‘Suitcase’ Jake Elder: A NASCAR Legend, the man who helped make Earnhardt a star
The Jake Elder Mercury that Mario Andretti drove to victory in the 1967 Daytona 500....was ironically the same car, slightly reworked, that Elder prepared for Darrell Waltrip (here) in his very first Talladega start in 1972
(Photo Credit: MSI / Nigel Kinrade)
By Mike Mulhern
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CONCORD
Have you heard the one about the day a bear chased Jake Elder through the Pocono woods on his way to the race track?
Remember the day at North Wilkesboro Speedway when Jake Elder took a paint brush and gallon can of rubber softener and proceeded to slather his qualifying tires with the highly NASCAR-illegal mixture, right there in the middle of pit road, in front of everyone, including chagrinned NASCAR officials….to make the point, not so subtly, that too many of his team’s rivals were secretly ‘soaking’ their tires for an edge in speed?
Or the day at Daytona that Jake Elder announced that, since drivers had already hit 209 mph, his goal was to have the first car to run 2-oh-10?
Jake Elder. One of a kind. A legend. And quite the character.
“Huh?!” Elder loved to exclaim, as punctuation – affirmative or negative – to whatever issue was under debate.
And always looking for the next challenge…which helped earn him the nickname ‘Suitcase Jake.’
Richard Petty remembers legendary NASCAR crew chief Jake Elder as, well, legendary in so many ways…..
(Photo by Marc Serota/Getty Images for NASCAR)
Jake Elder stories are all over the garage these past few days, because Elder, now in his 70s, is not doing so well in his health, and is being cared for by his sister up in Statesville. Actually it’s been that way the past few years, but Elder just got through a nasty bout of pneumonia that sent him to the hospital Richmond weekend. So a bunch of his old buddies have been up to see him, like Richard Petty, Dale Inman and Tim Brewer, men who worked with him and against him over the years.
In this age of engineering specialists in almost every corner of every shop, it’s perhaps hard to imagine this sport in an era when a man like Elder could dominate – with just a ball of string, four pocket tape-measures, and an innovative mind that served as his notebook and computer.
Sometimes it looked like voodoo, Rusty Wallace says, but the Hall of Famer could invariably turn around a struggling team. And he didn’t do it with any high-tech engineering or thick notebook. But he was a Mr. Wizard.
Crew chief Jake Elder (left) and Dale Earnhardt celebrating their very first NASCAR victory, at Bristol in 1979
(Photo credit: Dozier Mobley)
“Jake was old-old school,” Wallace said, recalling some of his days with the legend during his own early years on the tour. “He worked for soooo many teams.
“But he was the guy you would call when you needed some help. If your old car wasn’t running right, and you were confused, you’d want to call Jake and say ‘Hey, can you come bail me out?’ And he could help you fix it.
“I called him once, when my car wasn’t running right, and asked ‘Jake, can you come over and crew chief this car for me?’ And he said ‘All right, just one race.’ And he came over with his tool box – which was filled with so much doggone prehistoric stuff that it was unreal.
“He had the string out, and the levels, and said ‘You do this and this….’ And I took it to Charlotte and had my best run ever.”
Darrell Waltrip is just one of many NASCAR superstars who learned the ropes from Jake Elder
(Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images)
Elder was, ah, observant: he would lay down on a creeper and slide under his car….and slowly, slyly, slide his way down the garage, under as many rivals’ cars as he could, checking out setups.
“I remember Leonard Wood grabbing Jake by the ankles and pulling him out from under their car,” Wallace said with a laugh.
“Now days everything is top-secret. But back then, well, it was amazing to watch Jake work like that. And nobody really had a problem with it.”
Leonard Wood (right, with fellow crew chief Pat Tryson) once had to pull sneaky Jake Elder out from under Wood’s Ford
(Credit: Autostock)
Elder, who with his wife Debbie lived just behind this race track for years, “was from the old-school, like Herb Nab, Buddy Parrott,” car owner Richard Childress said. “Now Jake wasn’t the most educated person about engineering and geometry, but he could draw it out on the floor and show you what that car was going to do.
“And he just gave a driver that confidence. That car might not be that good, but if you had Jake working for you, you had the confidence you had the best guy out there.
“And if Jake made a change, you weren’t hardly about to tell him it wasn’t better….
“Jake was a lot of fun. I had a lot of fun with Jake over the years. I’ve got a lot of Jake stories…..”
David Pearson, wheeling Jake Elder’s Daytona 500 Ford, in their championship 1968 season
(Credit: Autostock)
During the late 1960s, throughout the 1970s and 1980s, right up through Davey Allison’s first seasons on the NASCAR tour, Elder was a fixture in the sport, an iconic guy who wasn’t that polished but who sure knew his stuff.
