Defending Truck Series champion Bobby Hamilton has scraped through this season without a full-time sponsor. Credit: Autostock

Hamilton sticking to his plan of doing it in-house

Truck champ content to remain close to Nashville-area home

MT. JULIET, Tenn. -- The white concrete-block building doesn't look like much from the street.

Set on an industrial side street, the 56,000-square-foot building is a mechanic's dream, featuring a fabrication shop, two paint rooms, a tire area and racks filled with enough bolts and sheet metal to allow workers to build a truck from scratch to race ready within 11 days.

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The owner wanders around barefoot most of the time.

"It's a very, very laid-back atmosphere," says Bobby Hamilton.

In an era when most NASCAR teams call North Carolina home to take advantage of the deep pool of talent there, Hamilton's comfortable approach has worked -- even though he never has put down roots farther from his native Nashville than this suburb 20 miles east, right off Interstate 40.

Racing is both his hobby and his job, which explains why he put so much work into designing his fourth, and likely last, race shop in May 2004 just two blocks from his home.

"My job is to run a race team. My hobby is to go back in that race shop and mess around in the fab shop. My quiet time is driving. When I put that window net up, and I start the motor, all I hear is noise, but it's quiet because I don't have people pulling at me through the week," he says.

"It's absolutely my most relaxing time of my whole life other than holding my grandbaby."

His success since moving into the new shop couldn't be more dramatic.

He won the 2004 Craftsman Truck Series championship -- becoming the first owner-driver to win a NASCAR series title since the late Alan Kulwicki won in Winston Cup with his own team in 1992. He currently is second to Dennis Setzer in the 2005 season standings, and has two victories this year.

Despite that success, Hamilton has scraped through this season without a full-time sponsor and raced without any sponsorship at Milwaukee and Kansas City the past two weekends. He says many companies want to be sponsors in Nextel Cup only.

"It's very, very confusing at times and somewhat disappointing. I understand the sport, but it's just different. I've never experienced anything like we're experiencing right now," he says.

But if sponsors judged him by his race shop, he'd have a top deal.

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The air-conditioned building, a perk of winning the 2004 title, has enough room for 50 employees and three teams, including drivers Chase Montgomery and Timothy Peters. Hamilton oversaw the blasting of rock for the foundation, and focuses on details such as including a wash bay where truck haulers park after each race.

The lobby features the blue No. 43 he drove in winning his first of four Winston Cup races for Petty Enterprises in October 1996, and the truck Joe Ruttman used in winning in Phoenix in 2000 for Bobby Hamilton Racing's first truck victory.

The shop saves him money, as well.

He used to buy his equipment in Charlotte, N.C., with an employee sent for each trip. Now he builds his own, and a chassis that used to cost $14,000 is made for $2,200. He said he also saves $400,000 a year by building his own transmissions.

"And in return, you get the quality you wanted. It's a win-win," saysHamilton. "Now they know every time we go out on that race track nobody has what we have. It's their own doing."

Hamilton once turned down a sponsor who wanted him to move to Charlotte. And he won't hire anyone from North Carolina, because he's seen too many workers blab secrets over lunch with buddies from other teams.

"I have people call here now like Dodge and say, 'We'd like you to send so and so to Ray Evernham. They want to test.' I say, 'I'm not doing it.' It took me all my money in two years to learn how to do this," says Hamilton.

Evernham, who bought Bill Elliott's old shop in Statesville, N.C., also is out of the Charlotte area -- but not out of North Carolina. He sees more teams moving north toward Statesville, but still close enough to the Charlotte hub and the talent pool.

"Obviously, economically, it's better for us up there because it's much cheaper. People in Statesville treat us well and when we get guys that do drive up there, it's a lot easier to keep them because they're not in all the hustle and bustle," says Evernham. "Right now, I'd say it's a wash."

Hamilton says the race team and Mt. Juliet shop will be his son's someday if Bobby Jr., currently racing in the Nextel Cup Series, wants it. But for now, the 47-year-old Hamilton is too busy trying to win a race each week to worry about retirement.

"If I'm still winning races like I'm doing now, I'm going to keep driving. I'm a selling point here. Forget Bobby Hamilton. I'm just a guy steering the ship and winning races. When I get Chase and Timothy in that category, that's when I feel like I can step back and breathe," he says. "I can't let up until I have someone as equal as I am."

Even then, though, he'll probably never leave his shop.