Jack Pennington - Dirty Genes

Jack Pennington is a member of the National Dirt Late Model Hall of Fame, but in an interesting twist of fate, pavement NASCAR racing has played a big part in his career.

It all started in 1974 when young Jack was helping family members with their racing activities. Suddenly, he got the bug to be behind the wheel of a race car and stepped right up to his dad and asked if he could drive.

"My dad looked at me and asked whether I could handle it," recalls Pennington. "And if I thought I could, to go ahead and give it a shot."

With that permission tightly in hand, Pennington made the unlikely purchase of a former Winston Cup car weighing 3,800 pounds and tried his luck on the dirt tracks of the South.

Pennington, a Georgia native, smiled when he recalled that first race in South Carolina where he finished a surprising third. That accomplishment is certainly made even higher when you learn that he had to run the race on pavement tires because no dirt tires were available.

Before his dirt racing career began in earnest in 1977, Pennington gave the pavement Late Model Sportsman cars a shot for a couple years. The major accomplishment was a runner-up finish in the NASCAR Georgia State Championship.

There's the NASCAR connection again.

By 1979, Pennington had it all together on dirt with a number of impressive victories. Much of the success came after he hooked up with owner Harry Elvis. Pennington recalls several victories and the 12 poles in 13 races. He went on to take the points championship at Myrtle Beach Speedway. One of his main competitors during those days was fellow Hall of Famer Leon Archer.

In the '80s, the beat kept pounding when Pennington hit the road and ran with the top-gun NDRA traveling circuit and showed a half-dozen wins against the nation's best dirt drivers. Many of those drivers have been inducted into the National Dirt Late Model Hall of Fame.

Pennington explains that everything fell together in 1985 when he won an amazing 39 races. With a smile, he says, "Heck, it was to the point that the other drivers hated to see me pull into the pits."

But in 1988, his racing career almost came to an abrupt end with a serious accident. "It was a bad deal when the driveshaft on my race car broke and came through the floor," Pennington says. "In the process it tore off one of my feet. Fortunately, they were able to put it back on, but I was on crutches for five months. But it didn't stop me from coming back to racing."

Shortly thereafter, Pennington had another-and much more significant-touch with NASCAR, when he gave the top stock car series a shot in 1989 after 15 years of successful dirt racing.

"My dirt car owner, Derrick Close, wanted to give it a shot, and we tried it for about a year and a half," says Pennington. And just like he had on dirt, he proved he could also compete on pavement. He came very close to making it in the big time.

In 1989, he split his season between ARCA and the NASCAR Busch Series, starting six races in Busch, with his best efforts being a third at Darlington and a fourth at Charlotte. There were also a number of top 5s in ARCA and two starts in Winston Cup.

The following year, Pennington competed in 14 Cup races. "I had a chance at my best race at Talladega when I was running Sixth, but I got messed up with four other cars and finished Eleventh," he recalls. "Got a Thirteenth at the World 600 (at Charlotte Motor Speedway) and several top 15s. I came real close to getting the Rookie of the Year award, but finished second to Rob Moroso."

He says things fell apart in 1991 "with lots of politics coming into play. A number of drivers, including Rich Bickle, Derrike Cope, and even Buddy Baker, got into the car, and I knew it was time to go back to dirt."

Pennington says in retrospect, "It's a lot easier going to pavement from the dirt than the reverse situation."

The next five years, he stayed pretty close to home, winning about two dozen races in each of those years. Some of the big wins included the '92 Stick Elliott Memorial at Cherokee Speedway in Gaffney, South Carolina, and the National 100 in 1998 at East Alabama Speedway.

During the mid-'90s, Pennington also started driving for new owners Marv Partain and Scott Ward. "Then, in about 1999," he says, "I made the decision to start backing off. After all, I knew that it couldn't continue to be a career."

Well, that didn't happen, and some seven years later he's still hitting the track and coming up with a win now and then. But there is one difference with his racing now as son Travis is also hooked on these cars. "Travis started with a Crate Late Model and drove his first Dirt Late Model when he was only 15," says Jack, who recently turned 54. "Heck, I drive a Crate Late Model once in a while, a number of times against my son. But I still like to drive the Dirt Late Models. The Crate cars aren't quite fast enough for me."

As told to Bill Holder
Having a son who is now competing in Dirt Late Models, Pennington can pull from the route the two of them traveled in climbing the ladder.

Driving
Travis started in Quarter Midgets, then went to Bandelero Cars, Legend Cars, and then to four-cylinder dirt cars when he was 12 years old. They were all good experiences. I then got him into a Crate Late Model with an older chassis. If you get them set up to run free, they will run well and provide good experience.

Travis is doing pretty well in Dirt Late Models, and I think much of that success came from his Crate Late Model experience.

Technical
It's a huge advantage to be able to work on your race car and understand what the car is telling you so you can make the appropriate changes.