I said, I was getting ready to get my pro license. S.D.:
This was in your native Illinois. What
part exactly? JONES: Danville. It’s right on the Indiana-Illinois border. S.D.:
That is a hotbed of car racing, so once you started, you had a lot of options. JONES: Oh god! We could wait in the shop on Saturday till three o’clock and go to three, four, five different tracks. Whichever one (s) was rained out we went to the other one. S.D.:
How long were you in the modifieds before you got into sprint cars? JONES: Just a couple years. They called them modifieds up into the 70’s. They were basically just sprint cars then. S.D.:
A lot of the time back then, you were a barber when you were not at the track
weren’t you? JONES: I was a barber. I worked 5 days a week in the barbershop and raced 5 nights a week. S.D.:
You were the racing barber. Did
that bring in any extra customers? JONES: Oh yeah, yeah. The guy I worked for was a racer, too. Larry “Boom Boom” Cannon. Me and him were together for, I don’t know, 8 years. S.D.:
So you both worked in the same shop. Both
raced sprint cars and both made it to Indy.
JONES: Yeah. In fact, my first decent break came when Cannon was driving for this guy and he had won everything there was to win around there. You know their local tracks. Cannon got a ride in USAC and the guy that owned the car Cannon was driving called me and wanted to know if I wanted to drive it. #@%& Yeah! You know it was the best car around. I got into that thing and broke all of Cannon’s records. We won everything. We had years where we won 40 or 50 features a year. So that is what really got me started. S.D.:
Was winning all of those what persuaded you to head out on the road? JONES: No. Actually I quit racing four or five times after that. I would get to a certain point and for me to get any better I had to get a better ride. Better rides were hard to get. I would get frustrated and quit. Seemed like every time I quit, somebody would call and give me a better ride. S.D.:
You are considered one of the original “Outlaws.” How many drivers barnstormed around the country like you did
back then? JONES: Three or four. Me, Opperman, Rick Ferkel, Kenny Weld, Bobby Allen. That was about it really. S.D.:
Was there a set plan like traveling to the same race or did you just show up
wherever and whenever? JONES: No. Wherever they were paying the most money. That is where we went. S.D.:
Those were kind of rollicking days back then weren’t they?
What I am saying is there was no organization like the World of Outlaws
or another organization that you guys followed.
JONES: None at all. If there was a big race in Pennsylvania we wanted to go to, we would go. Colorado? Wherever, it didn’t make any difference. That is how that stuff (World of Outlaws) really got started. Ted Johnson was hanging around most of them tracks. If there was a big race like in Dallas or somewhere like that - Ferkel and Opperman and Weld and Allen - all of those guys would show up. He (Ted Johnson) would be there and he was trying to get races for all the good guys to show up at the same place. That is when I split and went USAC. Right when that started. S.D.:
Being a guy who has seen both sides of the fence. Is it better that someone organized it, or was it better
barnstorming around on your own? JONES: Probably for us then, it was better, but when they started to organize it and got the World of Outlaws together, that was a heck of a deal. Nobody ever thought it was going to work, but that was a big turning point for sprint cars. S.D.:
A good point? JONES: Yeah. Oh yeah. S.D.:
How do you view sprint car racing today? How
is it at and where is it going? JONES: I think sprint car racing today is at a big standstill. The Worlds of Outlaws are packing them in almost wherever they go, but I think somewhere down the line, even the World of Outlaws are going to hurt from not having talent in there that grew up running different places and learning how to win races. When you get past Sammy, Steve, Mark, Hillenburg and some of them guys that are running up front now, there ain’t going to be much to choose from when those guys quit. There are just not a lot of guys (besides them) getting any kind of a reputation anywhere else. It is like Karl Kinser said, “How in the hell would you expect a guy that has never had the experience of winning any races, to come in here and run with us, and try to keep with the World of Outlaws?” They can’t do it. They don’t have the experience or the know how. S.D.:
You ran with the World of Outlaws a little bit. Was that with a wing or in the early days when they came out
here and ran without wings? JONES: With a wing. S.D.:
How much wing racing did you do? S.D.:
A lot of drivers cannot do that today. JONES: It is probably because they did not grow up learning to run without a wing. I am not saying wing racing is easier. Wing racing is probably harder because the miles per hour are a lot greater. There are a few guys that could take them wings off right now and come out and never miss a beat. Steve, Sammy, Mark. It is just whatever your preference is. Non wing racing there is a lot more wheel to wheel action. Myself, it don’t make no difference to me. S.D.:
You mentioned some pretty good drivers a few minutes ago.
