Motorsports

Oval to oval on open road

The distance NASCAR stars run in a race is nothing next to the miles truckers put in to get the cars there.

By BRANT JAMES, Times Staff Writer
Published November 11, 2007

El Paso,Texas

Phoenix

Dallas/Fort Worth

Tucson, Ariz.

Midland, Texas

Las Cruces, N.M.

story and photos By BRANT JAMES Times Staff Writer

A gathering sandstorm sets Barry Sheppard's eyes into a squint as he walks, head down, around the back of the semitrailer. It is hard to surmise whether he is angry or embarrassed. Likely both. It is late. And this is ridiculous.

Ten hours into a 1,057-mile haul from Fort Worth, Texas, to Phoenix, Sheppard has pulled into a truck stop at the western edge of El Paso, about 11 p.m., to bed down in his sleeper compartment. A handful of rigs sit docile in a sandy lot aside the Super 8 motel. One axle in, his black trailer is set like a hook. Buried in sand. It very much resembles a beached whale, except, of course, for NASCAR driver Clint Bowyer's beaming likeness and the Jack Daniel's logo emblazoned on the side.

"I don't believe this," Sheppard sighs.

This is no rookie mistake. At 49, the salt-and-pepper-haired Virginian has been driving these rigs for nearly 30 years, shepherding the rolling work shop/car transporter/command centers that are NASCAR haulers for the past 13. He has won skill competitions. He could probably parallel park his rig on a city street.

But there he stands, waiting for a tow truck big enough for such oversized loads to find its way to the Flying J. There is probably some irony in that Bowyer's father, Chris, financed his son's start in racing with his wrecker business in Emporia, Kan. Sheppard doesn't seem in the mood for irony.

Yet again, the great expanse, the great experience that is the open road has proven a fickle partner.

Different breed

There are popular men and respected men, and then there are the ones who almost seem to be the hub on which everything rotates. Sheppard's presence seems to energize his fellow drivers as they pack their haulers Monday morning. Everyone is seemingly in the process of greeting him or answering him as they quartermaster their transporters with cars, parts, pieces, even the drinks and snacks that will make the race team run at the next stop.

Sheppard came to NASCAR with the legendary Wood Brothers team that was based in his hometown of Stuart for almost a half-century. The former mail carrier and tanker driver began making parts runs to Charlotte, N.C., for the team in 1994, filled in on a race weekend as the hauler driver and took the job full time two weeks later. Sheppard left the team when it moved to the Charlotte area in 2004, but with Richard Childress Racing just 52 miles from his home, the man affectionately known as "Hillbilly" quickly found a new team.

Sheppard says he has yet to feel any more pressure driving 80,000-pound NASCAR rigs than the cargo he hauled back in Virginia.

"This whole thing, rig and all, is maybe $3-million," he says. "Hell, I used to have $6-million in stamps in my truck."

That doesn't mean this is easy. Thirty-six points races a year, from Sonoma, Calif. (the most scenic of drives, he says) to Las Vegas (brilliantly illuminated as haulers crest the mountains to the east) to Loudon, N.H., and Homestead, where the season ends in one week. There are tens of thousands of miles between races and tests, hours of packing and unpacking the transporter, either after the rest of the team leaves or before it arrives.

But Monday all of that melds into the hill and dale of the open road once he is comfortably away from the sprawl of urban Dallas/Fort Worth. The squawk of CB chatter on channel 19 finally grows tired of the small plane he'd passed crashed on the side of Interstate 20. A man could have his thoughts out here. Maybe that's why he keeps a tape recorder on the dash just a short reach from his can of Timber Wolf.

"No. There's not enough tape in the world for that," he jokes.

Back in business

Sheppard awakes early Tuesday, well before his alarm. The time zone change has thrown him off and he already has spoken with his wife as she took their 5-year-old grandson, Barry, to school. The tow truck driver had arrived around 1:30 a.m. and made quick work of the job. After taking $400 of RCR's money, he asked if he could buy a few hats as souvenirs. Sheppard threw them in as a tip.

