By David Newton, NASCAR.COM
October 20, 2006
10:00 AM EDT (14:00 GMT)
Minor league baseball players want to be major leaguers. Understudies want to be the lead actor or actress. Bank vice presidents want to be bank presidents. Not Kevin Grubb.  |  | | Kevin Grubb has only missed one year of the Busch Series' 25 years of existance. Credit: Autostock |
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When asked last year if he wanted to work in the Nextel Cup Series while interviewing for a position at Joe Gibbs Racing, he politely said he would if that's where they needed him but he'd just assume stay in the Busch Series. "Cause over there I already know everybody and everybody knows me,'' Grubb said. Grubb is what one might call a Busch Series Lifer. He's seen the series grow from a weak spin-off of NASCAR's premier series into the fastest growing television spectator sport in America. He's one of the few in the garage that has been with the series -- from a truck driver to engine tuner to tire mounter -- since its inception 25 years ago. He was there when legendary Sam Ard won his first Busch title in 1983 and when Bobby Labonte won the title in 1991. He was there to see so many drivers get their first win, like Kyle Busch in 2003, that he can't count them all. He's worked with teams from Robert Yates Racing to Roush Racing to JGR. He left the series completely only once, in 1995 when he temporarily went to Bill Davis Racing when Ward Burton won his first race at Rockingham. A year later, he was back in Busch. "I always seem to come back,'' Grubb said. Grubb, 46, first got involved in stock car racing around 1975 when what is now the Busch Series was a Late Model series. He recalls vividly watching the late Dale Earnhardt beat Butch Lindley by inches in a race at Caraway Speedway. "They both got locked together and started crowding each other,'' Grubb said. "Butch's car was up on the wall shooting sparks into the stands. Dale won by about six inches.'' Grubb was there in 1982 when Anheuser-Busch gave the series its Budweiser name and a year later when sponsorship switched to its current name, Busch. "When we won the championship we got the first 'Head For The Mountains of Busch' comfort coach van,'' Grubb recalled of winning the '83 title with Ard. Grubb was one of less than a handful of employees working for Ard in '83. He made around $150 a week, a far cry from the salaries in the Busch garage today. |  | | Sam Ard |
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| Inside the Numbers |
| Sam Ard's Busch Series career |
| Starts |
92 |
| Wins |
22 |
| Top-fives |
67 |
| Top-10s |
79 |
| Poles |
24 |
| Avg. Start |
3.1 |
| Avg. Finish |
5.5 |
| Earnings |
$378.765 |
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He showed up at the track in a two-ton mechanic's body truck pulling an open trailer, a far cry from the luxurious haulers that grace the Busch garage. "At that time nobody carried spare engines or spare cars,'' Grubb said. "Nobody carried enough stuff to build another car like they do today.'' One of Grubb's fondest memories came during the '83 season when the team decided to take a spare engine to Orange County Speedway in Rougemont, N.C. Ard was in a close battle for the points lead with defending champion Jack Ingram when his car broke a valve spring a few laps into practice. "At that time Jack didn't suspect anybody had a spare engine, so he thought he was in great shape,'' Grubb said. "We had it under a cover in the back of the truck. We didn't have a hoist to change it, so we ended up putting it in with a wrecker. "We qualified fourth and ended up winning the race.'' That was Ard's third consecutive win during a streak that saw him win four in a row -- a Busch Series record that still stands -- and five of the final six to win the title by 87 points over Ingram. "If it wasn't for that race we might not have won the title,'' Grubb said. Grubb left Ard the following year to mount tires for a company out of High Point, N.C., that supplied tires to the Busch Series. "I also helped a lot of people on their cars at the time, so I don't really consider that time away from the sport,'' Grubb said. "But it was better paying for my health so I could eat. Everybody knows I like to eat.'' Grubb, built more like a bulldozer than a stock car, returned fulltime to the series in 1991 as a truck driver for Labonte. He's been there ever since, more of a fixture than most of the officials. He's been around so long that he doesn't mind saying NASCAR would make a huge mistake if it reduced the number of Cup drivers in the series. "I don't think this thing would survive without the Cup drivers,'' he said. "Just look at what happens when you go to some of the lower paying races where nobody is showing up to run them and there aren't as many fans in the stands.'' Grubb also has a suggestion for how NASCAR in its never-ending quest to cut costs and save money. "We used to run 200-lap races in Busch, and that was a big race for us,'' he said. "Now we run 300-mile races at some tracks where Cup cars run 400-lap races, and we're racing for a third of the money. The purses haven't followed the mileage thing. "But the biggest thing is if you cut down on the number of laps you can run the engines in more races. Not a top-10 team goes to the track now without a fresh engine.'' Grubb has been with enough teams to know what it takes to be top 10. Of all the drivers he's worked with, none have made a bigger impression than Ard. "He was just so simple,'' he said. "He didn't try to over engineer stuff. The cable linkages they run on the carburetor now have become a new thing because they don't bind up and get stuck. He ran that in '83. "I know Geoff Bodine gets a lot of credit for running the first power steering, but if I ain't mistaken Sam ran it before then and nobody paid any attention to it. I've got a lot of good memories from those days.'' He has a lot of good memories, period, from running races on consecutive days in South Boston, Va., and North Wilkesboro, N.C., to sneaking out on the track to help clean up debris from a late caution at Hickory Speedway. "We wanted to see it go back green,'' Grubb said with a laugh. "We thought Sam could have won that one if it had. By the time it was all said and done, [then-Busch Series director] Robert Black told us if he ever saw us do anything like that again, we'd never get on the track again.'' Grubb will always remember stories like that, just like he'll always remember the roots of the Busch Series. "When we worked with Kyle Busch for his first seven races I always reminded him to remember the little guys,'' Grubb said. "I told him don't be like some of them that go over there [Cup] and then turn their noses up at you after they make it. "Some of them do. Some of them really change after they go over there. I guess I've always been a simple person.'' ALSO READ:
• Dave Rodman -- Birth of the Busch Series
• David Newton -- Where are they now?
• David Newton -- Tale of a Busch Series lifer
• Ryan Smithson -- Whatever happened to ...
• NASCAR.COM -- Gone, but not forgotten
• NASCAR.COM -- Busch Series Firsts & Records | 