Who was the best you ever raced against? JONES: (Long Pause) you know, I hate to pick one person. Dick Gaines would probably be the toughest. S.D.:
He drove for Karl Kinser for a lot of years so that was kind of like double
ammo. JONES: Yeah, it was double ammo. Opperman, Dick Gaines, Kenny Weld, Bobby Allen. It is hard to compare one with the other and it is hard to compare the driver’s back then with the drivers today. Everybody is always trying to compare them. I don’t think you can. S.D.:
Okay, so who is the best sprint car driver out there these days? JONES: (long pause) God, I don’t know. You mean just general? The whole country? S.D.:
Yeah, all of today’s sprint car drivers combined. Who is the best? JONES: (another long pause followed by a big smile and laugh) The best there is right now? Karl Kinser! S.D.:
Those guys are Hall of Fame racers. So
are you. That had to be one heck of
a kick getting into the Sprint Car Hall of Fame. JONES: That was one of the neatest things that ever happened to me. The way they present it and do the ceremonies, it makes you feel like people really recognize what you have done over the years. That was a big thrill for me. People on the west cost do not probably realize how the Hall of Fame has brought sprint car racing to another level. S.D.:
Another neat item from your career was you appearing on the cover of the first
issue of “Open Wheel.” Neat
deal? JONES: (laughing) Yeah, I don’t know how that ever came about. I had a pretty good reputation and I guess they thought that (photo) was something that would help sell books. I don’t know, but it was a neat deal. S.D.:
You made it to the Indianapolis 500. Was
that in 1977? JONES: 77’, yeah. S.D.:
How did that come about? JONES: That is why I went to USAC. I quit running around the country and went to USAC running sprint cars and stuff. Jan Opperman was driving for Bobby Hillin (Bobby Hillin Sr., father of former NASCAR Winston Cup and current NASCAR Busch Grand National Driver Bobby Hillin Jr.) and Longhorn Racing. I had been driving for a guy named M.A. Brown out of Tennessee. Opperman got hurt and they asked me to drive the sprint car for Longhorn Racing. He (also) had two Indy cars. George Snider drove the Indy cars and I was the sprint car driver. They kind of made the deal where if Snider got in the show at Indy the first week of qualifying, they would give me a chance to take my rookie test the second week. We got Snider in the show and I got a chance to get in the backup car, which was an old Eagle. I had four or five days to pass my rookie test. I got through my rookie test and everything went great. We finally got up to speed on the last day and got it in the show. It was a neat deal. S.D.:
How did you do? JONES: I started 33rd and I got up to tenth and I blew a motor. S.D.:
That still had to be a heck of a kick. I
mean, it was the Indianapolis 500. JONES: Oh yeah. I really felt one day that I would win that thing after I got in it (in 1977). It seemed like any track that I ever spent a lot of time at, the tracks we ran steady, it seemed like we got the combination where we could almost dominate them. That is why I figured if I could stick to Indy, I really felt that one day I would win the damn thing. But, it didn’t happen (laughing). S.D.:
You never raced in the 500 again. What
happened? JONES: I went the next year. They got rid of Snider and I was the first driver (on the team). I had a two year-old car that I think Dallenbach (Wally Sr.) drove it in 76’ and Snider drove it in 77’. We unloaded that thing in 78’ and in 30 laps we were within 2 miles per hour of the fastest guys there. We kept gaining on it and gaining on it. One day I spun coming of off four. Who knows why? I never could get it back up to speed. They put two or three different drivers in it and they couldn’t run it within 10 miles per hour of what I was runnin’ it. The sponsor got mad and quit. Finally they got rid of me. In 79’ I was supposed to get a ride from Pat Patrick. I went to Patrick’s expecting to get a ride and they hired some guy named Spike Gelhausen to drive it instead of me. I said, “if they are going to hire him over me, there is no sense in me even staying here.” I finished that year in the sprint cars and almost won the championship. Then that winter I came to California on vacation and I heard the Kazarian’s (now the owners of Perris Auto Speedway) were looking for a driver. I went down and talked to them. I signed up with them and I have been here ever since. S.D.:
Do you wish you were racing today with the IRL? JONES: No, because I don’t think anything has changed. S.D.:
At first it was going to be a good deal for the sprint car and midget drivers.
