According to Butch, Benny and his master engine builder Waddell Wilson were incredibly generous with helping their team, which raced in the Late Model division in the South. They’d give them parts and car set-up advice, and general support, without any money changing hands. Butch and the team would help out when they could on general work for Benny and Waddell – but Butch recounted that the Delford Clark-owned Late Model team certainly got the better end of that deal.
Benny would give them used Cup parts from Holman-Moody: spindles, engine parts, carbs – first class stuff for a little guy team, but used up for a Cup effort. They won 11 of 17 races one season racing with these used parts. Butch remembers one part in particular that Benny gave them, but then it turned into a loaner. “He gave us a mushroom tappet camshaft for our engine, and we won a bunch of races with it. It was a great cam. [Holman-Moody was grinding cams for a bunch of Cup teams in those days.] The Bristol Cup race was coming up in a couple of weeks and Benny calls me. ‘Hey Butch, remember that cam I loaned you guys?’ he says. ‘I need it back if it’s not too much trouble.’”
“We took it out and sent it back,” Butch recalls with a laugh. Apparently that camshaft was just a bit too good and had some Cup use still left in it. But it really wasn’t much of a price to pay for all the help and parts they had received over the years for the team and each other.
“Benny sold me a brand new, full-on, NASCAR-ready, Waddell Wilson-built Chevy 427-CID engine, complete with the dyno tag on it that read 643 HP,” Butch told me with a bit of awe still in his voice all these years later. “I bought it for $1,200 in ’74 and put it in a ’66 Corvette Coupe. I was the only Corvette around with a NASCAR engine in it I can tell you, and I was a ‘bad’ man,” he chortles. Bet that combination helped pay Butch’s rent for some time.
Butch summed up, “Benny was a racer’s racer. He loved and helped the smaller guys racing and was so generous. Yet he went on to win at the highest level of his sport and never forgot where he came from. He never changed who he was or had an agenda. He was genuine.”
I got to experience first-hand Benny’s straightforwardness and down-to-earth personality when I worked for TNN covering NASCAR. Benny would come in the office upbeat and always helpful about explaining any question I might have. And at the track, he was never a TV prima donna (he wouldn’t know how to be) – you could see how fellow racers respected him and the fans adored him. He was like a favorite uncle you had that was just plain fun to be around. BP was just folks, sure. But he had the stripes – he had raced with used parts, built competitive racecars from the ground up, and could explain race action without fluff or hoo-hah. You could trust BP.
It used to crimp me up when I’d hear him sometimes describe some extraordinary action or NASCAR decision on track with a simple and direct “Wow!” (At least it wasn’t “boogity, boogity, boogity.”) I would stare at a TV replay and think, “all you have to say is ‘Wow!’? Step it up Benny!” But now I’ve grown up (I hope) and understand that phrase was BP to the core. He was still from Ellerbe, NC, and never took on any airs – no matter what his station in life.
I’ll remember BP as inspiring. Seems a bit unlikely a description for someone so grounded, doesn’t it? But I believe it fits him, and know he would try to deflect the term if you said it to his face. Well BP, I’m going to use it because you earned it with your example of living a genuine life.
You inspired some of the toughest cut-throat competitors in your profession to help get you back on track to win a Cup championship.
You inspired and gave so much to the little or new guys coming into the sport and helped so many without any fanfare.
Your generous actions to fellow racers inspired other racers to be generous with each other.
You inspired a new generation of fans to enjoy your sport.
You inspired us all with your spirit as your body was consumed too soon.
And you inspired me to tell it straight-up. All I can say now is, “Wow.”
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