Post by truenorth on Jan 13, 2020 14:04:15 GMT -8
Still Winning: There's No Slowing Sammy Swindell at 64
The three-time World of Outlaws champion aims for a sixth Chili Bowl victory.
Autoweek MATT WEAVER JAN 13, 2020
Throughout 30 years of racing at the River Spirit Expo in Tulsa, Oklahoma, there has been one constant in the Chili Bowl Midget Nationals: Sammy Swindell winning.
It’s been 10 years since the now 64-year-old dirt legend earned his record-extending fifth Golden Driller trophy, but only five since he won his fourth Race of Champions.
A chorus of boos rained down on the elder Swindell that night in 2015, the crowd growing increasingly tired of seeing the Swindell family win everything the Hahn family offered at the Tulsa Expo Center Raceway.
These are different times.
Swindell has lived long enough to have become the hero. The three-time World of Outlaws Sprint Car champion has always enjoyed the begrudging admiration of this audience, but now the crowd would openly welcome another Swindell victory.
Perhaps it’s the adversity his family faced in 2015 due to the spinal injury that ended son Kevin Swindell’s career after the Knoxville Nationals. Maybe it’s simply the natural passage of time that turns every great racing villain into the grizzled fan favorite.
Nevertheless, the crowd that followed Swindell into the pit area following a Q&A session on Sunday during Fan Fest matched those of three-time and defending winner Christopher Bell.
Given all the accolades, what is it that entices 'Slamming Sammy' to keep racing well into his 60s?
"Well, I mean, there's nothing else to do this weekend, so I might as well be here," Swindell says with an almost deadpan tone — his signature.
And then after a couple of seconds, he continues.
"But you know, I just enjoy racing, and this has pretty much been my life, so I'm just glad that I've been blessed enough to be able to do it this long and still be competitive."
Swindell is no fool. He knows the race against time and his own mortality is not one that he can defeat forever. But in the trademark Swindell way, he really believes that he can mix it up with the best on any given night, provided that he has the right equipment and circumstances going his way.
He backed it up during several Sprint Car races this season, driving for Kevin’s Swindell SpeedLab team, including a seventh-place finish from the pole in the Kings Royal at Eldora Speedway.
"I enjoy doing this because it's what I've always done, but like anything, a lot of it is just being able to find something to drive," Swindell said. "So I don't get the seat time that I wish I had. There have been some opportunities that fell apart at the end. I haven't always been in the best cars a lot of the time.
"But if I have a 10th-place car and I run fourth with it, I see that as winning. It's been really hard to find a great sprint car team, but I still feel like I can win in one."
And even at his age, Swindell says he is competitive as he ever was. He hopes to run upwards of 60 races this year.
"It's hard to win 30 races a year like I want to when you only run 30," he adds.
Since joining Twitter several years ago, he’s popularized the #StillWinning slogan representative of both his résumé and the steely cool confidence he has always exuded.
Swindell says the hashtag was totally his idea and something he came up with just to have fun on social media.
"That came to me when I started doing this Twitter stuff and the fans seemed to have a good time with it," Swindell said. "But when you've been doing this as long as I've been doing it and still getting it done. I'm still winning."
And he's very much entertaining the idea of winning a sixth golden driller too, especially rewarding since it would come with his son's team.
"If I get an equal opportunity to win this race, catch all the right breaks, I can do it," he said. " There's no doubt in my mind. We were over in St. Louis for the race at the Dome (at America's Center) and we were rolling off some of the fastest laps in practice.
"You know how racing can be. If someone takes you out here. You have bad luck and you're buried. But if we avoid that, we have a shot."
And if he’s in contention throughout the week, either during Tuesday’s Race of Champions, his qualifying night on Wednesday or the main event on Saturday, you can rest assured it would be a completely different reaction from the last time he found himself in victory lane in Tulsa.
He’s a bona fide hero here now.
The three-time World of Outlaws champion aims for a sixth Chili Bowl victory.
Autoweek MATT WEAVER JAN 13, 2020
Throughout 30 years of racing at the River Spirit Expo in Tulsa, Oklahoma, there has been one constant in the Chili Bowl Midget Nationals: Sammy Swindell winning.
It’s been 10 years since the now 64-year-old dirt legend earned his record-extending fifth Golden Driller trophy, but only five since he won his fourth Race of Champions.
A chorus of boos rained down on the elder Swindell that night in 2015, the crowd growing increasingly tired of seeing the Swindell family win everything the Hahn family offered at the Tulsa Expo Center Raceway.
These are different times.
Swindell has lived long enough to have become the hero. The three-time World of Outlaws Sprint Car champion has always enjoyed the begrudging admiration of this audience, but now the crowd would openly welcome another Swindell victory.
Perhaps it’s the adversity his family faced in 2015 due to the spinal injury that ended son Kevin Swindell’s career after the Knoxville Nationals. Maybe it’s simply the natural passage of time that turns every great racing villain into the grizzled fan favorite.
Nevertheless, the crowd that followed Swindell into the pit area following a Q&A session on Sunday during Fan Fest matched those of three-time and defending winner Christopher Bell.
Given all the accolades, what is it that entices 'Slamming Sammy' to keep racing well into his 60s?
"Well, I mean, there's nothing else to do this weekend, so I might as well be here," Swindell says with an almost deadpan tone — his signature.
And then after a couple of seconds, he continues.
"But you know, I just enjoy racing, and this has pretty much been my life, so I'm just glad that I've been blessed enough to be able to do it this long and still be competitive."
Swindell is no fool. He knows the race against time and his own mortality is not one that he can defeat forever. But in the trademark Swindell way, he really believes that he can mix it up with the best on any given night, provided that he has the right equipment and circumstances going his way.
He backed it up during several Sprint Car races this season, driving for Kevin’s Swindell SpeedLab team, including a seventh-place finish from the pole in the Kings Royal at Eldora Speedway.
"I enjoy doing this because it's what I've always done, but like anything, a lot of it is just being able to find something to drive," Swindell said. "So I don't get the seat time that I wish I had. There have been some opportunities that fell apart at the end. I haven't always been in the best cars a lot of the time.
"But if I have a 10th-place car and I run fourth with it, I see that as winning. It's been really hard to find a great sprint car team, but I still feel like I can win in one."
And even at his age, Swindell says he is competitive as he ever was. He hopes to run upwards of 60 races this year.
"It's hard to win 30 races a year like I want to when you only run 30," he adds.
Since joining Twitter several years ago, he’s popularized the #StillWinning slogan representative of both his résumé and the steely cool confidence he has always exuded.
Swindell says the hashtag was totally his idea and something he came up with just to have fun on social media.
"That came to me when I started doing this Twitter stuff and the fans seemed to have a good time with it," Swindell said. "But when you've been doing this as long as I've been doing it and still getting it done. I'm still winning."
And he's very much entertaining the idea of winning a sixth golden driller too, especially rewarding since it would come with his son's team.
"If I get an equal opportunity to win this race, catch all the right breaks, I can do it," he said. " There's no doubt in my mind. We were over in St. Louis for the race at the Dome (at America's Center) and we were rolling off some of the fastest laps in practice.
"You know how racing can be. If someone takes you out here. You have bad luck and you're buried. But if we avoid that, we have a shot."
And if he’s in contention throughout the week, either during Tuesday’s Race of Champions, his qualifying night on Wednesday or the main event on Saturday, you can rest assured it would be a completely different reaction from the last time he found himself in victory lane in Tulsa.
He’s a bona fide hero here now.