Rather than commute to the Wells & Sons Motorsports shop in Hazard, Ky., Overton and the Wells family reached a deal that allows Overton to house the car at his shop in Georgia.
That scenario provides Overton with more control over the entire process, including the building and setup of the race car — something Overton believes has been a key to his success in the past.
“He kind of wanted to get the race team out of Hazard,” Overton said. “My thing was if I was going to drive for anybody else, I had to do it at home. I was kind of tired of running up and down the road working on it at somebody else’s place and I always did my best in the past when I had total control and had my hands on them (the cars) every day.”
Rather than work with a crew chief like many of his rivals, Overton prefers to split the work among himself and his two crew members — Kent Fegter and Steve Dixon.
“We all work just as hard on this thing and we’re all a part of the decision-making,” Overton said. “We’re just a team. There ain’t a boss or nothing. We all know what we’ve got to get done. We go to the race track to win and that’s what we try to do.”
So far, that methodology has worked for Overton and company. He even claims it’s difficult for him to sit back and watch as other people work on his race car.
“I’ve never been a guy who can just go drive. I’ve always had to work,” Overton said. “I’m probably a little more hard-headed than most people who come in and drive for somebody. They can kind of sit back. I can’t, I’m too hands-on to do it.”
Overton went on to explain that he’s often impressed with drivers such as Jonathan Davenport who are able to work with crew chiefs on a regular basis.
“I don’t want people to think that I’m saying you don’t need a crew chief to race. You do need a crew chief. I’m just kind of hard-headed with the way I think about stuff,” he said. “I enjoy doing this the way that I do it.
“If somebody is doing it for me and I’m out there winning, that’s good. I’m making money. But at the same time, when they’re gone, you don’t have anybody but yourself,” Overton continued. “So if you don’t ever figure it out on your own, you aren’t gonna be any good when the crew chief is gone. I just always told myself that I’ve got to figure it out on my own.”
This year, Overton and the Wells & Sons Motorsports team opted not to run a full schedule with the World of Outlaws Morton Buildings Late Model Series or the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series.
Overton enjoys having the ability to pick and choose where he races, though he didn’t rule out joining one of the tours in the future.
“I kind of prefer doing what I’m doing as long as I can make ends meet,” Overton said. “When you go run a $4,000 race and you don’t win it, you don’t really make much. It ain’t really spread out to the field that good. If you’re going to run this type of schedule, you’ve got to make the races you go to count.
“I’m not going to rush it,” Overton said of possibly racing with a national touring series. “If we go to Florida and we put ourselves in position, then we’ll look at it. I’m not really thinking about it right now. We’ve still got a lot of racing to do. We know what we’ve got to do over the offseason, what little we have, and we’ll just take it day by day.
“We’ll start off (2021) with Lucas or the World of Outlaws wherever they’re at and see what we’ve got.”