Ernest Lloyd "Sonny" Hutchins
Born: May 17, 1929  -  Died November 22, 2005
Home: Richmond, VA

Ernest Lloyd "Sonny" Hutchins, 76, of Richmond and Urbanna, passed away November 21, 2005. He is survived by his loving wife of 36 years, Connie Tinsley Hutchins; their children, Richard Bradley Jr. and Cynthia Hall; a grandson, Anthony Hall and his wife, Mariah; a brother, Carl W. "Piggy" Hutchins and a sister-in-law, Lottie L. Hutchins; and numerous nieces, nephews, and friends. Sonny was well known in the Richmond area as a local restauranteur and up and down the east coast as a NASCAR driver. His family will receive friends Tuesday (today) at the Bliley Funeral Homes' Central Chapel, 3801 Augusta Ave. from 5 to 8 p.m., where funeral services will be held 2 p.m. Wednesday. Interment will follow in Greenwood Memorial Gardens. Memorial contributions may be made to Victory Junction Gang, 4500 Adam's Way, Randleman, N.C. 27317. Published in the Richmond Times-Dispatch on 11/22/2005.
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Local racing legend Sonny Hutchins dies
A champion on short tracks, driver competed with flair, success for more than 30 years
BY NATE RYAN AND RANDY HALLMAN  - TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITERS  -  Nov 22, 2006

Ernest Lloyd "Sonny" Hutchins, one of the greatest drivers in Richmond history and a member of the famed "Strawberry Hill Mod Squad," died from heart failure Monday. He was 76.

A charismatic competitor with a lead foot and a clever tongue, Mr. Hutchins raced with great success for more than 30 years, competing in Late Models, Modifieds and Winston Cup.

Often driving for the city's two greatest car owners, Junie Donlavey and Emanual Zervakis, Mr. Hutchins won several track championships. Racing historian Joe Kelly estimated that Mr. Hutchins won more than 300 races despite a nine-year retirement in the prime of his career.

Though he made only 38 starts in NASCAR's premier series, he had many fierce battles with Cup champions such as Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt and Darrell Waltrip.

In an interview last year, Mr. Hutchins re- called his favorite part of racing was "showing up at someone else's racetrack and beating them." He said with a devilish grin that Waltrip called him "the dirtiest driver he ever knew" after trumping the three-time champion at a Tennessee short track.

He also had a few run-ins in the mid-1970s with Earnhardt, infuriating "The Intimidator" by bumping him into the wall at back-to-back Late Model races at Richmond and Martinsville. The seven-time champion hadn't forgotten when they crossed paths again in 1990.

"I walked by and said, 'Who's the dirtiest driver you know now?'" Mr. Hutchins said, "Earnhardt said, 'Well, look at the teacher I had.'"

Mr. Hutchins, who made his Modified debut with a sixth-place finish at the old Fairgrounds track known as Strawberry Hill in 1950, also was a boyhood hero to Rick Hendrick, who has won six championships and more than 100 races as a Nextel Cup car owner.

           
                                                                             01 Sonny Hutchins

"Guys like Sonny Hutchins and Ray Hendrick are the ones who put the bug in me to get into [racing]," said Hendrick, a Virginia native who watched Mr. Hutchins at South Boston Speedway and Southside Speedway. "Sonny was fearless. He wore glasses thicker than a Coke bottle, and I don't think he could see. But he was unbelievable. To watch him run those Modified cars with all that power and actually spin the tires all the way down the straightaway. He was quite a talent."

Mr. Hutchins was one of the "4-H Boys" along with Ray Hendrick, Runt Harris and Ted Hairfield. The foursome was a promoter's dream, drawing crowds wherever they entered together.

Mr. Hutchins built a large fan following in Virginia and was a four-time season champion at Southside Speedway, according to Kelly. In Mr. Hutchins' last full season in 1980, he won Late Model titles at Southside and South Boston.

"Everybody wanted to be near him," said Neil Culley, a member of Mr. Hutchins' crew when he drove for Zervakis from 1970 to 1980. "He made you feel that you were important. He made fans feel that way, whether he knew them or not."

Richmonder Tommy Ellis, a two-time Busch Series champion, said Hutchins went from mentor to fierce rival to friend during his career.

"He was the greatest driver I ever raced against in any series, at any level," Ellis said. "I had the utmost respect for him. He understood a car in a way that not many drivers do and that set him apart."

