Robbie Ferguson has been one of the top drivers at Kingsport Speedway since the track was dirt and after 40 years of racing, he’s relinquishing the driver’s seat after Friday nights race.
“It’s been a good ride,” Ferguson told RACE22.com. “Racing’s the only thing I’ve ever done. I’ve always worked a 40 hour week job and then went racing.”
Ferguson’s career started when he took his dads leftovers and built a Super Stock for Kingsport back in 1978. He won the Rookie of the Year award his first season and it was all racing, all the time from there.
Ferguson’s racing career didn’t come without sacrifice. He had a full ride scholarship to Columbia University in New York City for wrestling but he gave that up chasing a dream.
“I had scholarship offers from several schools but I had plans for Junior Johnson to call me and take me racing in NASCAR,” Ferguson laughed. “I thought that was going to happen but of course it never did.”
Ferguson’s dream of making it to the then NASCAR Winston Cup Series might have never happened but the young driver carved a name for himself on the dirt tracks of East Tennessee before later making the switch to NASCAR sanctioned asphalt short tracks.
In 1991 Ferguson won the Rookie of the Year at Lonesome Pine Raceway and then moved to Newport Speedway in 1992 where he missed one of the 12 races but won 10 of the 11 he competed in. That’s when he made Late Model Stock Car racing a permanent fixture in his racing career.
“We won 10 of 11 races at Newport in 1992 and that’s when I decided that Late Model Stock Car racing was for me. I beat some great drivers over there that year and I had finished second to Jeff Agnew at Lonesome Pine a lot. Late Model Stock Cars just fit for me.”
Ferguson won the 2002 Kingsport Speedway championship and he was looking to cap off his career with another one this year but things just didn’t come together for the veteran driver.
“We lost 29 points when we were disqualified for our carburetor earlier this year and we’re 26 behind right now. That would have put us three points ahead going into the finale if not for that. The carburetor had been run for two years passing tech every time but they showed it to us in the rules black and white. I just hate it happened.”
Ferguson was hoping to win another championship for his longtime friend and sponsor Ken Daffron who this season is his car owner at Kingsport. Ferguson has been sponsored by Daffron’s Dalton Direct Carpets company for much of his career when he’s raced at Kingsport. They were the sponsor on his car when he won the title in 2002 and it would have been fitting to win a championship in his last full season of racing.
“Ken starting sponsoring us back in 1986 and sponsored us through 1988 until we branched out a little and went to other tracks,” Ferguson commented. “He was on the car in 2002 when we won the championship and sponsored us off and on through the years and came back on in 2016 to now.”
“He’s the best car owner you can ask for. Sometimes you have a guy who comes up to you before the race and says “take care of the car, it’s all we got” but not Ken he shakes my hand before I go out there and tells me “drive it like you stole it and if it gets tore up we’ll fix it”. That’s the perfect car owner for any driver right there.”
Ferguson said that the reason he wanted to get it out there early and let everyone know that he’s stepping out of the seat is so that Ken (Daffron) can get someone to fill the seat and not be late looking for someone to make something happen.
“I wanted to give Ken the time to get another driver or another team to put his name on. He wants a car with Dalton Direct Carpets on the track every week. I wanted to make sure he could either get a quality driver or get paired with a quality team to put his name on for next year. He’s been good to me over the years.”
Ferguson doesn’t mention the word retire. He’s not ready to say that and listening to him he may very well never be willing to say he’s done for good.
“I’m not very good at walking away from things I care about. I care a lot about racing. If someone comes to me and says ‘hey let’s run these four 100-lap races”, I would do it. I’d love to run five or six times a year.”
He’s also not willing to rule out a full-time comeback down the road.
“If someone comes to me in a couple of years or whenever I have my personal issues resolved and has all the things you need to win and compete for wins every week, I’ll probably break their hand off agreeing to do it. But, it’d have to be a great deal and I’d have to have everything in my life where I needed it to be.”
At 57 years old, Ferguson knows that getting that ride down the road isn’t likely to come but he does have some hope that it will.
“When I see Barry Beggarly show up to a race, that gives me hope. And the “King”, Philip is also a little older and he’s still getting it done and has the right pieces and people around him. It gives me hope to come back and have the personal stuff under control and really make another run at it.”
Ferguson will compete in his final race (for now anyway) Friday night at Kingsport.
