Johnny Gray was impressed by the sight.
He swears one whole section of the grandstands stood up, after he smoked the tires and aborted his qualifying run early enough for him to witness the response.
Johnny Gray was impressed by the sight.
He swears one whole section of the grandstands stood up, after he smoked the tires and aborted his qualifying run early enough for him to witness the response.
He admitted that his first thought was “that’s a bunch of idiots right there. Then I got to looking and realized they used to work for me,” said Gray. “They came out to the races on their own nickel, just to see me race in my final event.”
Gray had this kind of effect on his former employees, who maintained their respect and admiration after he got out of the oil business in 2010.
Gray and his sister, Terry Chandler, sold the assets of their Marbob Energy Corporation to Midland, Texas-based Concho Resources for, according to the Roswell (N.M.) Daily Record newspaper, $1.65 billion, including $1.45 billion up front.
Gray had a dinner that evening with his former employees in a gathering he likened to a class reunion.
Gray has said in 2014 he plans to step away from the nitro Funny Car, which will be funded by Chandler and driven by Tommy Johnson Jr. He admits there might be time for some drag racing, possibly in Pro Stock car or even road racing, but for now, he’s walking away from the rough and tumble world of nitro racing to smell the flowers.
Walking away tugged at his heart strings.
“There are double the emotions,” said Gray. “You’re kind of glad the pressure is off of having to be here all the time. Then again it is an adrenaline rush. That’s kind of hard to explain to people.
“Then you wonder, I was out last weekend running 300 miles per hour, what am I going to do to fill the void?”
Gray plans to fill the void by simply taking the roads less traveled, at least by him.
“You just move forward with life,” said Gray. “Don [Schumacher] has the door open if I can’t stand it and want to run some races. He reminded me again on Sunday morning that he had the people and equipment to make it happen. I’m very fortunate in the respect that I could do this if I wanted to. I don’t think I will but you never know what will happen.
“I have an extra Pro Stock car if I want to play around. That is if I want to do it. I may not want to do it at all. I used to do quite a bit of road racing and I’m working on a deal with a Porsche Cup car. Don’t be surprised to see me on the road course doing some laps.
“It’s one of those deals where we are going to take it easy and see what happens here. I plan on doing some fishing.”
And if fishing doesn’t light his fire, there are other activities available, though skydiving and riding bulls in the rodeo aren’t on his agenda.
“Never have jumped out of an airplane, but I have ridden a bull,” said Gray. “And, I ain’t gonna do that either. I have ridden a bull, and a nitro-injected Harley. I’m not gonna ride either one of them again. I don’t know what I am going to do outside of enjoy life. I will be around the track.
What is first on his agenda is watching his son Shane excel in Pro Stock and enabling the team to grow into a powerhouse amongst the giants already there.
“My number one ambition is to get the Pro Stock program up and running where we can come back next year and win a championship,” Gray said. “We are gonna have two or three good cars in the stable. Any one of them can win the championship I don’t really care which one.”
Just to set the record straight, Gray is not over nitro racing by any stretch of the imagination. He’s even kept the door open for other avenues outside of the big show of NHRA.
“I’m definitely NOT over nitro racing,” said Gray. “I love nitro racing.”
Gray said he’s considered the possibility of running a nostalgia Funny Car since the NHRA tour is comprised of six races.
“I may run one of those because of the schedule,” Gray said. “I can do quite a bit of fishing if I only run six. I can do some road racing and run six Funny Car races. This has been a really good deal and Don put me in a really good car. We had some good runs and won some races. We did well and I’m pleased with what happened. I’m pleased with what I did in the car. I still drive okay. I just want to do other things.”
This season, Gray drove a car dedicated to the memory of his dad, the late John L. Gray. He believes his dad would have given two thumbs up to the effort to win a championship but with some sage advice.
“Early in the season he would have told me to quit knocking his hat off of the fender,” Gray said with a laugh. “He would have been happy with what happened out here. He loved it.”
And chances are he would have been with those employees cheering on his boy, even if he did smoke the tires.
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