“He’s happier.”
With a sentence that would challenge her husband’s gift of brevity, Amy Swindell took a quick look at Sammy Swindell, her husband of 37 years, and broke into a small smile as she helped him prepare for yet another Friday night, another World of Outlaws race and another chance to conquer the 60-year-old witch that is Riverside International Speedway.
For the first time in four years, however, he’s doing it as a full-time member of the Outlaws tour, running a car owned by Tom Rolfe of Chico, Calif.
“We’re still looking to see if we’re going to run all (70-plus) events, but so far we’ve been able to make all the shows, and we’ve been competitive from the start, and that’s felt pretty good,” said the 53-year-old Germantown driver, who has won three Outlaw titles, 268 feature races and was sixth in the points going into Friday’s 40-lap feature.
Swindell had drastically scaled back his racing schedule the past four years, concentrating instead on trying to get his 20-year-old son Kevin started in the sport. The youngster, who hopes to eventually wind up in NASCAR, is running USAC midget and sprint races, and was in Australia to run in a season-ending event at the track where won the Australian Speedcar series in January.
But last fall, Rolfe called Sammy Swindell to see if he was interested in running his sprinter full time – and it was time.
“I knew that it wasn’t out of his system,” Amy Swindell said.
Swindell vividly remembers, and still marvels, at dominating this track as a 15-year-old nearly 40 years ago. And that he’s still able to compete in a circuit where six of the Top 10 hadn’t been born when he first competed in 1971.
“I’m a sophomore, or junior in high school, and I’m running in three classes, winning in all of them and making more money than guys who work all week for a living,” said Swindell, who’s won 59 features at Riverside, and never finished outside the Top 10. “It was an amazing time.”
Defending Outlaw champ Donny Schatz, like Sammy a man of few words, said it’s not surprising. “He’s no rookie. You expect him to run at a high level, and he’s done that.
| 
|