Local driver restarts career

By Mike Kays
Phoenix Sports Editor

July 04, 2008 12:43 am

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It took awhile for Bob Lewis to get around to a racing career.
Five years into it, he thought he had enough.
Retirement lasted all but a year and the 48-year-old Muskogee resident is back in it, trying to make a run at a Pure Stock championship he won when he left the sport in 2006.
“I had always watched racing. My dad (Bob Sr.) and I probably went to watch 25 NASCAR races at one time or another,” he said. “All my life I had wanted to race — I raced go-karts as a kid — but I didn’t get into it until my children all got through high school. I just couldn’t afford it.”
College is supposed to add to that expense but Lewis’ three daughters all got academic scholarships before graduating from Hilldale High School. That saved Lewis some green and gave him the green light to race beginning in 2002.
That year, he raced 11 times in a Camaro with a 350 small-block engine, all at Muskogee Speedway. He was 20th in points. The following year, he built a Firebird which had a similar motor and eventually won the points title at Outlaw Motor Speedway in 2006.
Then came another retirement. There were various reasons, some he prefers not to elaborate on, but others personal that he doesn’t mind talking about.
“I got my first grandson and wanted to spend some time with him,” he said.
So he sold the car to David Vinson of Checotah, who used it to win the 2007 points title. He would crash it and total it out with four races left in the season. Now living in Vian, Vinson is not racing this season.
Lewis couldn’t stay away, even though he wouldn’t have the same car. John Cunningham, who retired from the salvage business, teamed with Lewis to build a metric car, an 1985 Cutlass.
“He had retired and was bored,” Lewis said. “So we went to work. I wanted to try metric, everyone I’d heard talk about it said they handle so much better than the Camaros, especially when you’re going sideways into turns. You can bring them back so much easier.”
Problem is, the car has had its share of tweaks, from carburetor problems to a broken distributor.. He’s managed one feature win this season but over the last six weeks has driven the right rear tire off as the lead car in two races and faded.
Last week, he broke a stud girdle during a heat race and discovered the car was running on just seven cylinders.
“We’ve fixed that and I think we’ve taken care of the bugs,” he said. “I’m hoping we can turn it around Friday.”
He sits in 13th place heading into tonight’s races at OMS which get under way at 8 p.m. A fireworks display will take place at intermission.

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