44th Annual Florida Governor's Cup 200
presented by Tempaco / Noritz

LEE MEMORIAL HEALTH SYSTEMS LATE MODELS
Charlotte County Motorsport Park

Johnny Kay wins the Lee Memorial Health Late Model 100

 

Catching up with Joe Winchell


Interview conducted by Jim Carson
Late Model Digest
August 2009

Most of Joe Winchell¹s success in recent years, including two wins in 2009, have come at Charlotte County Motorsports Park in Punta Gorda, Fla. But the 52-year-old Limited Late Model driver from Davie, Fla., is far from a one-track wonder, even as he slows down after a career that included stints in the old NASCAR All Pro, Hooters Cup, Florida Pro, USA and SARA Sportsman series.

Late Model Digest: This year there¹s no Limited Late Model touring series in Florida, but it hasn¹t seemed to hurt racing there.
Winchell: No, I think it might have helped. If all the tracks can get together with a common set of rules like Charlotte County and DeSoto have done, it¹d benefit everyone. I¹ve wanted to make a DeSoto race, but now I¹m leading the points at Charlotte County, and they still schedule a race or two on top of each other. But they¹ve taken all three types ­ (crate-engine) cars, Limited cars and Supers ­ and tried to equal 'em out. Each kind of car has won at both tracks this year. Auburndale and Citrus County have talked about combining their rules, but they won¹t give a break to the Limited cars whatsoever. They don¹t wanna put weight on the Supers. At Charlotte County the Supers weigh 2,800 pounds and we¹re 2,750, so we¹re only talking about a 50-pound deal. Maybe it¹ll work out for everybody.

LMD: This is the first time in a while that you¹ve been in a title hunt, right?
Winchell: We did the Goodyear Challenge deal, not mainly to points race, but mainly so we can travel. But the deal down there at Charlotte County has been so good this year that we decided to do that once-a-month deal.

LMD: How long have you been with your car owner Art Hermann?
Winchell: Since 1997. He had been through a couple of drivers and getting frustrated with racing, and somebody told him to give me a call. We¹ve run three cars in 13 years now. He¹s one of my best friends, besides being my car owner. Racing¹s something we enjoy doing, but we do a lot of other things together too. He lives in Plantation and Associates (Roofing, Hermann¹s business) is out of Hollywood, Fla.

LMD: His car has always had the same look. I guess you¹re easy to pick out. 
Winchell: Since I¹ve been with him, the car¹s been black. We¹ve changed the number style around, but mainly we¹ve kept what we got. It¹s a good, clean look and it¹s something that¹s easy to maintain. The way money is now, you don¹t wanna spend a ton fixing graphics. And if we tear something up, we can fix one piece and get back on with it.

LMD: Sometimes, especially with the smaller Limited car counts at Speedweeks, you hear people say that that class is dying. How do you react to that?
Winchell: Well, they don¹t run 'em nowhere by themselves except New Smyrna and Orlando, so I don¹t know how you would explain it. You can still take a Limited car and run it with the other guys. We¹ll go up to the 100-lapper (Aug. 22 at New Smyrna), but it¹s hard to travel three hours for a 25-lap race.

LMD: Kristal Webster (chassis builder Glenn Webster¹s wife) is your crew chief. There are some other female crew chiefs on various short track cars, but does she still get unusual looks?
Winchell: She gets that a lot, but when somebody goes racing with you, you find out what they can do. She¹s been to some of the races with the McCoy team, and she¹s as good as any guy who¹s ever worked on my race cars. She knows everything about this car; this newest #57, she did most of the work on building it.

LMD: You ran the Independence Day PASS South shows in Jim McCoy¹s Super Late Model.
Winchell: They wanted to do more with it. We both know that that brand-new Hamke car¹s the best it¹s gonna be, so we¹ll try to hit as many places as we can. It¹s only a new car one time; they seem to slow down as they go, even though we keep working on it to make it a little bit better. Jim had never raced out of the state of Florida.  Those PASS deals Š I liked them a lot. I¹ve run everything else up there, but I¹d never been to either one of those tracks (in Greenville, S.C., and Hickory, N.C.). I¹d go back in a minute if we had the money right now. We want to get back to Pensacola for another Blizzard race; we were realy good in practice up there (April 10), then we broke a rear end before qualifying.  We want to do the Marion Edwards Memorial (Oct. 16 at Orlando) in that car.  Jim won that race as a driver, and I won it three times, all when it was at  Hialeah.  We ran ninth at Greenville, but we actually had a crazy night. A right front tire went flat, and there was so many cautions that we ended up running out of gas at the exact time Jeff Choquette did. He was leading and I was back up to fourth. It happened in the exact same spot under the exact same caution; both of us were sitting there dead in the water...both of the guys from Florida. At Hickory we were fast in practice, but we missed the deal come race day and survived to finish 11th. It was one of the worst races I¹ve had in 10 years.

LMD: What does McCoy do during the week?
Winchell: He works for ... I don¹t know what city, but he¹s a city employee.  Miami Shores. And he does a lot of side work to pay for running the race cars.

LMD: Hialeah Speedway closed in 2005. How much do you miss it?
Winchell: I grew up there, and I miss it a lot. Racing¹s racing, and I¹ll race anything; I¹ll race in a parking lot. It was always there, so it¹s like losing a family member.

LMD: I never got to see Hialeah, but I heard it was like racing in a parking lot.
Winchell: It looked like a small Greenville without the wall on the inside.  It was just a flat, perfect oval. It didn¹t deserve a lot of the bad raps that it got. Some people that came down couldn¹t figure it out. To this day I still think it was one of the best facilities in the state of Florida, with paved pits and everything. Everyone¹s got memories of the track they grew up at.

LMD: It seems like every Florida veteran ­ I guess I¹m thinking mostly about Wayne and Dick Anderson ­ has a young driver that they¹ve tried to help at times. What about you?
Winchell: I¹ve worked a lot with Drew Brannon, and I still spot for him sometimes when I can get to his races. I talk to Drew probably two or three times a week. He¹s really a good racer. There¹s Casey Caudill that races the #33 ASALMS car and has been to a lot of Charlotte County races, and Austin Kirkpatrick is another one. But Drew and I have been good friends and I try to keep up on every aspect of his racing. You can talk, not even about setups, but just things you¹ve been through as a driver. They¹re gonna find somebody to help 'em with their race cars.

LMD: You must be excited about how Brannon has started the year with his new team, SS-Green Light Racing.
Winchell: Yeah. There¹s a lot of talent there, and they haven¹t even begun to touch on what he can do in a race car. It¹s kind of a shame the sport has turned into such a money deal, but I hope he gets a shot. If not, I hope he stays around racing Late Models forever.

LMD: You¹ve given shout-outs to Justin. Who¹s that? 
Winchell: Justin Carroll, a 13-year-old kid. His dad, John Carroll, was my crew chief for years. Hopefully someday we¹ll have Justin in one of our Late Models. Now he¹s leading the Summer Shootout that they have on Tuesdays at Lowe¹s Motor Speedway in Charlotte. His dad works for Jack Roush. They went to the PASS races with me, and between them we were racing his bandolero the whole week. Next year we¹d like to run him in Late Model races, but we¹re having trouble working that past his mom.