“When Jake Elder showed up at your shop some Monday morning, you just knew things were going to happen, things were going to change, and business was going to pick up – and right away,” Johnny Siler, who worked with Elder on the Billy Hagan-Terry Labonte team in the 1980s and who now works with Childress, said.
Two old-school men themselves, Dale Earnhardt and Dale Jarrett, could swap Jake Elder stories all night
(Credit: Autostock)
“And if you were a slacker, you weren’t going to be around there much longer.
“Now Jake was a hard man to work for, sometimes, and he went after the driver just as hard as he went after the crew guys. He’d chew the driver out as quick as the crew.
“But that was good. Too many of these drivers today just want to complain. Jake wouldn’t take none of that.
“Jake stayed with us at Billy Hagan’s probably longer than any place. And if a man did his job, Jake never had a problem with him.
“Jake was never big on trick stuff; he was strong on the basics. Frankly a lot of guys learned a lot from Jake, though they might not even have realized that.
“He helped a bunch of drivers out early in their careers. He could tell them exactly what they were supposed to be feeling in that car. And sometimes he could intimidate them into running better than they actually could.
“Jake was good for the sport that way. And he certainly made things happen wherever he went.”
David Pearson, who rode Jake Elder Fords to two NASCAR championships
(Photo by Marc Serota/Getty Images for NASCAR)
Elder never lacked for confidence in his knowledge and his talents, which he pretty much kept in his head, or on maybe a three-by-five card or two.
“If it was Charlotte, no matter what might be going on, Jake was going to put a 1700-pound spring in the right front,” Siler said with a laugh. “Sterling Marlin was driving for us one time we were down here, and the car wasn’t working just the way Sterling wanted it, so he started to ask Jake about ‘maybe changing that right-front.’ Jake never stopped walking, or even turned his head, as he told Sterling ‘Don’t even think about it, boy. Don’t even think about it.’”
“Jake actually got his start with us,” Petty recalled. “But then when NASCAR and Chrysler had that falling out (in 1966, over the powerful new hemi engine), we had to let some people go. And that’s how Jake wound up over at Holman-Moody. And they just kept elevating him.”
Robert Yates, a legendary engine builder himself, first came to prominence in NASCAR working with crew chief Jake Elder
(Credit: Autostock)
And Elder helped a wild, young Mario Andretti win the 1967 Daytona 500, and then, with promising engine builder Robert Yates, helped David Pearson win the 1968 and 1969 NASCAR championships for that Ford operation.
When Darrell Waltrip decided to step up to the Cup tour in the early 1970s, he hired Elder, who taught him what to look for in a ride, what ‘feel’ to look for at each track, invaluable.
In his prime Jake Elder was one cantankerous crew chief, a hard man to work for, a driver as well as a crewman, but with supreme confidence in his ability to make a car work for a driver….and vice versa.
But engineers, computers, technology…Pshaw! He could set up a car with a ball of string and a couple of rulers, literally.
A commonsense, no-nonsense kind of guy, with stunning confidence in his own abilities – a self-confidence that engendered confidence in his drivers.
And Elder worked with some of the best: Pearson, Waltrip, Dale Earnhardt, Terry Labonte, Sterling Marlin, Neil Bonnett, Benny Parsons among them.
Car owner Richard Childress has dozens of Jake Elder stories, like the bear in the Pocono woods....
(Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)
Elder was the guy who got Earnhardt on the path to stardom in this sport, working with him in that 1979 rookie-of-the-year run and through the Charlotte 600 in Earnhardt’s amazing 1980 championship run. Then Elder abruptly packed his suitcase and moved on again.
“When I think of Jake, I remember him over at Holman-Moody’s, way back when I was just a kid,” Kyle Petty said. “He was winning races and championships with Pearson….but nobody really noticed Jake until he got that deal with Earnhardt – remember that quote ‘Stick with me, kid, and we’ll be wearing diamonds as big a cow chips.’
“Remember how Jake would pick a spring? He take a spring and look at it, and then squat down on it....and if it felt right, he’d say ‘Here, go put this one in the car.’ And that’s the spring you were stuck with the rest of the weekend. He wasn’t going to go changing it on you: ‘I know how to set up a car, now you go learn how to drive it.’
“They called him ‘Suitcase’ because he worked a little bit everywhere.
“Some guys, like Dale Inman, would find their place at Petty Enterprises, and some guys would find their place at Junior Johnson’s….but Jake never found that place. Jake was always searching, always searching.
“Debbie was good for him. Settled him down some, kept him in line, got his life in order for him. And when she passed away……”
Rusty Wallace calls legendary crew chief Jake Elder a Mr. Wizard
(Credit: Autostock)
“Jake came to work for us in Level Cross in the ‘60s, down from the Hickory area, and he was a fabricator,” Richard Petty recalled. “and he was a good welder. And he kept learning stuff about the car.
“You know Jake’s been with just about everybody. He was here when Darrell got his start. And he worked with Earnhardt.
