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July 6, 1999 by Rick Manley
Food For Thought...Just For The Fun Of It While traveling on business recently, I had the opportunity to visit one of the legendary "bull rings" of racing, Kentucky Motor Speedway. I visited with owner Barney Lain on a Saturday, wanting to scout out the location just outside Owensboro, Kentucky, before attending the weekly Sunday night racing event. Barney and an assistant had just finished touching up the backstretch guard rail two competitors had torn down last week due to some dubious driving. Barney was dressed in a bathing suit with work boots and an old straw hat with the top conveniently removed for ventilation. We talked a while regarding the facility and racing in general. He invited me back Sunday evening for their racing program (I would have been there regardless!). Quarter mile tracks are a spectators' dream when their programs run smoothly and I was to be most impressed with the KMS efficiency in running events.
Upon returning to KMS on Sunday afternoon, the skies had grayed and the weather looked threatening. Heavy storms had passed a few miles south through Owensboro, but the track received only a slight sprinkle, enough to settle the dust of the mostly gravel pit area. I walked around looking at the cars; cruiser class, street stock, figure eights, super street and the premier late model division. There were 14 cars for the late model division, all appeared prepared and well maintained. My attention was drawn to a Pontiac Grand Prix with two people working feverishly over it. I saw they were putting up a canopy to keep any moisture away from the engine should the skies open up so I volunteered my services to assist. Being an old race fan from way back, I struck up a conversation with the driver, John Vowels, a seven year veteran of KMS. John is tall and lanky with jet black hair and a moustache. His eyes showed the determination of a racer who just loves to compete. John's mechanic, Marty Frizzel, was looking over the engine which had lost the air breather during a shake down run earlier. Marty is a small statured guy with a firey mechanics attitude reminiscent of another chief mechanic I once met, "Tiger" Tom Pistone. Marty was disassembling the carb for a jet change to compensate for the eight fouled spark plugs he had laying up on the hood. One of their friends had run back to Owensboro for new plugs and a breather.
I looked all around and saw different levels of support to the cars; many of the racers were relaxing in preparation for the 50 lap feature event for the late models. John and Marty were still tweaking their car. Marty decided to change to smaller jets and was about to go looking to find his jets when a drag racing acquaintance came by who had his Holley jet set with him and ran out to the car to grab his kit. As Marty worked feverishly to replace the distributor ignition set, plugs and carb jets, John was getting fuel from the fuel truck. After attending the mandatory drivers meeting, John was helping do those last minute things on the vehicle when Marty discovered some loose rockers. Marty frantically pulled the valve covers to correct that problem. To make matters worse, during the valve cover adjustment, a water pump shaft was discovered to be loose, too loose to chance for the 50 lap feature. A spare water pump was in the the trailer but upon removing the old pump, the pulley center hole was too small to fit over the replacement. One of John's fellow late model drivers loaned him an aluminum Wieand water pump that had the correct center shaft. While installing the pulley and fan, one of the bolts stripped out leaving only 3 holding the fan and pulley. John went searching for a longer bolt while Marty frustratingly tried to install the fan belt. After finding a longer bolt and with the help of about 20 washers, the fan was finally attached. John just made it to get into the feature. He had qualified fifth fastest, but due to the fact they had broken the last two weeks before qualifying, he was forced back to the 11th position. It should be noted that John's car started life as a '74 Chevy Nova but now sported Pontiac sheet metal, which was personally hung and painted by John. John's car doesn't have many trick parts, a standard Chevy 10 bolt rear end puts the Marty Frizzel engine power to the pavement. The front A arms and suspension are all either stock or modified stock parts. John's car sits between pure racing vehicles with hand welded tubing frames and Ford 9 inch quick change rear ends. No matter, he was there to race and race he did.
The Figure 8 feature preceded the late model main event and proved to be an interesting event I hadn't see the likes of since my days in the 70's at Englewood Speedway in Denver. The late model drivers then put their cars, now numbering 15 after a late arrival from Evansville, on the front straight for driver intros. After the drivers strapped in and ran a couple of pace laps the green flag flew. Fifteen year old "Wunderkind", Beau Mitchell immediately grabbed the lead. He was pressed hard and within 7-8 laps began lapping the slower racers. I watched John's drive with great anticipation, he was at first trapped behind slow traffic and I feared he would be lapped before clearing it. With the leaders bearing down, he made a bold move down low on the back straight going into turn 3 and cleared two slower cars. After that, he started to move up smartly and was lapping as fast or faster than the leaders. I found out later, John wanted a caution to bunch up the field as his car was definitely one of the fastest. Bunching up the field would have allowed him the chance to catch the leaders and join in the battle for first. Unfortunately, the entire 50 lap feature was run without a caution; three harmless spins with the cars getting into the infield made cautions unnecessary. Still, John's run was becoming very impressive. On lap forty six however, the dream of contesting the win went away; John's car picked up a miss that would drop him from a hard earned fourth to fifth after he passed and was repassed by the Olds of his buddy Rick Pedley.
Fifteen year old Beau Mitchell picked up his first ever KMS Late Model win after smacking the wall, breaking the pan hard bar and with his car's transmission slipping. Is he another Mayfield or Green or Waltrip? Time will tell, but it was not his drive but John Vowels that impressed me. Here's a wrecker operator during the week who crawled exhausted out of his car sweating and tired but he still managed a smile to me as I walked back into his pit stall. He was disappointed by the engine laying down but he should be proud of an effort like the one he had just made. After having no luck at all during the pre-race, to come back and run that strong was truly amazing. John Vowels is what the soul of American short track racing it about, not 180 mph superspeedways and multimillion dollar operations; it's quarter/half mile banked ovals. It's about having to use plugs until the electrodes melt or they foul so bad they won't fire, it's about used parts, it's about other racers loaning parts freely to aid a competitor, it's about friends helping whatever way they can, it's about engines that are freshened until they can't go any more. It's about a quiet determination that he can go out and run with high money teams with sponsors when he's looking for anyone to sponsor his racecar to get some more parts for racing. John doesn't chase points any more, or dream of NASCAR. He races for the absolute enjoyment of it….and if he kicks some money backed guys butts along the way, he'll still be the tall quiet driver he was Sunday night because he knows that he'll be back next week to try to beat the track and the other drivers again.
I stopped by the tower after the racing program was complete to thank Barney, now dressed in light slacks and a burgundy KMS knit shirt, and congratulate him on a fine show. He smiled at me through tired eyes that said he'd had a long day. Then he had to turn around and answer some fan criticism of the cruiser event results. The point of this article is that YOU need to go out and support your local tracks, the local operators who are scraping to get by, who work on the tracks themselves because they can't afford full time crews and have volunteers there to insure you have a safe, smoothly run, fair show. Go out and support all those drivers/mechanics like John and Marty who pour their hearts, sweat, and sometimes blood into those race cars five or six nights a week to put on a show for us fans. I'm headed back to Owensboro in July and will be spending at least one more Sunday afternoon at KMS hopefully, I'll see John and Marty win next time. -Rick Manley
[Rick Manley is a former driver and a heck of an insightful race fan from Melbourne, Florida]
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