THE CUMMINGS FAMILY
still about return on investment. We sell a lot of
their stuff. And that’s what we’re in NHRA for.
We bring the Moser Shootouts to the three divisions it’s in now. We get people to buy axles and
rear ends and brakes.”
“If it wasn’t for Moser we couldn’t bring two
18-wheeler trucks down the road with 7 cars to
each event,” agrees Slate, who has a few IHRA
World Championships of his own. “They’ve been
supporting us for 13 years now. It’s more like
family with them. If they quit sponsoring us, we’d
still be great friends at the end.”
“We feel like we’re the luckiest sportsman racers in the United States to have a sponsor like
Moser and be treated as good as we are with them,”
Larry seconds.
With countless IHRA and NHRA national
and divisional event wins and top 10 finishes,
plus big money bracket race and high profile
shootout wins, the Cummings have clearly created a winning legacy. Their contribution to the
sport doesn’t stop there, however. Eight years ago,
Gaylon Rolison approached Britt about joining
forces to create the Moser Engineering Great
American Bracket Race. This event, held annually at Memphis International Raceway, boasts
$50,000-to-win. Last fall, Slate won the seventh
annual running.
“That was a big one,” Slate said of winning his
biggest payout to date. “You’re in a pretty elite
club to do that.”
Britt and Slate both say they enjoy the promotional aspects of racing and are proud of what
they’ve accomplished. The 25K Shootout, also
held annually in Memphis, was started by Britt
and Slate and another set of championship-winning brothers. “Four years ago Nick and Brian
Folk were up in my game room shooting pool, as
we always do,” told Britt. “We got to talking about
it and decided that night we were going to do a
race. We’ve now got our fourth one under our belt.
It’s growing. At every race I’ve done with both sets
of partners, we’ve always done everything that
was on the flyers. We completed the race and run
in a timely manner. We have a racers party; we
have a golf cart race. It’s a lot of fun. At the end
of the day that’s what we’re there for.”
Their latest endeavor happened almost by accident according to Britt. The first-ever American
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Outlaws Live event, featuring grudge style racing, was held May 6-7 at
the Texas Motorplex.
“Mitch [Clary]
stopped by my place on
his way to the first filming of the first episode
for Street Outlaws: New
Orleans. He had just
come from the Armageddon race and was talking
about how good a race
it was, but he also had
some ideas he wanted to
try in that type of racing,
mainly playing it out in
a bigger arena. Me and
Slate had been talking
about it. Right now these
guys are hot. Somebody
needs to put them on a
big stage. So we all three
said, let’s have a race.
Thirty minutes later we
were on the phone with
the Motorplex.”
Less than nine
months after their decision, the first American
Outlaws Live was under
their belts.
“We did well,” Britt admits. “From the outside
looking in, it was a huge
success. We had hiccups
in the show, but for the
most part there was a lot
of good racing. It was informational for us and
we learned a lot. We had
a lightly prepped track.
It was actually too good.
It basically gave the faster cars an advantage. With
no prep, it equals out the guys who might be two
or three tenths slower. Anything can happen.”
They plan to put on four or five American
Outlaws Live events next year, and Slate hints
that he wouldn’t mind trying his hand at grudge
racing himself.
Despite the massive amounts of time they
spend in promoting and
racing events, it is not
what they do for a living.
Larry started the family
business in 1985.
“I was a bread man,
running a route for 18
years for a local company
here,” he recalls. “I had a
chance to go on the Budweiser Motorcraft Super
Team, and in ‘84 and ‘85 I drove a Super Gas car
for them. We did all the national events at that
time for NHRA. When I got off of that deal at the
end of ‘85 I started the striping company. We’ve
been in business 30 years now.”
Just like they did in racing, Larry’s sons followed in his footsteps and now also work at
the company that stripes parking lots across
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