Forum: HoseHeads Sprint Car General Forum (go)
Moderators: dirtonly  /  dmantx  /  hosehead

Good ole Kevin the Bulldog.  Never wish him any harm and continued improvment.

But this guy (Kevin) may be the only one to take out more cars over a carreer than Danica Patrick.
Seriously.  This is the guy who flips, lands on top of Cole Whitt's roll cage and does burnouts on his helment.

Sheesh,  For someone willing to throw blame everywhere, I've never seen accepted responsiblility.

HAMMER....NAIL.....HEAD.....You hit it!!  Very well said!!

Attempting to be a voice of reason in a world full of
irrationality. 

That apple didn't fall far from the tree with Sammy and Kevin. When Kevin ran USAC he would flat run over everyone and it was always the other persons fault.     We were racing Salem one time and there was a crash going into 3.  Flagman throws the red Kevin is mid pack comes down the backstretch after the red flag has been thrown and runs over a right rear of a car that has already stopped.   Sammy grabs a chunk of concrete and proceeds to try to hit the driver of the car that Kevin ran over in the head with the chunk of concrete.   At the time Sammy had already been barred from being in the pits at any USAC race because of previous incidents like this one.  Come to find out he had hidden in someone's trailer and snuck into the pits.  Real great guys for sure. 

Ive always just cheered for anyone since i only recently figured out who some of these guys are. Starting to have favorites but its never based on nice guy bad guy info. When i googled swindell crash i found many which is understandable in 40 yrs of racing. The real surprise was how many videos of swindell scrapping or screaming or smashing someone or something i got on google. A temper is a terrible thing.  

Even though I may not know you, I 
care what most of you think!

How are all the Swindells related, Kevin Sammy and Jeff. Are there others in the Sprint circles. Are they all drivers or what roles do each serve?

Even though I may not know you, I 
care what most of you think!

Sammy and Jeff are brothers,  Kevin is Sammy's son .

*********crickets from Swindell apologist MSPN on this one**********

and nobody noticed sammy all night until he happenened to pick up a chunck of concrete to throw at another driver..sure.. sounds like a likely story..pretty far fetched in my eyes just another swindell hater coming out of the woodwork..but nice try though..

The Swindell haters sure do keep me laughing. There are more fish stories on this forum about Sammy than you'll find at your local bait shop. Keep the stories coming boys and I'll keep warming up the popcorn, lol.

What's the point, haters are gonna hate, I can never change that.  I started off as a Sammy fan and was fortunate to get to know him and the family through my work and saw lots of very good things he did but never got credit for nor did he want any.  Sammy is a proud parent, heck I remember watching him polish Kevin's go-kart many years ago in between races in the middle of Ohio somewhere after spending a lot of time checking over every part on it.  Kevin is a chip off the old block and those that saw him race know this, some say he was too aggressive, I say he won too much, he was certainly gifted like his Father.  Jealousy is one of the 7 deadly sins and there's lots of that in the haters heart when it comes to this family......

No shit! People "hear"something and they spread it like gospel beacuse it's what they want to hear. Simply because they don't like a certain driver...aka Sammy Swindell. Too bad he didn't get tagged with a nickname like "sugar sweet" Sammy Swindell. Wait, no it aint! "Slammin" Sammy is better, because that IS how he handled the cushion in his younger years. Hence, the proper nickname was born for one of the very best ever!

I judge people by what i see. Are Sammy and Kevin

intense, focused at the track? Yes it's their way of living 

and they are successful at it, off the track i have seenthemwhen 

the competitve mode is off and they are like the rest of

he drivers smiling and chatting with the fans. Yes the haters 

have their negative stories but i am sure if you watch closlythe

same could be said about any successful driver.

I'm not a " Sammy Hater", I respect the guy for being one of the best driver / mechanics out there.  Just not a fan of his driving tactics and attitude.    Sammy wasn't seen by any USAC officials until that incident.  The team that he snuck in with was pitted on the south end of pit road out of the eyes of any officials.  Believe what you will I saw it with my own eyes, I had just gotten to the car I was wrenching that night and had a front row seat for it. 

Slammin  Sammy got his name because his intense nature on the track. In the pits he was and is one of the most intense guys that has ever been on the road. Everyone, including me, watched and waited to see if he was going to either run Steve down or open up enough of a lead to get to the checkered flag. Kevin grew up in the pits around the country and is just like his dad. Do I believe he threw a piece of concrete, not in the least, I was in the infield the night the outlaws were at lernerville.  Sammy was watching the times on the scoreboard going down the front straightaway when for whatever reason the push truck didn't pull off the track. Sammy at full throttle hit the back of the push truck and many of us gasped because we thought he was seriously hurt. The car and the truck were both a total loss. He was in the pits in the ambulance and when he came out he wanted to no why the second car wasn't unloaded. I do not remember if he could continue on the eastern swing because his wands were so badly damaged. The guy is 1 tuff son of a B. But so was kinser, wolfgang, Shuman and others. They were real outlaws. 

Don't worry. It's always gonna be "bla bla bla y'all are just jealous". "Bla bla bla Sammy's a really nice guy when you catch him in really precious moments". Those of us who choose to accept reality know what you observed is true and did in fact happen because it doesn't take a stretch of the imagination to believe you because there are ample examples of the same behavior many of which have been documented. It has nothing to do with jealousy. It's called REALITY. Explaining that to people like Mike Nelligan (who knows me well enough that I don't pull this opinion of Sammy and Kevin out of my ass - that I actually have something to base it on) is a COMPLETE waste of time. Somehow some people just simply choose to think the two walk on water and are somehow in line for sainthood REGARDLESS of what is presented to them. You could very easily make an hour long video highlight reel with just the incidents that are caught on video to show them but it would be a waste of time because they would still deny it. It's fascinating really.

Chris, we go back over 20 years and I have never asked anything about the Sammy deal, never will either.  I respect you enough to know it had to be something serious for you to have your views as such.  I am not trying to change anyone's opinion in this forum just trying to present a side of Sammy that I got to know over the years, to each his own.  Can your CA buddy pull it off this weekend, he is sure awful impressive?

Yeah I know what you are saying !! LOL. The ones that get me are the Sammy fans that say " well if Sammy would have had all the money that Steve had behind him Sammy would have more wins than Steve ".    Really ?? Sammy always ran on someone elses money and Karl and Steve ran on what their car made. 

Honestly? My primary wish now a days is a safe event for all involved. If everybody gets through it in good shape and everybody is blown away with the racing then I am happy for everyone. My hope for Sammy is that he can get himself to a place in racing where he can enjoy the rest of his days and in my opinion at this point it's not going to come from being a driver. You can easily tell when he is happy and I think you would see it a lot more often if his role were car owner or team manager or car builder. Something along those lines. For Kevin I wish him the best and just hope he can learn to avoid doing things that make so many of us go "Yup! He's Sammy's son!". Seriously and sincerely. I don't dislike it when they are successful so long as they can do so without being an ass along the way :-).

Believe this.....Karl and Steve spent a lot of money that wasn't theirs. Once the big sponsors got into the game they probably had more "door knocks" than anybody. Starting way back with Valvoline for the #11 sprinter. One of the first with a sponsorship like that.

It was said that WirtGen wanted to back Karl and he declined. Mark was done, and to this days still has issues, I believe Karl had close to 20 yrs on the road. I always thought he may have done some wingless racing in Indiana but he walked away also.