“Jake was old-school. There was no engineering, it was all off-the-cuff. He’d put something on the car and say ‘Okay, now it’s right. Here, you go drive it. And don’t come back in complaining to me, because I got the car fixed. You go learn how to drive it.“‘
Richard laughed.
“The deal was he stayed right on the driver: ‘Here, the car is right. You go learn to drive it.’
“And if the driver got to slowing down or goofing off, he was right on them: ‘You’re loafing on me, now. Get back with it!’
“He drove them pretty hard.
“Jake got the nickname Suitcase because he’d work with somebody three or four months, and then they’d either have a falling out or he’d just want to go do something else.
“Jake was really good at coming into a team and settling things down. Some teams would have everything there…but leadership. He could get things organized.”
Elder was certainly a leader. He might not always be right, but he was never wrong.
“One thing about Jake – he was always the same. When you saw him coming, you knew what you were going to get,” Richard said.
“He was good enough and forceful enough that when he said he’d fixed something, they had confidence in the car and could go out and get something done.”
“Eddie and I were just kids when we met him, and Jake was something else….and wherever he went, his cars ran fast,” Len Wood said.
“We talked about hiring him a couple of times, but we never did.
“If you needed a leader, he was a guy who could do it.”
Bill Elliott (left) and car owner Eddie Wood both knew Jake Elder back in his heyday
(Credit: Autostock)
“The first time I met Jake,” Eddie Wood says, “was Martinsville, sitting on that little pit wall right in front of the hot dog stand. I was just a kid, and he was running that gold-and-blue 17 for Pearson. He just sat down and talked to me like he’d known me forever.
“He was always willing to stop and talk, and I loved talking to him, because he always had something funny to say.
“He always knew what was going on in the garage; he was always right on top of what everybody was doing. But then a lot of times what he was doing was what everyone else wanted to find out about.”
John Dodson, who worked on Wallace’s team that 1989 championship season and who now works at the NASCAR Technical Center, remembers the good ol’ days with Elder: “Jake always had an answer. But he firmly believed what he told you. What I remember about him is his ingenuity. He figured out things on his own.
“He’d sometimes pick springs by bouncing them on the ground and listening for the ‘right’ ping. Honest. And you’d look at him doing that and scratch your head. But then his car would go out there and whip everyone.
“Jake was as honest as could be. He’d tell you ‘Man, your car was good today.’ Or ‘Man, that car wasn’t worth a hoot.’
“He could either make you feel bad or good…but you never had to wonder what he was thinking. He’d tell you.
“Jake was a character…one of the sport’s last great characters. He’s not doing so well now…..
“When power steering and computers came along, he cussed ‘em like a sailor. He hated that stuff.
“He was real hard to work for. I saw guys who couldn’t take it.
“But, I’ll tell you what – he brought it to the table, Jake Elder brought it to the table.”
Veteran crew chief Steve Hmiel: Jake Elder was a hoot at those post-race roadside truckstop diners
(Photo by Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR)
Steve Hmiel: “The thing I remember most about Jake was from back in the 1970s, when we all traveled together in vans, because we didn’t have these planes. When the race was over, and we all got a little ways away from the track, and it was time to eat, we’d all stop at some truck stop, and all the other teams would be in there…and Jake would always be in there holding court.
“And if he’d run good, he’d tell you about it. And if he didn’t run good, he always exactly why: ‘Oh, I had a sixteenth of a inch too much sway bar.’ Or ‘If I’d just had 50 more pounds of right-front spring I’d have lapped the field.’
“Jake, even if he wasn’t right, he always had an answer that would have made him right.
“Jake was always supremely confident….and me and Dale Inman would be almost giggly sometimes: ‘Can you believe Jake really said that?’ But the next time we all went back to that race track more than likely he’d whip you.
“He was shrewd about being at Holman-Moody when that was ‘the’ place to be. And he really helped Dale Earnhardt out when he was young. And remember Jake was at Billy Hagan’s in ‘82 when Terry Labonte almost won the championship, and nobody really even knew who Terry was, except he was a kid from Texas.
David Pearson at the wheel of a Jake Elder Ford, Darlington, in their 1968 championship season
(Credit: Autostock)
“If you came from another part of the sport, Formula One or Indy-cars or something, and you watched Jake sitting on springs to figure out which one to use, well, you’d think ‘My gosh, what an absolute fool. That’s a guy who wins races?’ And you’d laugh.
“But Jake Elder won races and championships. There was a method to his madness.
“And I still wonder where that Daytona 500 trophy is – the story is when Mario won the 500 in 1967, Jake took the trophy and nobody’s seen it since. That may or may not be true, it’s part of the Jake Elder legend.”
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Mario Andretti (right) is still looking for that 1967 Daytona 500 trophy that Jake Elder helped him win
(Credit: Autostock)