King Ken ny Roberts carved out an oval track on his northern Cal ifornia ranch in what is obviously not your average backyard.
New Year's Eve at King Kenny's
Move over, Dale
Earnhardt, here
comes "Raw Butts"
By Bill Spencer
HICKMAN. CA, DEC. 31
If one is to run with the big dogs, one must
be a slight bit different. And so it was to
pass. Gassing it up with Kenn y R oberts to
help h im celebrate h is 37th birthday on New
Texan Bubba Shobert. who now calls Cal ifornia home. m ounted a set
of longhorn s on hi s Bubba Shobert Rac ing ca r.
Year's Eve saw invitees .attend
a happening with a " stock car"
tif
rno
.
.
'
On hand were the Iikes of
World Champion Edd ie Lawson 's car gave up the f ight early.
World Champion Edd ie Lawson and
fellow Grand Prix road racer Wayn e
Rainey, four-time Camel Pro champ
Bubba Shobert, multi -time MX
cha mp Rick Johnson , 600 National
cha mp Ch ris Carr, T eam Nordica!
Roberts' Thom as Stevens , former
race r Ski p Aks land, long-time
frien ds and mechanics Bud Aksland
and Sp ark y Edmonston. former
Eddie Lawson mechanic Steve Johnson wh o is now with Kerker , and
n umerous other friends and accomp iices. all on hand purportedly to
ru n in or watch som e sort of ca r race
and, of co urse, party.
While it all promised to be fun ,
what happened exceeded expectations. Roberts had ruled that "his"
stock car race on " his" propert y was
lim ited to cars costi ng no more than
$500 and ~a~ no ,car was ,!llow~ to
run " m ud tires." The Iirst thing
noted on the behemoth Ford that
Roberts fielded was snow tires. So
much for the King's ru les.
Jim Frakes and Ron Delnairo,
fr iends of Ro berts from nearby
Mod esto , showed up with a prepped
1972 Buick with a 454 cubic inch
engine, welded shut doors, openedup wheel well s. etc. Almost like a
"clai me r" car. They h ad eve n
rem oved th e radiator fan and th e car
replied with a geyser of steam as a
. wat er line broke in th e first practice
sessio n.
'
While the Frak es/Delnairo car was
stea ming, it was noticed th at both
Shobert and J ohnson were missing
fro m (i n?) actio n. What quickly
became.known is that R.]. had flown
up from southern California to
Bubba's house that morning and
they had gone to a used car lot where