Mr. Hutchins spent many hours at Donlavey's Southside shop working on the No. 90 chassis he drove from 1965-70. With Donlavey, Mr. Hutchins finished seventh in the 1967 Daytona 500 and a career-best second twice in 1969 (Dover and Richmond).

"The thing that made Sonny so good was that he was always so good to get along with," Donlavey said. "He drove the car to the edge and never held anything back. But what really made him great was the way he made the team feel. If something went wrong, he didn't come out of the car complaining. He enjoyed the sport, and he made sure you enjoyed it, too."

Mr. Hutchins once said he "never made never a nickel in my life racing." During a 1954-63 absence from the sport, Mr. Hutchins became a restaurateur with his older brother and stayed in the family business when he returned to race cars. Mr. Hutchins retired in 2002 after closing the last of five restaurants he had owned.

"I gave the money back to the car owners and said give me a better car," Mr. Hutchins said last year. "I just loved automobiles. I spent my whole life in racing, and I don't know anything I'd trade for it."

Survivors include his wife of 36 years, Connie Tinsley Hutchins; son Richard Bradley Jr. of Richmond; daughter Cynthia Hall of Williamsburg; brother Carl W. "Piggy" Hutchins of Richmond and a grandson.

The Wood Brothers #21 Modified was driven to
Victory Lane by Sonny Hutchins & Donnie Allison

Sonny Facts:

• NASCAR Cup Statistics:  38 races run over 9 years

• Best Cup Position:           34th - 1967 (Grand National)

• First Race:                        1955 Richmond 200

• Daytona Beach:                 Ran his first Beach race in a Modified

• Last Race:                         1974 Old Dominion 500 (Martinsville)

• Top Ten:                           7 (No Poles, No Wins)

 

Racer Remembered: Sonny Hutchins
By Allen Madding   -   Posted on November 23, 2005 -  SpeedwayMedia.com

Sonny Hutchins, born May 17, 1929 in Richmond, Virginia, began his stock car racing career on March 18, 1950, at the Richmond Fairgrounds when he entered the Hank Stanley Memorial Race. Hutchins managed to finish second in his qualifying heat and finished seventh in the feature. He managed a restaurant fulltime for a living and raced when he could afford it.

In 1951, Hutchins began competing in the NASCAR Modified Division including the old beach course at Daytona. In 1955, Hutchins made his first NASCAR Grand National Division start at Richmond Fairgrounds half-mile dirt track driving J. M. Fitzgibbons #97-A Oldsmobile. Overheating problems 15 laps into the event dropped him to a 26th place finish after starting 13th.

Hutchins did not get an opportunity again to drive in NASCAR’s elite division for 10 years. He continued to compete in Late Models and Modifieds. In 1965, Hutchins convinced Junie Donlavey to let him drive his #90 Ford in 10 Grand National events. He recorded a 5th place finish at the .333-mile asphalt Dog Track Speedway, in Moyock, North Carolina. And a 10th place finish in the Old Dominion 500 at Martinsville, Virginia. He also drove in the NASCAR Modified Division campaigning cars for Donlavey.

In 1966, Donlavey put Hutchins in his #90 for 4 events. Mechanical problems dropped him from competition in 3 of the 4 events, and he failed to record a top-10. In 1967, the two teamed up for 7 NASCAR Grand National events. Hutchins recorded a 7th place finish in the Daytona 500. In 1968, Hutchins and Donlavey paired up for 4 events but mechanical failures sidelined them in every event. Hutchins enjoyed success in the Late Model ranks capturing the 1968 Late Model Division Track championship at Southside Speedway in Midlothian, Virginia near Richmond.

In 1969, Hutchins drove Donlavey’s #90 Ford in 8 Grand National events. He finished second in the Mason-Dixon 300 at Dover and in the Capital City 250 at Richmond. In 1970, the two teamed up for two Grand National events. Hutchins finished 5th in the Capital City 500 at Richmond.

In 1973, Hutchins drove the #82 Harraka Enterprises Chevrolet in the NASCAR Winston Cup Series Richmond 500. He qualified 12th, but a crash on lap 254 put him out of the event early and relegated him to a 21st place finish.

Hutchins returned to Winston Cup Series competition for his final time in 1974 driving Emanuel Zervakis’ #01 Dominion Oxygen & Supply Chevrolet in the Old Dominion 500 at Martinsville. He qualified second, but was taken out of the event by a crash on lap 150 and finished 21st.

In 9 years of competition in NASCAR’s elite division, Hutchins made 38 starts recording 4 top-5s and 7 top-10s.

