Morgan-McClure Races at Home

BRISTOL, Tenn. – With all the Sharpie 500’s pre-show pageantry finished – the Star Spangled Banner sung, the world’s largest karaoke ensemble completed, the fly-over jets on their way home – there was only one thing left to do: race.

Nobody wanted to hear “Gentlemen, start your engines” more than Morgan-McClure Motorsports co-owner Jerry McClure.

“It’s exciting,” he said. “We’re back where we belong. No one knows what it’s like to be in front of 160,000 fans after what we’ve been through the last two years.

“We’re back where we belong.”

Two years ago, MMM, the Abingdon, Va., race team that visited Victory Lane 13 times in its 24-year history, shut its doors because of a lack of sponsorship.

In mid-August, however, Alpha Natural Resources, the third-largest coal producer in the country, put the team’s No. 4 Chevy back on track. For just the second time this season,
MMM entered a NASCAR Sprint Cup race – this time at its home track, Bristol Motor Speedway.

Tim Morgan, a co-owner of the team, and McClure decided to hire Scott Wimmer, who had driven their car in 2006, for the Sharpie 500.

“I was glad when I got that phone call,” Wimmer said. “Honestly, I didn’t know how it was going to work. It’s hard to get back after two years.”

There were plenty of reasons to be pessimistic. The team had very little experience with the Car of Tomorrow. Scott Wimmer hadn’t driven in the Sprint Cup since 2007. The engine crew was a ragtag mix of former employees who volunteered to work for free.

Regardless, the team’s performance at BMS surpassed anyone’s expectations.

Despite missing most of practice time after a failed inspection, the Alpha Natural Resources No. 4 qualified 26th for the Sharpie 500.

It was the payoff MMM had dreamed about for two years. Even co-owner Larry McClure, currently serving an 18-month jail sentence for unpaid taxes, reveled in the news, according to his wife, Ginny.

Suddenly, MMM had a new mission. Qualifying was nice, but racing was better.

“If smiles could tell you what this meant,” Jerry McClure said. “Our only goal was to make this race. We’re not going to start and park.

“Our new goal is to be on the lead lap when we finish the race.”

The crew
Robert Holt worked for MMM for seven years. When Morgan and McClure asked him to come back and help out with the No. 4’s gears, transmissions, and chasses, Holt gladly took a day’s vacation from his job at Edwards and Associates.

Holt isn’t sure if he’ll get paid for this weekend, but that doesn’t matter.

“The old guys are back together,” he said. “This is in my blood. You get to see guys you used to know. I wanted this.”

One of the old guys is Todd Cooper, who was working on the team in 1990 at Bristol, when MMM took its first checkered flag.

“It was so exciting,” Cooper said. “It gives you cold chills every time you come here, it’s the best place to win. You can’t help thinking about it every time you come in here.”

Cooper was laid off in 2007, after 25 years at MMM. He has been unemployed ever since. MMM currently employs only three full-time employees, down from 60 during the team’s heyday.

“The worst thing we had to do was tell our employees we can’t compete. The worst thing we ever had to do,” McClure said. “But whenever we call and need help, they tell us, ‘We’ll be glad to. We’ll be glad to.’ ”

Holt’s and Cooper’s stories represent the entire crew MMM put together for the Sharpie 500 – a collection of semi-retired car fanatics taking one last stab at auto racing’s highest
platform.

It would be misleading to say that the crew, or MMM, was without fault this weekend. They had trouble passing inspection on Friday, and had slight adjustments to perform again on
Saturday, although the No. 26 car, a full-time Cup ride, had to make the same changes.

On Saturday, a NASCAR official frowned at the No. 4’s splitter, before letting the car pass. Holt was asked by a reporter what was wrong with the splitter.

“I ain’t going to say,” he responded. “They’re just nitpicking.”

Still, MMM’s volunteer crew took a car that had one other Cup race on its resume and in two weeks of work put it into the Sharpie 500. Cooper knew the chances of that car winning on Saturday were close to nil, but that wasn’t the point.

The point was to turn heads – show what this team could do if it had the financial backing.

“We’re shooting for a top-25 [finish],” he said. “We can’t compete with the multi-million dollar teams. This is starting all over again. It’s our second chance.”

The race
MMM, Scott Wimmer and Alpha Natural Resources did not make the top 25 on Saturday night.

The No. 4 Chevy started 26th and spent most of the night in the low 30s before crossing the finish line 29th.

Wimmer knew from the opening lap that his car wasn’t great, and it continued to perform poorly throughout the race.

The team had spent so much time preparing the car for qualifying, to make sure they could get into the race, Wimmer’s race setup was a complete unknown.

“The Car of Tomorrow really threw us for a loop,” Wimmer said. “Each adjustment we made made the car slower.

“I really wanted to finish in the top 25. But the car is one piece. I know there’s no one in the shop to put it back together, so we didn’t want to tear it up.”

After the race, Jerry McClure stood behind the team’s hauler looking exhausted and happy at the same time – like a runner after finishing an uphill-all-the-way marathon. His graying hair was disheveled; he sipped from a Diet Coke can in one hand and ate an hours-old dinner roll from the other.

All around him, members of the volunteer crew were packing up the No. 4 car, maybe for the last time.

“We [might] not be back anymore, but we were here,” McClure said. “We sent a lot of really good cars home this weekend. It felt good, it felt good. We won our first race here, and it feels good to see the No. 4 back in the track.

“Morgan-McClure needs to be in this sport.”