Vic Hill
A number of Dirt Late Model racers also serve as sellers of the various goods and equipment needed to compete in the sport. Ray Cook distributes American Racer tires, Josh Richards serves as the face of his father’s Rocket Chassis company and even Scott Bloomquist sells and supports the Sweet-Bloomquist Chassis to a limited number of competitors. But perhaps one of the most notable drivers who also sells a product with his name attached to it is engine builder Vic Hill.
The former Richard Childress Racing engine tuner has been in the business of building and selling his Vic Hill Race Engines for many years now while at the same time driving his own race car and competing against some of his own customers.
So how does someone so dependent on having good customer relations handle racing against the very people he sells products to?
“I’ve got customers and through the years I’ve given a lot of spots up that I probably wouldn’t have if I just raced for a living,” Hill explained. “But what I’ve kind of decided is that I’ll just race you the way you race me. If you run in and do a slide job and go across my nose, then I’m going to go in and do a slide job and go across your nose. For me, I think that’s got to be the way I’ve got to race to be competitive.”
During the recently completed Southern Nationals mini-series, Hill found himself going head-to-head with customers and even teammate Ricky Weiss on numerous occasions. A mishap with Derek Ellis at the Wythe Raceway on the opening night of the series and a couple of close calls with Walker Arthur at 411 Motor Speedway were among the instances in which the Mosheim, Tenn. engine builder raced in close quarters with customers.
“People, if they know you’re going to let off, they’re going to abuse that,” Hill said in an interview with InsideDirtRacing.com. “I’ve done that for years with different people at different places, I’ll see them and back out of the gas and that’s not racing. The other night with Walker, I actually talked to him after the race. He came over and said ‘I thought the engine builder was supposed to be easy on the customer’ and I said ‘Hell, I thought the customer was going to be easy on the engine builder’. But he was all good with it, it was good racing between us.”
During a recent story about the lives of racing wives, Christa Hill pointed out that her most tense moments at the race track come when her husband is competing against the customers of their engine company. On occasion, those on-track confrontations call for a little off-track fence mending.
“If someone comes up and asks me, I’ll tell them my side of it and listen to their side of it,” Hill declared. “In this sport, you’ve got to be somewhat aggressive. If you run in there and just wreck the hell out of somebody, then they’re not going to like it. But stuff is going to happen.”
Vic Hill(1) racing against engine customer Donald McIntosh
And Hill is almost certain to always find himself in those types of situations due to the fact that he has a very loyal customer base that often race in the same locales as their engine builder. Ricky Weiss, who has driven a team car owned by Hill over the past few weeks, along with drivers such as Arthur, Ellis, and Blount Motorsports teammates Donald McIntosh and Tommy Kerr are among those often seen at the same track as the 52-year-old multiple time Volunteer Speedway track champion.
Hill believes that helping his customers will ultimately benefit him as a racer, car owner and an engine builder.
“It’s just like this deal with Ricky. He wanted to race more down here so we put together this package for him. You know, they were engine customers before and I had helped them at the race track. I’ve helped a lot of people, as many people as I can, and not just with the engines but also the setup of the cars. I’m pretty easy with what I do know, I don’t keep secrets from anybody and I think that’s helped a lot.”
Car owner Vic Hill congratulates Ricky Weiss in victory lane at Volunteer Speedway