Sonny Hutchins - Racing Legend
Richmonder Sonny Hutchins has battled, and beaten, the best

Tom Netherland  -  Richmond.com   -  Thursday, May 02, 2002

As NASCAR's Winston Cup and Busch Grand National divisions come to town this week for the Pontiac Excitement 400 at Richmond International Raceway, let's pause and look at a Virginia racing legend.

Meet Sonny Hutchins. One of NASCAR's best drivers of all-time, he hails from Richmond and still lives in the area, operating with his brother "Piggy" The Attaché restaurant on West Broad.

Yet in 32 white-knuckling years, Hutchins won about 400 races and competed against the best drivers of the past half-century.

Name a great. Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt, Cale Yarborough, Ray Hendrick – they all battled door-to-door with Hutchins. Several current Winston Cup drivers including Jimmy Spencer, also matched driving skills with Richmond's rim-rider.

Now 73 and gray of beard, Hutchins says he doesn't miss driving. But mention the sport and his bespectacled eyes twinkle like tinseled stars. Maybe that's because when he drove, this one-time pedal-pummeling charger drove all out.

"I was an aggressive driver and, of course, I had a reputation for spinning people out, knock 'em out the race, but these people don't understand. When you're racing, you're racing to win," Hutchins says. "I wanted to win every race I went to."

That was no easy task. Fellow lead-foots the late Ray Hendrick, Al Grinnan and Ted Hairfield sure didn't want to finish second, either. In those days drivers did not settle and were not happy with second place.

So many a bent fender and tall tempers ensued. Though Hutchins was known as a nice guy off the track, on the track he did all that he could to win. If that meant spinning a guy out, then so be it.

Not surprisingly, fights followed rather often.

"Hundreds. Every time I turned around I was fighting," Hutchins says, grinning.

NASCAR no longer looks the other way. Today when drivers make contact on the track, NASCAR frowns. When one driver wrecks another, as Winston Cup's Kevin Harvick did to Coy Gibbs in a Craftsman Truck Series race at Martinsville recently, NASCAR acts swiftly. Harvick was suspended for the following week's Cup race.

But that sort of rough driving was commonplace in Hutchins' day.

"Yeah, and then we'd get out and fight afterwards. It didn't make any difference back then," Hutchins says. "There wasn't as many people and there wasn't as much money involved, television. I don't agree with all that NASCAR does, but I gotta agree with them here. They did the right thing. It's the greatest sport in history, automobile racing."

Hutchins' career started on March 18, 1950, in Richmond at the Fairgrounds for the Hank Stanley Memorial Race. Stanley, who drove for Richmond's Junie Donlavey, burned to death in a race in Charlotte and the race was devised to help raise money for his family.

Well, 19-year-old Hutchins, always a car enthusiast, managed to wrangle a ride for the race. Longtime NASCAR announcing legend and fellow Richmonder "Jolly" Joe Kelly was there.

"Sonny placed second in the heat race and seventh in the main that night," he says. "That started one of the greatest careers in motorsports history."

In those days, and for years to follow, Hutchins drove modifieds, drastically altered late-model hot rods that sizzled speedways. Hit the gas, hold tight and tear 'em up. That's the way it was in those mostly 1936 and '37 Fords and Chevrolets.

"I've loved cars all my life, but I always made my own living," Hutchins says. "There was no money in racing. Hell, as much money as it cost me to race, it's a wonder I ain't in the poorhouse."

Hutchins supported himself by running a restaurant. Though drivers with his success now make millions, in those days a win could bring a few hundred bucks. Finish out of the Top 10 and you were fortunate to bring home $50.

"When I started racing, if we had $400 in a car, that was a lot of money," Hutchins says. "Nobody raced for a living back then."

No matter the opponent, Hutchins opened a can of whip-ass and poured it on when he fired his cars up. He drove anything with an engine, four tires and a gas pedal.

He was hell on wheels.

Ned Jarrett, two-time NASCAR Grand National (now Winston Cup) champion and renowned racing announcer, remembers racing Hutchins quite well.

"I didn't race against him a lot in the modifieds and sportsmen series," Jarrett says, "but certainly anytime I did I knew he was the man to beat."

Hot rod Lincolns, Chevys, Fords, Dodges and darned near anything else that would run marked Hutchins' days of racing. Door to door with bootleggers, farmers and neighbors alike Hutchins came from an era when if you had the will and lead foot, why, you could go racing.

