With a legitimate chassis shop at his disposal, Jones back-halved his Camaro, adding a new round-tube chassis with a four-link, coilover shocks, and the works, along with a fiberglass frontend and hood scoop up front and a fresh coat of paint. That was the last iteration it went through under his guidance … or so he thought.
In a tale very reminiscent of the famous story of Papa John’s Pizza founder John Schnatter, who sold his prized second-gen Camaro to help found his business, Jones — in an effort to raise capital to turn his chassis business into a full-time endeavor — decided to sell the Camaro. The date was October 20, 1986 — a date he’s kept written down.
Jones says that at the time, and in the many years that have followed in which he raised a son, built a fledgling business, and went racing at a far more professional level, he rarely second-guessed his decision to part with the car.
“I’m the kind of person that always feels it’s time to move forward, to go forward all the time. So I said I’d just build something else.” Jones was able to keep tabs on the car for a time — it was originally sold to fellow Cordova-area racer Randy Halley, who in 1987 and again in 1990 brought it to Jones for chassis work. Jones says he would “see it from time to time at a race, but never really even thought about it. One of my employees, Tony Quinn, he was on me for years that I should buy that thing back, but I was kinda’ over that phase of my life,” he says.
I got to looking at the car, and it’s hard to explain, but I walked up to it and it was almost like your old dog or horse that you haven’t seen in a long time and they know who you are.
Last summer, Jones said he began kicking around the idea of having a racecar of his own again. He had competed for years in IHRA Pro Stock, in NHRA Pro Stock Truck, campaigned and tuned a Pro Modified and Pro Stock entry for son Rickie, and has served as crew chief for two-time Pro Stock champion Erica Enders since 2014. But he hadn’t
been behind the wheel since 2006, and he had the itch.
I just wanted to have something my family — Bonnie, Rickie, my daughter-in-law Sarah and granddaughter Ava —and I could just go and have some fun with. In July, a good friend of mine, Ralph Haga, called and asked me if my old Camaro had an X-brace in the back window. I thought that was an odd question, but I said, ‘well, yeah, why?’ And he said, ‘oh, nothing.’ A couple of days went by, and we were actually heading to the Goodguys show in Des Moines and Ralph told me we needed to go look at something. I said ‘well, why?’ and he told me he thought he’d found my old car. He knew I was thinking about building something, that I’d like to have an old car with a four-speed or something again.”
Once Holly sold the car, Jones lost track of its specific whereabouts, only aware that it had been floating around Iowa … but he was soon to be reunited with an old flame.
Haga and Jones paid a visit to an area racers’ shop — Jones asked Haga not to give away his identity, and he went sans any apparel that would tip off who he was. “I just wanted to walk in and look at the car,” he says. “Ralph had contacted the owner on his own, and so we walked in and right away the guy knew who I was. I though ‘aw man, I got my cover blown.’ ”