Sheppard made the first day's drive through the maddening vastness of Texas in a T-shirt, shorts and sandals, but as a cold wind whips over El Paso, he is ready to finish the drive in boots and jeans. His spirits are high; knocking out more than half the drive the first day always feels better. His RCR co-workers were determined to drive through in one stint to get in a couple of extra rounds of golf in Phoenix.

"I don't see any reason to kill yourself just to get there a little early," he says.

Kings of the road

Truckers seem to think Jeff Gordon has a lot of sex, most of it with Jimmie Johnson. They don't much care for the driving habits of "four-wheelers." That means you. And through the hum and static that is the backdrop of CB radio come treatises on immigration reform, how to treat a lady right, and getting a fair price for a rig when selling out to take a desk job.

Sheppard avoids the general chatter, acknowledging the occasional salutation to "that Jack Daniel's truck" or "the 07," offering or asking for road condition updates or more often checking in with his friends or co-workers.

"Truckers," he shakes his head. "It's all right to ask them about gas or accidents or such, but otherwise you kind of have to not pay much attention to what they say. They've got the world all figured out, and they'll tell you so."

They also harbor a certain jealousy toward Sheppard's peers. While drivers are the rock stars at the track, hauler drivers share the same begrudged celebrity in their realm, on the highway.

During a U.S. Border Patrol stop just west of Las Cruces, N.M., an officer who had been waving cars through with the flick of a finger steps up onto the rig and throws his arms inside Sheppard's open window. He begins chatting about racing and hard liquor. He has a general knowledge of NASCAR, but the sight of a celebrity rig among all the chaff clearly is of interest.

"He taking pictures up there?" crackles a frustrated trucker over the CB.

Because hauler drivers represent the team and its sponsor, they must resist the urge to retort.

"This is a moving billboard," Sheppard says. "You can laugh and carry on with some of these people, but a lot of these people, the best thing to do is just cut the radio off, because they can get on your nerves."

A black rig with "Jack Daniel's" all over it attracts its share of catcalls. One trucker suggested during a slow-down, "why don't we hijack that Jack Daniel's truck and have us a parr-tay."

"Most of it is, 'we want samples,"' Sheppard says, laughing. "But there are three or four cases back in there somewhere."

Square meals

There's enough caloric content in an average Flying J buffet to mishape an Olympian, let alone someone who spends 15 hours a day sitting. Sheppard, though, is built like a wrestler and darts through his chores better than men half his age.

Part of his secret: There is no beloved diner, no favorite open-faced roast beef sandwich and peach cobbler anywhere along his many routes across the country.

"I eat square meals," he says. "You know what that is? Lance crackers."

Two reasons why: A corndog in Oklahoma left him vomiting on the side of the road and cost him two days in a Martinsville, Va., hospital. The foul bacon, egg and cheese biscuit in Kansas sealed it. He trusts the tenderloin or ham biscuits his wife, Kim, packs and on this run he slams a double cheeseburger and fries at a fuel stop just outside Fort Worth. Except for two square meals in New Mexico, he doesn't eat again until Phoenix.

Night rider

An odd thing happens at sunset inside a rig on the open highway. It feels like 3 a.m.

Plying west Texas, past the massive cotton and windmill fields that define Sweetwater, the sun becomes a blinding westward beacon. Tired eyes strain and Sheppard adjusts the air level in his leather seat to keep the direct sun behind his visor.

Darkness hasn't fully set in when a two-hour radio doldrum suddenly ends with a spate of traffic. Conversation, especially with a friend, is a trusty hedge against hunger and weariness when there are 200 miles between you and El Paso.

"You've got to know who your friends are, make your friends and stick with them," Sheppard says, "because it can be pretty rough on you out here sometimes, out here by yourself, broke down or something like that."

The sight of the Miller Lite transporter in the approaching right lane sends Sheppard groping for his handset.