There were no image consultants and multi-million dollar sponsorships. Drive past most gas stations in those days and chances were there would be a hopped-up race car out back. Racing was an entirely different world then.

"They used to run Grand National races out at Southside Speedway (in Chesterfield County)," Hutchins says. "(One time) we took a car right off the car lot, put a motor in it, fixed the right front axle and went out there and blew the motor. We brought it back home, put the old motor back in, fixed the wheel back, took it back over to the lot and sold it. Everybody used to do all those tricks."

Times sure have changed. Today it's aerodynamics and wind tunnel testing; back then it was hammer down and get the hell out of the way.

Hutchins held nothing back. When green flags dropped, he chased checkereds like a bulldog goes after pork chops. Tangle with him, and he bit back. Hard. Current and longtime Winston Cup team co-owner Glen Wood of Stuart, Va., fielded modifieds for Hutchins for a time during the 1960s.

"Sonny was a hard driver, as hard as they come," Wood says. "Sonny really didn't do it for money. He just loved it."

But many a driver held on tight and wondered 'why me!' when Hutchins came knock, knock, knocking on their doors. And bumpers. And fenders. It wasn't personal; Hutchins just wanted to win.

Even the late Dale Earnhardt, the seven-time Winston Cup champion who was long known as "The Intimidator" for his aggressive driving style, came fender-to-fender and lost to Hucthins.

Well, Hutchins was the intimidator before The Intimidator. A bumper-banger who made drivers sweat, the burly Virginian wore such a name for himself that Earnhardt later told him that he taught him everything he knew about being an aggressive driver.

"Dale came to Richmond and we ran at the Fairgrounds," Hutchins says. "He was driving that No. 8 car. He was running all over the track like he always did and I just knocked him out the way and went on. Called me a dirty driver. So, the next week we were in Martinsville. Coming off the second corner he was doing the same thing and I was leading the race. He's blocking me up so he won't go a lap down. So I tapped him and he spun and hit the wall. Aww, he cussed and called me all kinds of names."

Typical stuff, really, in those days.

"Course then he got a break and went on into Winston Cup. Anyway, Butch Lindley got killed and Earnhardt was signing autographs to raise some money for his wife. I said, 'Dale, who's the rottenest driver?' Course, his reputation was just terrible. He said, 'Yeah, but look who taught me.'"

At that Hutchins rears back his head and laughs heartily. That was racing for him. It was fun.

"Right up to when Dale died we never were close friends," he says, "but I went to Charlotte four or five years ago and he tried to get me to come down to his shop. They had a string of convertibles that would run around the race track (as a pre-race ceremony for the World 600 race) and he wanted me to ride with him."

Chalk that up as the measure of the men.

Now, don't get the idea that Hutchins raced strictly locally. He first drove at Daytona in 1965 in a modified owned by Donlavey. Two years later, he drove a Grand National (Winston Cup) car at Daytona and finished seventh, one spot ahead of seven-time Winston Cup champion Richard Petty and behind winner Mario Andretti.

"I ran Talledega, Daytona, Atlanta, Charlotte. I ran the beach down in Daytona in 1951, ran modifieds," Hutchins says. "You'd run down the highway, then go off on the sand, then you'd go out to the edge of the water and then you'd come back up on the highway. It was a mile each way and a quarter mile in the turns, so it was two and a half miles long. Hell, I think the first time I went down there I started 77th. They ran a 100-and-some automobiles."

That said, no one knows for sure how Hutchins would have fared had he landed a full-time Winston Cup ride.

"You know, practice and experience is what gets you going in Winston Cup, and Sonny ran well when I saw him," Wood says. "He was a great race driver. He was as good as they come. On top of that, Sonny was a great personality. Still is."

Yet through the years, he raced against most of the sports biggest names. He remembers three-time Cup champion Cale Yarborough as "tough," Richard Petty as "great," and David Pearson as "smooth."

And of course, he had some memorable run-ins with three-time champion and current Fox TV broadcaster Darrell Waltrip.

"Darrell was a great driver. He said I was a dirty driver, too," Hutchins says, smiling. "We ran a match race at Langley Speedway one night, Darrell, Ray Hendrick and myself. Ray won, I ran second and Darrell was third. He said I was a rotten driver."

But gosh could that "rotten driver" just drive the wheels off a car. Put Hutchins behind the wheel and chances were he'd end up in first place.

"I thought I was the toughest driver out there," he says.

