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original four-cylinder vehicle, to the Late Model division, the cream of the dirt track contestants.
“To move up, that’s an accomplishment in racing. A lot of guys never make it. I haven’t won a race in the late model yet, but I’ve definitely been a contender.”
A chance stop at a race car show at Winchester’s Apple Blossom Mall in 1992, created a way of life for Tomblin. While the career mechanic had always enjoyed Winston Cup racing, he had never visited the local dirt track.
But those cars at the show intrigued him and, when the Winchester Speedway, opened for the season, he went ... and was hooked.
“By June, I’d bought my own car and, six years later, here I am.”
From March to October, you will find him at one of the nearby speedways, Winchester’s 3/8-mile oval, or Hagerstown’s half-mile, pushing 41 Racing’s late model car 85 to 115 miles an hour down the track.
While many of today’s dirt track racers come from racing families, Tomblin has learned and earned his own honors in the past seven years.
“I sold a dirt bike and bought my first car,” says the chunky, bearded auto mechanic, whose family owns Tomblin’s Service Center in Berryville.
“I’m just a regular guy. I work five days a week and race Saturday nights. If I had to buy my own way, I’d have to quit.”
Costs do mount up, he notes. There is not only the car body and the engine and tires and more tires, there is the spare motor and the truck and trailer to haul that racing machine and its backup parts to the track.
“It’s not unusual to put on a tire a week,” he notes, and many rigs pull into the track with 25 mounted tires on the trailer.
See TOMBLIN, Page 12
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