John Finger Knows How to Bring the Thunder to Historic and Vintage Races

John Finger is a sports car guy with a stock car soul.

Finger built a racing resume on road courses, scoring wins in IMSA (including a 2000 class victory in the 24 Hours of Daytona) as both a Mazda factory driver and a privateer and dominating SCCA hillclimbs on practically every mountain within reach.

But Finger, who lives in prime stock car racing country in Greenville, S.C., always felt the attraction of the grip and growl of big-horsepower NASCAR vehicles. As his sports car career ended, he jumped with both feet into historic and vintage car racing, especially enjoying bringing stock car thunder to that discipline and making noise against the sports car entries.

Finger is 78 and still racing, and a lifetime of driving across motorsports disciplines has left him with a race shop filled to the rafters with all manner of cars, equipment, motors, memorabilia and enough automobile parts to stock a small Army vehicle depot. And he’s poised to buy another old race car at any moment.

Finger has a web of connections across the stock car racing world. If a vintage NASCAR vehicle becomes available, he typically knows about it quickly and will be among the bidders. The same is true for the big engines that power stock cars from Daytona to Phoenix and beyond. In one corner of his shop is a formidable row of six Dodge racing powerplants, one carrying the label of the former Evernham Motorsports team. Finger says he picks these up at auctions for a fraction of the real cost.

“The rules where I race aren’t necessarily clear, so I quote Smokey Yunick,” Finger said. “The rules say a 358 engine. They don’t say which one. So I race a Chevy with a Dodge motor. This kind of stuff is fun, safe, fast and relatively inexpensive compared to anything else. You can buy a motor—maybe sneak up on one at an auction–for eight or nine thousand. It’s basically an $80,000 engine.”

Finger’s shop is an eclectic mix of racing stuff. An inventory would last through Christmas. In some other decade. On lifts are former NASCAR vehicles driven by Jimmy Spencer and Scott Pruett. A Kyle Petty car dressed in Wells Fargo livery sits with its hood up, a project underway. A former Petty Busch Series car is nearby. In another room, the one Finger calls the museum, is a bright red Ford last raced by driver Geoffrey Bodine and team owner Bud Moore, a classic by any measure. A Smokin’ Joe’s crew shirt hangs on the wall.