Thread: A Racecars History.
In the end of 1992, my dad decided to send me to meet Gary Hargett in Marshville, NC. Gary had a racecar and I was going to drive it. Marshville is the home of Randy Travis I would learn.
In the end of 1992, my dad decided to send me to meet Gary Hargett in Marshville, NC. Gary had a racecar and I was going to drive it. Marshville is the home of Randy Travis I would learn.
After a year of racing at Myrtle Beach with Gary, dad decided to create a company called Chance Inc. It would fund the next couple seasons of racing for me, my sister Kelley, and brother Kerry. I would stay with Gary and race the beach. Kelley and Kerry would run at Hickory.
For 1994 Dad would purchase for Kelley a new KLB (Kerry Bodenhamer) chassis. Here’s Kelley #38 chasing brother Kerry at Hickory in 1994. Kelley would run the car weekly for the majority of 1994. The car was a front steer big spring trailing arm chassis. 
At the end of 1994 Kelley would acquire a different chassis. The white KLB #38 would be park in storage. Gary eventually asked dad if we could get some use out of it. So we towed it to Marshville with plans to run it at select events.
In 1995 we missed the show at North Wilksboro with the car. Ran poorly at Martinsville with it. Something just wasn’t right and we could never get the car to handle. Gary made a decision to go against my dads wishes and mount coil over shocks on the front clip.
Dad wanted us kids to race on big springs & trailing arms. Most successful Late Model chassis at the time were coil over 3 link. But dad thought if we ever did make it in racing we needed to race on chassis similar to the big time. So mounting coil overs to this car was a no no.
We took the car to East Carolina Speedway for a 200 lap show and finishing 2nd. It was amazing how well the car drove with coil over front springs. I told dad and he was upset. We had to change back to the big springs and the car went back to running poorly anytime we used it.
In the off-season after 1995 I decided to move my racing operation to my home. Dad offered up the chance for me to work on my cars all week and I jumped at it. With the cars at Gary’s in Marshville I was very limited on how much I could work on my stuff.
Gary didn’t want to make the long daily drive to work in Mooresville so we decided to split up after 3 years together. It was hard to do but I needed to be learning more about the cars I was driving. So I towed everything and the KLB car to Mooresville to get to work.
In the winter before the 1996 season my friend Ron Hornaday did me a wonderful favor. He took one look at my KLB chassis and quickly convinced dad that I needed to mount coil over shocks on the entire car. So that’s what we did. Those 2 days of working with Ron I’ll never forget.
Ron and I turned the sad puppy into a beauty. Not only did we put in some awesome professional work on mounting the coil overs, but I remounted the entire body to have a wider meaner stance. I was convinced this car was gonna be fun to drive. And it was.
We won that season at Florence and had another 12 top 3 finishes in 14 total starts. The car was so much fun to drive. My head mechanic Wesley Sherrill and I found the chassis easy to tune and adjust.
At the end of the 1996 season, Chance INC would come to an end. Sponsorship was no longer there and dad wasn’t interested in spending his own money funding us 3 kids entirely. We started selling our cars and the KLB “East Coast Drifter” as it was now known would be sold as well.
Long time racer Fred Phillips of Greenville, SC would buy the car. His home track is Greenville Pickens Speedway. He’d started racing there in 1971. Here’s a few pictures of the “East Coast Drifter” when Fred was at the wheel in the late 1990s.
Fred ran the car a few years and eventually moved on to other chassis. He kept this car and most of the original body. I had no idea that it was still around until I got a text from my sister about it. Turns out Fred was willing to sell it back to me at a very reasonable price.
Today I drove to SC to Fred’s house and there sat the original car. Still the same paint on the roll cage. Half the front clip is original with Hornadays handy work still evident. The original roof, hood, and decklid were present with original decals! Unreal. 23 years.
I said I was done buying old racecars and restoring them. That was before this curveball. Nice curveball though.
Here’s what the car looks like today.
My original seat from 1996
The car in 1995 when we first got our hands on it. Both taken at Florence.
Martinsville 1995
Florence 1996
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