"Stump, ol' buddy," he calls to Bill Lewis, who drives Kurt Busch's hauler. Many are buddies to the affable Sheppard, but he has spotted a long-time friend.

Suddenly Gale "Bandit" Wilson, a 28-year veteran and driver for the No.01 Chevrolet, chimes in from his position about a half-mile back. Sheppard is surprised. Wilson left Texas Motor Speedway earlier and should be well ahead.

Hauler drivers never criticize their race drivers, referring to most everything as "we" and "us," but their opinions on the inner workings and the politics of the sport seeps through. Wilson is late because of someone else's mistake. He had to stop outside Fort Worth and unpack his truck to find the helmets of drivers Mark Martin and Tampa native Aric Almirola, then locate an express delivery store to have them shipped back to Charlotte for a photo shoot. That cost him $160 and a lot of daylight. He'll get the $160 back, but not his time.

The friends while away 30 miles together until Sheppard settles back in his seat, just as his cell phone rings again. Most of his buddies back home are hunting deer with muzzle loaders and keeping him apprised. This time it's his niece's husband, "Stick." He had shot a deer but couldn't find it in the darkness. Sheppard, who keeps rabbit dogs and has such a deer problem on his 33-acre spread he once killed one by popping out a back window screen for a shot, is entertained.

Sheppard's back is beginning to hurt and he grows quiet, leaning hard to the left in the pose that means he is getting tired. A sip of water. A mint. He has a satellite radio but doesn't use it.

"What you doin' over there, Stump?" he calls over the CB.

"Listening to that NASCAR satellite radio," comes the reply.

"They say anything about us? They ain't gonna say anything good about us," Sheppard laughs, referring to the 19th-place finish that had dropped his third-place driver 181 points behind Johnson.

On the highway calamity is more likely at dark, or in the morning after an all-night haul. The lights of a town 30 miles away are tempting, the endlessness of divider lines mesmerizing.

"Right there. It happened right there," Sheppard says chillingly, pointing to a spot across Interstate 10 atop a long crest near Sierra Blanca. "Right there is where those Roush boys got hurt."

Roush Racing driver Joe Millikan had just awakened in the sleeper compartment about 9 a.m. in January and was about to replace co-driver Justin Grebe at the wheel when their hauler rear-ended a motor home, according to witnesses. Millikan was severely injured but has since returned to work.

This trip Sheppard has to deal with the aftermath when, about 40 miles outside Tucson,a white pickup crossed the median and hit a truck head-on.

Sheppard, about 3 miles back, blanches as cryptic transmissions blare over the CB.

"There's a bunch of them NASCAR trucks up there. One of them is in it. There's clothes and stuff all over the road. It's a mess."

That could be one of his friends.

Diverted onto a frontage road by police, Sheppard passes the accident scene in a slow procession. First he sees NASCAR's two haulers used as on-site offices at tracks. Then two Hendrick Motorsports show-car haulers. They are all yards behind the gruesome impact but uninvolved. That doesn't lessen the chill.

"That could just have easily been us," Sheppard says.

The finish line

More than 50 NASCAR haulers, illuminated only by their running lights in a black predawn, begin the procession into Phoenix International Raceway on Friday. They will unpack and ready for race weekend. Tonight they pack it all up again, and a co-driver will join Sheppard for the 2,200-mile drive back to Charlotte. Then comes the drive to Homestead for the final race of the season.

I've been everywhere, man

"Where's your office again?" Sheppard asks, leaning two nitrogen bottles his height onto a dolly.

"St. Petersburg."

"St. Petersburg," he says, considering something.

"You been there?"

"Ol' boy," he says, nodding as he moves past with the dolly, "there ain't many places I ain't been."

More on the road trip online

Want to see video from various stages of Brant James' odyssey with the No. 07 car's hauler? For that plus exclusive posts, more photos from the trip and other auto racing topics, see blogs.tampabay.com/racing for Lug Nuts.

story and photos By BRANT JAMES Times Staff Writer

[Last modified November 10, 2007, 20:24:08]