Bristol Motor Speedway
Honored by WoO, Vest looks to 13th season with Eckert
By Kevin Kovac
World of Outlaws Late Model Series
Raye Vest (Brian McLeod)
Raye Vest received a big surprise during the recent 2007 World of Outlaws Late Model Series Awards Banquet. And not surprisingly, it got the veteran car owner’s emotions flowing.
After deciding to attend the gala affair on Dec. 6 in Orlando, Fla., thanks to the encouragement of his longtime driver Rick Eckert, Vest was called to the stage by World Racing Group CEO-CFO Brian Carter to accept a well-deserved Outstanding Contribution to the Sport award. Vest, 74, of Waldorf, Md., was left almost speechless.
“This is quite a surprise,” Vest said into the microphone in his distinctive southern drawl. “It’s been a long time (in racing), but I still enjoy every minute of it. I don’t know how much longer I got, but I never give up. And I’ll let Rick know when it’s time (to disband Raye Vest Racing).”
That time, thankfully, is still at some point in the future. Eckert, who turned 42 on Dec. 14, is set to mark his 13th season driving Vest’s familiar orange No. 24 dirt Late Models in 2008, with another pursuit of the team’s first World of Outlaws Late Model Series at the top of his priority list.
Vest and Eckert have been a stalwart combination on the WoO tour, entering all 154 events that the tour has contested since its re-launch under the World Racing Group banner in 2004. They have scored 15 series victories — second on the tour’s 2004-2007 win list behind Scott Bloomquist’s 16 — and registered points-race finishes of third (2004), fourth (2005), seventh (2006) and fifth (2007).
Eckert has also brought Vest plenty of glory away from the WoO LMS. The York, Pa., star’s long stint in Vest’s equipment includes back-to-back Xtreme DirtCar Series titles (2001-2002); $100,000 payoffs for winning the 1999 Dream at Ohio’s Eldora Speedway and the Xtreme Great Northern Challenge in 2002; major-event victories in the Dirt Track World Championship at Kentucky’s Bluegrass Speedway (2004), Scorcher 100 at Volunteer Speedway (2005) and National 100 at East Alabama Motor Speedway (2004 and 2005); and even a handful of ARCA Series superspeedway starts in the ‘90s.
As far as Vest is concerned, there’s no driver he’d rather have steering his race cars than Eckert.
“I remember Rick came up to me about a year or two before I hired him, and he told me that if I ever needed a driver to let him know,” Vest said. “Well, I kept watching him, and when time came, I called him. We’ve been together ever since.
“There aren’t many people like Rick Eckert,” continued Vest. “He’s a very honest man, a good man, a good boy.
“He’s also a hard worker, and that’s what you’re looking for as a car owner. He’s treats my stuff like it’s his, which is one of the main reasons him and I have been together so long.”
Eckert is the fourth driver that Vest has employed during his 22 years as a dirt Late Model car owner, following George Moreland, Nathan Durboraw and Rodney Franklin.
Vest attended his first dirt-track race in 1949 at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway — he was raised in the mountains of western Virginia, about 2 miles from the home of NASCAR pioneer Curtis Turner — but didn’t become actively involved in the sport until later in life. He decided to begin helping Moreland after his children had grown up and his business, Raye Vest Excavating, had become well-established.
“I never had the money to race when I was raising my family,” said Vest. “I was never going to take food off the table to go racing.
“Once my kids were grown, I wanted to find a hobby. I think everybody’s gotta have a hobby. I picked a very expensive one, but I don’t regret it. If I had my life to live over, I’d do it again.”
There is certainly no car owner who can claim to love dirt-track racing more than Vest. He doesn’t attend as many events as he once did because he’s been slowed by breathing problems that force him to use an oxygen canister (“That’s from a little too much cigarette smoking,” he said), but he’s still present quite often to pick Eckert’s time-trial number and drive his orange golf-cart around the pit area.
“As long as I can find a place at the racetrack where I can see (the races) from my motorhome or the tower, I’ll be out there,” Vest said. “I just can’t be out in the dust during the races.”
And on the occasions that Vest isn’t on hand to watch Eckert in action, he’s sure to be listening or watching on his computer, whether it be from his home in Maryland or his residence on the Caribbean island of St. Maarten. If there’s any hiccup with the DirtVision.com internet broadcast of a WoO event, the first person WoO announcer Rick Eshelman can expect to get a call from at the track is Vest, anxious to find out what’s happening.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t a lot for Vest and Eckert to get excited about in 2007. In one of the most unexpected storylines of the season, Eckert went winless on the tour — the only driver among the top 10 in the points standings to finish the year without a victory, in fact. The driver known as Scrub recorded five runner-up finishes, failed to finish only one of the season’s 44 features and improved to fifth in the points race, but, with crew and chassis changes dotting his year, he didn’t perform to his normal lofty standards.
After winning multiple events in each of the tour’s first three seasons, including a series-leading eight victories in 2006, a goose egg in the ’07 win column certainly was disappointing for Eckert and Vest. But Vest is confident that Eckert will be back at the front of the pack in 2008.
“This year was a struggle, there’s no doubt about it,” Vest said. “We changed cars (from Rocket to MasterSbilt before the season, then to GRT in August), and now we changed motors (from Cornett to Custom) for next year. We’re going to get it right.
“In 12 years together, we had eight or nine really good years. That’s better than most teams, so we ain’t complaining. We just were not as good this year as we have been in the past, but we will return. We will be back.”
Vest said that his age and health problems have made him realize that his “time is getting short,” so he plans to savor every moment of his racing excursions with Eckert. Finally adding a World of Outlaws title to his team’s ledger would just make him feel even better.
“It would be wonderful to see Rick the World of Outlaws championship,” said Vest. “We won the UDTRA championship twice and just about everything else there is to win, except the World 100 and World of Outlaws. I guess the World of Outlaws would mean the most, because we’re racing with the best. All them boys are good, and it’s good racing.
“Yeah, I’d like to win a championship one more time,” Vest added with a smile. “At least one more.”
