Mack Tatum is probably a name you’ve never heard of unless you follow Vintage racing around this region, where he races and manages the Southern Ground Pounders but this weekend he’ll be behind the wheel of a Late Model in his dream race.
Tatum has spent his life around racing with his father Bubba Tatum, a championship-winning racer from 1950-1980. The younger Tatum grew up at the race track and has spent his life there basically ever since. He started running Vintage race cars in the late ’80s but until this year had never raced a Late Model. On Saturday he’ll get his first chance to compete at Martinsville Speedway in the ValleyStar Credit Union 300 which is something that’s he wanted to do his whole life.
“I went with my dad and them to Martinsville from 1971 to 1980,” Tatum told RACE22. “Spring and Fall, we were always there when I was a kid. My dad did the double a couple of times in the early ’70s driving a Modified and a Sportsman car. To me as a kid and growing up in racing it was the epitome of racing. Martinsville was the accumulation of the beginning of the year and the end of the year. It was special and I couldn’t wait for it to happen every year.
Life goes on and my dad quit racing and we weren’t really doing anything much. So when I got back involved with the vintage cars, I always said it’d be so cool to be able to go to Martinsville. That was a goal. That wasn’t going to happen, we were never going to get Vintage cars to Martinsville.”
Tatum spent enough time in the grandstands and decided he could run this race one day.
“About five years ago we were up there watching the Late Model race and I just told my wife I had dreams of doing this one day,” Tatum said. “Then we went back four years ago and I said ‘there’s no reason I can’t come up here and do this one time’ and then three years ago I told my wife in a couple of years we’re going to come up here with a Late Model. She said ‘you’ve lost your mind’.
Two years ago we went up there and I’m not going to name names but I watched a guy I’ve seen the previous two years destroy four or five race cars trying to get into the race. I said ‘you know what if they let that asshole in here, they’ll let anybody run’ and I thought to myself really I could do this. It would take a lot, it would take a significant investment. I’ve got trucks and trailers and we’ve had motors and everything. So last year we went to the race and I’d already decided before we went that I was going to buy a Late Model and we were going to try and do it in 2019.
I was sitting in the stands last year and Brad Allen was sitting beside me and I told him ‘bubba next year I’m going to be down here racing and you’re going to be spotting for me’ and we laughed. He said ‘you’re a fool’ and I said ‘I know I’m a fool but I’m really going to do it’ and he didn’t think I was serious.”
In December Tatum started looking for what he calls a good competitive car and he found one almost race-ready that raced at the Thanksgiving Classic at Southern National Motorsports Park. From there he prepped the car and made laps trying to get himself ready to live out his dream of racing at Martinsville.
“I got a bunch of practice with it during the summer,” Tatum explained. “I didn’t tell anybody we had it. A few people knew I had it and I told them to keep it under their hat. We took it to South Boston, I took it to Dominion, took it to Langley and I run a bunch of laps in it. A 1,000 laps in the car and had an old Late Model motor in it and the car ran good and at the end of May I pulled the motor out of the car and I was going to buy an Enforcer but my buddy that builds engines said he could upgrade your motor.”
After some delays to get parts, Tatum went to run his first race at Southern National Motorsports Park and ran twin 40’s and make sure he didn’t have any problems with the car. He originally wanted more races but only ran two features and tested at Martinsville last Thursday.
“We ran a respectable 21.688, that was pretty respectable for us and then Looney goes out there and runs a 20.088 and I thought we better step it up a little bit,” Tatum joked. “It’s the Daytona for Late Models and I just wanted to go be a part of it one time on my own. We’re going to do it one time. We’re not going to decide to go back next year. This is about us having fun. The people who have helped me get there helped my dad. I want to do good but I wanted to do it for the experience.”
Tatum says he didn’t want any regrets.
“I’m 54 years old and I didn’t want to be 58-59 years old and stand up there and go ‘man why didn’t I go do that one time’. I said it’s a bucket list. I made my wife a promise that we’d put everything in it one time and sure we can go up there and knock the front clip off it in a qualifying race, but you know what we went to Aruba last year and spent $10-12,000 and I don’t have anything but pictures.
I can do the same thing with the race car and I do have a nice product that I can sell and that spec engine and I can sell the motor. Somebody will be looking for one. That’s the deal, we’ve got a pretty nice car and not a lot of people knew we were going to do it. People said ‘man I can’t believe you’re going to do this’ and so many people at Martinsville came up to us and said ‘it’s good to see you here, I can’t believe you’re here’. They said ‘this gives the little guy hope’, you’ve just gotta put some effort and money in.”
Tatum says he’s doing something that a lot of guys wish they could do.
“Somebody’s going to laugh and I’m going to laugh with them but I’m doing something that a lot of people wish they could do. I’m going to try it. Realistically I think we have about a 25% chance of making the race. That’s going to involve a lot of luck and some good driving by a guy who ain’t as good of a race car driver as some people think he is. We’re going to try it.”
Tatum says he got emotional getting to make laps at Martinsville and said too many guys today take getting to run there for granted.
“The other afternoon about 4:15 I went out and I told them we’re just going to make about five laps and make sure ain’t nothing leaking or vibrating. I came in and it’s kinda emotional. Something that a lot of those guys take for granted, they go out there and they think it’s just another place and to me, it’s kinda like the holy land. It’s kinda like the holy land for Late Models.
I’m going to get to do something and my wife has finally started realizing how big it is. My wife has some family up there and they were like ‘holy crap y’all are coming up here to run the race’. They were like ‘y’all are just watching right?’ No, we’re racing. And they were like ‘we’ll be in victory lane when you win’ and I’m like don’t put the horse before the cart. Lets just run the qualifying race and see how we do. I’m not going to cut any punches, just for me to get to run the qualifying race is special. If I get to run the feature that’s even better.
That’s what it’s about. Living something that I’ve looked forward to for a long time. When I finally realized I was going to do it, that’s when I got nervous about it. I got up there the other night and made a bunch of laps and realized there ain’t no magic for getting around this joint. This is a pretty simple race track to get around, it ain’t technical, you just gotta have some balls to run down in the corner. This is a doable thing here. It’s about checking a box for me. I’ve talked to a lot of guys who ran a Late Model who never got to go to Martinsville.”
Tatum says he’s saved up all summer just to get to run Martinsville.
“I saved up all summer just to get to do this one race,” Tatum continued. “I’ve got a $25,000 investment in the car and motor. To go to Martinsville is a $3,500 weekend. I could spend a lot more money but I can do it for about $3,500. That’s what it’s going to take barring an engine explosion or whatever. My car is a cheap investment compared to others who have extra motors and stuff but we’ve got one motor.”
Tatum says he hopes that the way he’s gone about his effort to run Martinsville is something that inspires others to live their dream to run it as well.
“I hope the path we’ve taken and the effort we’ve put into it that some of those guys who know who I am will say ‘he ain’t raced a Late Model all summer but he did it the right way’. That’s what I want.”
Tatum has the support of a lot of people this weekend but maybe none more than his wife Pam, who he says is 100% supportive of his racing and he calls her his rock. They’ve been married 30 years this November and she’s a breast cancer survivor and he always carries a cancer ribbon on the car.
So, he’s not a Josh Berry, a Lee Pulliam or a Bubba Pollard but on Saturday night Mack Tatum should be one of the racers you’re rooting for to make the feature race. Tatum holds this race and this track in high regard and he’s only going to run it once and it’d be so cool if he got to run on the biggest stage in Late Model Stock Car racing.
Cover photo by Andy Marquis.