And as such, he developed dozens of rivalries through the years. From Runt Harris to Al Grinnan to Bill Dennis to Geoff Bodine and Tommy Ellis, if a driver wanted to win they had to beat Hutchins.

But his No. 1 rival was Ray Hendrick.

"I gave Ray his last party he ever had before he died," Hutchins says. "Richard Petty was there. Ray and I were never close, now. We were rivals. We fought. He knew that if he messed with me that he'd get it back, and I knew that if I messed with him I'd get it back. They didn't come any better than Ray Hendrick."

Funny, but that's what current Winston Cup driver Jimmy Spencer says about Hutchins.

"Tell Sonny Hutchins that I learned everything I know about racing from him," Spencer says.

Hutchins retired in 1981 after suffering a heart attack shortly after a race at Southside Speedway. Today, he runs his restaurant, watches races and readily welcomes the opportunity to talk about the sport he loves so dearly.

"I never played baseball, football, basketball, golf. I couldn't tell you who is a football player or a baseball player," Hutchins says. "I just love racing."

The Emanuel Zervakis / Sonny Hutchins Story

Zervakis broke his kneecap in a fiery crash at Southside Speedway in 1964. The injury, his business concerns and reluctance of his insurers to underwrite a race driver led to an early retirement from driving. Zervakis became a builder/engineer/owner of race cars.

Dale Jarrett, Mark Martin, Ricky Rudd and Ray Hendrick were among his drivers. His longest-running success was with Richmond restaurateur Sonny Hutchins behind the wheel. From 1970 to 1980 they won hundreds of races and several track championships.

"Emanuel was always experimenting with the car," said Hutchins, 74. "He would try something that nobody else had and we would be unbeatable. We'd win 20 out of 30 races. But he was never satisfied, and the next thing he tried might not work. Then we'd have a hard time winning anything for a while.

Hutchins said he enjoyed tweaking the ever-serious Zervakis.

"We'd be running great, out in front, and I'd start singing to him over the radio. He'd get on there and tell me, 'Pay attention to what you're doing before you wreck my car.'

"Or I'd brace the steering wheel on my knees and go by the pits with both hands in the air, waving at him. You should've seen him."

In 1979, when Hutchins was ready to limit his driving schedule, he recommended that Zervakis take on a young Modified driver, Geoffrey Bodine.

Zervakis and Bodine proved a perfect match with their single-minded approach to the sport and understanding of the subtleties of race car suspensions. Bodine moved to Richmond and lived in his recreational vehicle at Zervakis' shop off Jefferson Davis Highway.

"I'd visit my wife and kids in North Carolina when I could," said Bodine, "but I spent most of my time there, working on the car. It wasn't much of a home - an RV parked behind the shop with the smell of the tobacco coming from Philip Morris next door - but it was worth it."

Bodine was an immediate winner in Zervakis machinery. Driver and owner pioneered power steering in the bulky stock cars, now standard throughout the sport. In two years together they developed a series of chassis and suspension innovations - so successful and so difficult to duplicate and master that some of them were soon outlawed by NASCAR.

"He was a great owner," said Bodine. "He'd let me try anything I wanted on the car. He'd let me make mistakes, and after the car didn't perform the want we wanted it to, he'd say, 'Okay, what did you learn?"

With Hutchins, Bodine and later Butch Lindley at the wheel, Zervakis made forays into Winston Cup racing. The efforts against NASCAR's elite showed promise - qualifying up front, leading races. Hutchins qualified on the outside front row in a race at Martinsville and out-gunned pole-sitter Richard Petty to take the early lead. In another race at Martinsville, Lindley finished second, narrowly defeated after making an extra stop for fuel.

But the impressive on-track showings never resulted in the major sponsorship necessary to run a first-class Winston Cup team. Zervakis remained a background figure in the sport - constructing cars, offering advice, building a legacy that touched countless teams.

Inspiration for this page: Hi, my name is Bobby Goode and I have been going to races since 1960. We have a short track here in Richmond, Virginia called SouthSide  Speedway. A lot of big names have run at this 1/3 mile short track. Sonny Hutchins is a legend in Nascar racing as he has won hundreds of modified races driving for Junie Donleavy back in the old days. Sonny has won many Late Model Sportsman races which is called Busch Grand National driving for the legendary Emanuel Zervakis  in the sky blue 01 car. Thank you, Bobby Goode

Sonny Hutchins NASCAR Grand National Statistics

NASCAR Grand National By Track Statistics

Nascar Nextel Cup Series Tickets

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