However, that seems to be slipping away. That
last race at Phoenix proves that point. JONES: It is still a money game. Just like Homestead (Florida) this year. They had the Trucks (NASCAR Craftsman) one-day and Indy Cars the next day. The trucks drew a bigger crowd. Them guys driving them trucks and the stock cars all have followings they brought from when they started racing. When you take guys that don’t have any following and have never won a damn race in their life driving high powered Indy Cars – and I am not saying they are not capable of driving them things – they have nothing to bring to the table. Who in the hell ever heard of Kenny Brack or Greg Ray? Just go down the list. Now they have lost Tony Stewart. Like I said, I am not saying they are not capable of driving those things, but they have no following to bring to that deal at all. The reason they wanted Jeff Gordon in NASCAR is that he had a following. The guy who runs Haubstaudt Speedway in Evansville, Indiana told me that when me or Opperman, or Ferkel or Eddie Leavitt or some of those guys would stop in that was a big thrill for them people (the fans) because they would hear about us every day, but they would never see us race (regularly). When you take a guy like me, back there back then, getting a ride at the Speedway (Indianapolis), who know how many people I brought in? You take a guy who doesn’t’ have a following and nobody has ever heard of, he ain’t going to bring nobody to the Speedway. I think that is a big deal in open wheel racing. These guys like Kinser, Swindell - all them guys – they have had offers to go there, but they turned them down because they (the offered cars) were #@&% boxes. They ain’t going to bring no money (to buy a ride) in there. They are making a lot of money doing what they are doing. I think that is really hurting CART and the IRL. I am not saying Franchitti and them guys cannot drive, but you ain’t going to get a lot of people to go watch them guys. Hell they can’t even pronounce their names. S.D.:
Are you happy out here in California? JONES: Yeah, but I would rather be back where there was more racin’. Yeah, I am happy out here. S.D.:
A few weeks ago we were talking and you told me you never realized how much your
racing meant to some people until after you retired and moved out here.
Explain. JONES: Yeah. I had a pretty good following. I guess I had done it for so many damn years. The mystique is people hear about you winning races everywhere and they finally get to see you and it is kind of a big thrill for them I guess. I never realized it. Like when I moved to California from back East, I had a fan club back there that was fairly decent sized. When I quit racing back there and came out here, a lot of them didn’t go to the races anymore. I don’t know why. A lot of them just found other things to do. S.D.:
They were just fans of yours more than racing? JONES: Yeah, I guess. I was gospel to some of them. S.D.:
What was your favorite track? JONES: Eldora. (Much of this interview Jones carefully thought about the question before answering, but not when it came to Eldora). S.D.:
What was your least favorite track? JONES: Oh God! West Memphis, Arkansas. S.D.:
What made Eldora your favorite and West Memphis, Arkansas you least favorite? JONES: I used to drive for a guy in Tennessee. West Memphis was his home track. It was black gumbo, sticky, rough! If you didn’t start in the front you couldn’t see after three laps. It was a short track and real narrow. I just didn’t like it, but we done good down there. S.D.:
At West Memphis, while you were racing sprint cars there was a young kid named
Sammy Swindell racing one of the support classes. Was he good at that time? JONES: Yeah he started out in – what the hell did they call them – “B” cars. I think that is what they called them. That is when I first met Sammy. He just drove the $!#@ out of that thing every night. We got to be pretty good friends. S.D.:
