Driver Mike Cesario says this...
Driver Mike Cesario says this Hooters car was built for short tracks, so making it turn right is a struggle. In spite of the difficulty that poses on a road course, he won't change it from how it was first raced.
Alan Kulwicki won two races in 1992, the year the driver/owner also took the NASCAR Winston Cup championship by 10 points, the closest margin ever.
Both of those wins came in the same car.
Michael Cesario thinks about that every time he buckles into that piece of racing history and rolls it onto a racetrack.
"You have this sense of history surrounding you," he says. "You want people to see this car driven like Alan would have driven it. Hard. But at the same time, I know this car can't be replaced, that I owe it to his memory not to destroy it."
In the South, there are several museums dedicated to stock car racing. Many of the teams-Richard Childress Racing is perhaps the best example-run their own museum to preserve the history of their cars and drivers.
Out West, and increasingly across the country, guys like Cesario figure stock cars belong on racetracks, where fans can see, hear, and smell them in action. He's part of the Historic Stock Car Racing Series, the most popular organization in the region, which is able to muster about 40 cars for its major events.
The group races on the more popular West Coast road courses, tracks such as Laguna Seca, Willow Springs, Phoenix, Thunderhill, California Speedway, and the streets of San Jose.
A No. 57 Cup car campaigned...
A No. 57 Cup car campaigned by Jody Ridley chases a Dale Earnhardt No. 3 around a righthander. Ridley's car is driven by Steve Eftimiou, Earnhardt's by Jim Koehler.
On a weekend in late spring, a group of the drivers showed up at Reno-Fernley Raceway in Nevada. The multicourse track was using a 2.3-mile layout that gave the big V-8s a chance to come to song on the long front straight before climbing up a snaking hill that then dropped the cars through a series of downhill corners that tested the cars' brakes and the drivers' resolve.
"It's a really busy course," says Cesario, who makes his home in Reno. "It's a workout for the car and the driver."
He clicks the switches on the same dashboard Kulwicki saw as he sat in the car in 1992. The engine rolls over and thunders to life, settling down to a pulsating throb that you can feel as well as hear.
He puts the Hooters Thunderbird in gear and rolls past a paddock full of American racing history.
There is an '83 Monte Carlo painted Wrangler blue and carrying the number 3. The Earnhardt car sits next to a yellow Lumina once campaigned by Ernie Irvan with sponsorship from Kodak.
There are plenty more: a Rusty Wallace Pontiac, a Jeff Gordon Lumina, a former Harry Gant Skoal Bandit Oldsmobile Cutlass, and a Jody Ridley Thunderbird.
Tim Smith grew up as a fan...
Tim Smith grew up as a fan of Ernie Irvan, so he was naturally attracted to Irvan's old Kodak car.
Historic stock car racing has emerged as a popular home for these significant cars. The stock of available chassis jumped this year when NASCAR scrapped its old regional touring series and introduced spec engines and composite bodies to the former Winston West and Busch North series. Those series had been a viable market for Cup teams to sell their older chassis. Many of the cars that went into those east and west series carried a history of competition with top drivers.
"You'll see a lot of them on the market," says Cesario. "What they are worth will depend on the age of the chassis."
The Historic Stock Car Racing Series won't accept cars newer than 1994, although later-model cars are allowed to compete in selected races.
"Guys with newer cars are kind of stuck with them," Cesario says. "But people who own older cars are seeing the value of them rise as more people discover they can still be raced."
Cesario says he has turned down $100,000 for his Kulwicki car and figures other cars in the series are probably just as valuable.
"So much of it depends on the history," he says. "We won't accept a car without a documented history. No one can just go out and build a new 'old' car and come race with us."