A Visit To Alex Job Racing and The Ultimate Rod Shop

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Well, my fellow Hoons, this olelongrooffan is still hanging out in the pits and garage area of life these days so, on a fluke, I emailed my Rolex24 buddy, RJ, to see if he was in town for Mother’s Day. Well, it turns out he is in the USA for a few weeks off his job as an engineer on an oil industry supply boat in the Persian Gulf and he asked me to come on over and enjoy his hometown for a few days, catch up with each other and spend all day on Sunday planted on the sofas of his new home getting overloaded on some racing action. Well, can my fellow Hoons guess what this olelongrooffan did?

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Prior to that eventful Sunday, we spent Friday just Hooning around to see what could be seen. One of those things we spotted was the home of Alex Job Racing right there in good old Tavares, Florida. Yeah, RJ and this olelongrooffan just showed up on Alex Job’s doorstep with nary an invitation in sight. When a guy walked from his office into that shop and asked if he could help us, we just introduced ourselves, mentioned what fanboys we are of the Alex Job team and we were just curious to check out this shop. Well, my fellow Hoons, it turns out the guy who quizzed us about our intentions was Mr. Job himself and he couldn’t have been nicer if we were sponsors coming and bearing gifts. He, however, would not let this olelongrooffan snap one image of the interior of his shop. Needless to say, we were a bit disappointed but, other than that, he did give us near free reign of his shop.
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We spent about an hour just looking around and asking all sorts of questions and he and his team were most courteous. Mr. Job, pictured to the left in the above image being awarded the Bob Snodgrass Award of Excellence for the 2014 season, then proceeded to show RJ and myself his trophy room. There had to be at least a hundred trophies Alex Job Racing has won since its inception in 1988. Yeah, a straight up guy and team who welcomed us with open arms, even if it was the last day in the shop for that race team prior to heading out to Belle Isle on Monday for racing this coming weekend. A hearty thanks to all there at Alex Job Racing. Continued success in 2015.
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After we took leave of that awesome race shop, RJ asked me, “Where to next?” “Follow me,” was my response and we headed over to check out The Ultimate Rod Garage I had spotted earlier in the week. We parked and headed up to that shop stopping at one of the open overhead doors. The proprietor Doug, seen above chatting it up with RJ, asked if he could help us? I said that we were just a couple of car guys and how could we pass up a shop with the name “Ultimate Rod Garage?” He laughed and waved us on in with a “Feel free to look around,” comment. And of course we did.
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Unlike Mr. Job, Doug had no problem with this olelongrooffan taking as many images of his shop as I desired. And I did. He had this Stingray ready for reassembly after stripping it down and repairing the rust in the lower suspension supports. I did hear him mention to RJ that these all had rust in that location. A perplexed RJ asked where the car was from. “Illinois,” was Doug’s response and that explains the rust on this from the salty white north Corvette.
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Based on the amount of dust on this beauty, it appears to have been a while since it has received any attention. “Yeah,” Doug commented, “way to long. I have got to get someone I can trust to come aboard and help me out.” If this olelongrooffan possessed more than just a modicum of hands on automotive wrenching experience, I would have offered my services, cheap.
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After walking around that Ford coupe on that lift, I asked Doug if it was a ’39 like my buddy TheKenMan’s. “No, it’s a 40 but it has a ’39 grille.” An invisible fist pump was my first reaction at hearing that declaration. Although this one was nice, I still like the lines of TheKenMan’s ’39 better. And that Florida Gator orange and blue stovebolt pickup was stock, with the exception of that paint job and those wheel covers.
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Yeah, Doug has a whole damn bunch of projects sitting around the Ultimate Rod Garage.
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As RJ and Doug were still chatting it up over by that lift, this olelongrooffan just had to step into the back room to see what treasures could be seen there. As if by magic, this ole Divco milk truck appeared before my very eyes. I thought I recognized it for what it was but wasn’t quite sure.
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As I stepped around it to check out the spare parts area, Doug approached me and stated, “If you hurt yourself, I’m just going to bury you out back.” All three of us just laughed, especially when I stated, “I have a shovel in my longerroof.”
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I asked Doug if that truck was in fact a Divco. “Nice eye,” was his response. “Not to many recognize that by its bare shell.” RJ asked me again what it was and in true techie fashion, I pulled up an image of one on my not quite SmartPhone and he mentioned he had never seen one before. “Well, it would suite you fine RJ, there is no back seat.”
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Heading back out into the main room of that shop, I gathered a couple images of what I believe was a 1955 Thunderbird. I only say this as there were no portholes in the top. I am pretty sure that starting in ’56, these were standard on that generation TBird.
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And under the hood was super clean with a Holley that looked out of the box brand new. With that, we thanked Doug for his hospitality, received an invite back anytime and we commenced to getting the hell out of there.
“Where now, RJ?” it was my turn to ask.
Follow me over to Gary’s garage.
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Well, we got over to Gary’s garage but it was buttoned up tight for the holiday weekend. We took a look around the side of his shop and it was there I spotted this H&H aluminum trailer I sold to Gary Tyler back when I was schlepping trailers with bestpricetrailers.com for a living in 2012. Yeah, it is a damn small world around here.
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So this olelongrooffan and RJ decided to call it a day and head back to his new pad and enjoy a libation and a bite to eat. Oh yeah, also to check out RJ’s basement.
Stay tuned my fellow Hoons.
Alex Job Image Courtesy of alexjobracing.com
All others Copyright Hooniverse 2015/longrooffan

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  1. Bradley Brownell Avatar
    Bradley Brownell

    Lucky.
    AJR is my favorite team on the grid in TUSCC right now. It doesn’t hurt that they’ve got the best pro-am lineup in the world.
    I can’t wait to see what they do with the new GT3 regulations in 2016.