Back to Eldora, why did you like it so much? JONES: I think just because it was just balls out wide open. You could run as fast as you would want to go. S.D.:
You are from Illinois. I was born
and raised in Michigan. Back there
(both places), you can race different nights of the week and there is a crowd in
the stands. Out here in California,
it only works on Saturday. What is
the difference? JONES: Out here there are so many other things to do. The cost of living out here Is a lot higher. Most people, it takes two (a couple) to make a living out here. It is harder to get places. There are not a lot of racetracks around. A guy can’t get off work at three or four in the afternoon and make it to the racetrack somewhere in California at 6:30 or seven o’clock at night. It is just a different world back there. S.D.:
Sprint cars back then and today. There
is a big difference isn’t there? JONES: You know there is and there isn’t. We run the same setups on these cars today that I ran 25 years ago. The only thing that changes on these things is the tires get bigger, the motors definitely get more horsepower, but basically they are the same thing they was 25 years ago. S.D.:
So in theory, you can pass a lot on from your experience to your son (SCRA star
Tony Jones) now that he is racing. JONES: Oh yeah. I know people that think that is crazy, but that is just the way we do it. S.D.:
Your kid is a pretty decent driver. JONES: He is getting really good. S.D.:
How far can he go? He has been in
roughly 100 races in his life and he is running near the front with veterans
like Rip Williams and Richard Griffin (for the record, Tony Jones fell out of
the last 2 SCRA main events at the PAS while running second to Williams and
Griffin). JONES: I think he can go a long way. It is probably going to be all up to him. He has a good car owner right now. He provides pretty decent equipment and lets us kind of have our way with what we want to do with it. Hopefully Tony is going to stick with him for however long the guy wants to race. Tony is pretty determined and he has a lot of confidence. We have got him in some pretty fast cars. I think the main thing right now is he just needs to settle down a little bit. He has a lot of talent. You see him running the cushion. There are not a lot of guys who can run the cushion better than he can. That is a hard deal for a young kid. S.D.:
I know the answer to this question, but I will ask anyway.
Are you proud of him? JONES: (smiling) Oh yeah! I get @#$$!& at him, but he is doing a good job. It is probably hard on Tony because he is my son. A lot of people expect him to go out there and get right in the winner’s circle, but that is a tough deal. He is probably going to be in his toughest years here in the next year or two. It seems like a big turning point is after the third or fourth full seasons. He can down or he can go up. It’s a tough deal. S.D.:
Okay, the cars are not much different today than they were years ago.
How different are the drivers? JONES: I think it is tougher deal now because back then you had a lot of owners involved that hired drivers. Now, mostly, drivers own their own deals and there is not a lot of hired guns around. Back then you had to make all your stuff. Now you just go buy it off the shelf. S.D.:
Is it a better deal that you can go out and buy the parts off the shelf now or
was it better when you made your own stuff? JONES: It is a better deal for racing that you can buy the stuff off the shelf. We still, in our operation (the Cowherd Racing team) with Tony, make a lot of our own stuff and we change the stuff that we buy. S.D.:
You got behind the wheel of a midget on more than one occasion and did pretty
well including a win in the 1976 Turkey Night Grand Prix.
