Where is ... Ray Fox? (cont'd)

Fox's perspective on NASCAR covers every era and almost every scenario since. He built a 1955 Buick that Roberts used to lead every lap of a 160-mile race on the Daytona Beach & Road Course.

But mechanic Red Vogt ground the pushrod ends to even them off, a modification the team thought would go unnoticed but resulted in Roberts' win being rescinded. Fox says it's the last time that's occurred in NASCAR history for a mechanical infraction.

That car's in the Legends' museum, along with a 1961 Pontiac Fox built and David Pearson used to win three superspeedway races that year: The World 600, an Atlanta 400-miler and Daytona's summer 250-mile race that's now the Pepsi 400.

He also once filled his car's tires with water because, he said, "it was 400 pounds light." Fox never said if the car qualified light, but he did point out, back in the day, the initial inspection was the only one NASCAR conducted.

"It's not really easy for them, today," Fox said of the racing environment that includes astronomical budgets and rampant technology. "Because there's always somebody looking over their shoulder. I've never seen so many inspectors in my life, as I saw in the garage during Speedweeks."

Fox only laughed when asked what it would have meant to have that many constables in a 1960s NASCAR Grand National garage.

"I'd say we would have gotten caught at something, every once in a while," Fox said, laughing. "But it's as they do today."

Fox still has fun at the racetrack, as he did during Speedweeks 2007 when he toured the garage getting signatures on a racing helmet that was auctioned for $8,100 to benefit the Living Legends at their annual Speedweeks banquet.

It was even fun, Fox said, when he built the car in a week that Johnson used to win the 500.

"That meant a lot to me, to do it in only the second [Daytona 500] race here, and to do it in my hometown," Fox said.

And thinking about what racing's become in this century makes him shake his head, more than once when he contemplates what fans, and the racers themselves don't know about what the men of his era faced.

"No, they have no idea what it was like and I'm not sure that a lot of [today's drivers] could have done it," Fox said. "It was completely different in my day, from the tires to everything about the cars, especially everything they have for safety.

"Back in those days you had to do your own thing, to do it with your own head -- to out-think the other guy. We did it that way, back then, and we did good with it."

Now, Fox travels to the races at Talladega and of course, to Daytona. He watches every weekend and keeps up with the career of his grandson, Raymond Fox, who's worked in a number of roles at Robert Yates Racing since 1990, where he follows in the footsteps of his late father, Ray Fox Jr.

"He's hard to get a hold of," Fox said. "He works hard at it."

That sounds like it runs in the family.