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Bubby Jones memories

Posted by Jeff Willett at 2007-07-25 06:11

Your article about Bubby Jones and his two sons was very good and for me brought back many memories of Bubby's racing days. Bubby and I were in school together in Danville, IL. Bubby became a barber as was noted in the article. The barbershop he worked in was THE PLACE to go if you wanted a good flat-top haircut.Your article stated that Bubby raced locally before going full time racing. The interesting fact about the barbershop he worked in is that the other barbers were the Cannon brothers, Larry and Steve, who were pretty good racers themselves. In October 1968 I went in for a haircut and Bubby was still working and he gave me a haircut. During this time we talked about his racing year and how things were going. Bubby was driving for a guy out of Urbana,IL. He was racing at 7 different tracks every week. He was the track champion at 4 or 5 of those tracks. They were Fairbury, Champaign County, Macon (Decatur), Springfield, and a track near St. Louis. I don't think it was called Tri-City. He told me that he was going out to Pennsylvania to a big paying race ($30,000 to win) and he was invited and they were paying him tow money. He felt that this was maybe the time to consider doing this full time. He was working days as a barber and racing every night but Monday. It was talking it's toll and he was also the mechanic on the car.

It was good to see a recent picture of Bubby in the article. The last time I saw him was about 1990 at Knoxville. He was doing the midwest tour with the CRA. This was about the end of his racing days. He could still hustle the car when he got up on the wheel. He won the feature there because he has always like the speed tracks. He loved Eldora and Knoxville because if you didn't like going really fast he was going to eat you alive. He still had the desire as I remember because he decided that he wanted to got to the next race in South Dakota which they had not planned to do. But he had just won at Knoxville and he had that fire in his eyes. I was living in Nebraska at the time and he wanted me to go with them that night for the next race which I coudn't do. It is amazing that in about 12 years he won enought features in the CRA to end up second in the alltime history of the CRA.

Thanks for the memories. It is good to recall those good ol' days all the way back to high school.

Jeff Willett
Liberty Hill, TX

World of Outlaws 10/13/2007 Thunderbowl Tulare California

Posted by Steven Whipple at 2007-10-15 12:13

Supposedly they are the best sprint car drivers in the world. The race on the October 13 was ridiculous. After one lap qualifying, then 16 car inversion, winds up with Donny Schatz on the pole and all the cars just follow the leader racing. Thank God the people I went to see was the only people racing. Tim Kaeding and Jonathan Allard and Brad Sweet and the Wild Child were the only ones passing people. For the amount of money it was one of the worst outlaw races I had ever seen. It just bolsters my belief that northern california 410 winged cars are every bit as good as the majority of the outlaws. Maybe Tim Kaeding is the best sprint car racer in the whole country. Just my opinion. We deserve to have the same recognition as the Pennsylvania Posse. Whipple