Did you like midgets? JONES: I ran quite a few midgets, but I really didn’t care for them. They didn’t have a lot of horsepower. I think I ran Turkey Night four or five times. Finally Doug Carruthers called me and wanted me to drive one of his cars. It ended up being a pretty neat deal because we ended up kicking their butts (laughing). That was the only time he had ever won (Turkey Night) and the only time I ever drove for him. He never asked me to drive for him again. S.D.:
Weren’t you once in the Celebrity Race at the Long Beach Grand Prix? JONES: I had to go through a driving school. Finally my wife said, “yeah, you are going to do it.” I really enjoyed it. I had more fun. Went to a driving school out here at Riverside (very close to Perris Auto Speedway). Them guys that was the instructors out there, they heard that I was coming. I didn’t really even think about it, but they told me this after it was over. This one kid, he said, “God, we heard you was coming out here and most of the guys with your experience that have ever came through this school, are real #@$ holes. They think they know it all.” I went to the school just like the guy who has never driven (raced) before. It was fun and then when I got to do that deal at Long Beach, Toyota put us up on the Queen Mary for 5 or 6 days. We were with all the celebrities and stuff like that. Christopher Cross, and a bunch of them. I was kind of helping them guys. It was fun. They screwed (the officials) me, too. I should have won the damn thing (laughing). S.D.:
What are you doing these days? JONES: (laughing) driving the water truck and running the grader. (Jones official title is Director of Competition at Perris Auto Speedway). S.D.:
When it come to dirt tracks, Perris Auto Speedway is like a palace isn’t it? JONES: This is the nicest dirt rack there is, probably. I know there is a few ones around, the new ones that are being built. They are pretty nice, but we take a lot of pride in what we got here. S.D.:
Just a few more questions. Think
about this one for a second. What
was the highlight of your career? JONES: (very long pause) God, I don’t know there have been so damn many. I will tell you one. When I went into USAC I had never ran any pavement. Everybody said, “Ah $#@!, he will never be worth a $#@! on pavement.” When I was driving for Longhorn we had a pretty good pavement car. I was having a hard time adapting to it. Finally, we went and done some testing one day at Winchester. We got going pretty good. The next two times we raced there with USAC, we won. That was one of the highlights. The last race I ever ran was at Manzanita (1991). My buddy, who owned the car, he called and said, “Hey, they are paying a bunch of money at Manzanita. Let’s go win one.” We hadn’t raced for a couple of months. We went to Manzanita and I was walking through the pits and this one young kid made the comment, “What’s that old man doing here?” I think we qualified about fifteenth. We came up through the field and we ended up winning it. We shouldn’t have won it. Leland (McSpadden) should have won the race, but he ran out of gas. We probably should have ran second, but me and Haudenschild had a hell of a race for the win. That was a big highlight. S.D.:
It was your last race. Did you know
it was time to quit then? JONES: Yeah. I had already retired a couple of years before that. Then we came back and ran some races. It was time. I was just getting too old to do that. I know if I was going to run up front, I was going to crash. It happened to me every year I drove. If you are going to run up front and bang wheels and try to win, you are going to crash. I didn’t need to hurt myself. I have been lucky I have never gotten hurt real bad. It was time to quit. S.D.:
Way to leave though, going out on top. JONES: Even if I had not have won, that was my last race. That didn’t matter. I ran second or third and felt better about it than some races I had won. The thrill of the win was great. The money was great. I think another thing you have to accept when you are racing is defeat. If you can’t accept defeat in racing, you are in a world of $#@!, because you are going to get beat. S.D.:
Going back a couple of answers ago. Is
Winchester as scary as everyone says? JONES: I hated Winchester! S.D.:
Why? JONES: If you crash there, you are going tear the $&!@ out of your car and you are going to get hurt. There is actually no sense in it. It’s a dangerous racetrack as far as I’m concerned. I wish they would tear it down! There have been guys killed there. Several! S.D.:
Like you said, “If you run up front you are going to crash and you are
possibly going to get hurt there.” You
won two races there. How do you
muster up the guts to do that place with those things in mind? JONES: The only reason I ran pavement at all was to try to get to the speedway (Indianapolis). I knew that I had to show some good stuff on the pavement to get into the speedway. That was the only chance I figured I had. After I had ran there a few times, I had no desire to go back there. S.D.:
Last question. You may not like to
hear this, but you are a living legend. Do
you realize that and do you feel like a legend? JONES: Not really. Nah! I know people say that and it makes me feel good, but it really does not impress me (being a legend).
Legend status does, however, impress a lot of people.
And Jones, who is a very nice, kind man, is a legend on and off the
track. |
