Rodriguez‘s last full season came in 1994. He captured nine TBARA wins and finished eighth in the final point standings. He also made seven All Stars starts including a trip to Ohio in early July. He finished fourth in an All Stars feature at East Bay Raceway during the Winternationals in February.
He also competed in the 1995 Winternationals before making the decision to hang up his helmet. “At the time, I was already 50 years old. New owners had just come into East Bay. They all came in and they wanted to start cutting the purses. As a businessman, I‘m looking at this and thinking the price of everything is going up. Tires are going up, sprint car chassis are going up, motor costs are going up. Now they want to cut everything back as far as what it‘s going to pay. Looking at everything like that, plus my age, I didn‘t want to continue down that line. So, I decided to retire.
“Shortly after I retired, a friend of mine who had been working on my sprint car bought a dirt go-kart. I went with him to Lakeland Tri-Oval to do a little bit of Wednesday night practice and I took my grandson Aric (Almirola) with me.
“We went back a week or so later and I find Aric sitting in a kart this guy Gary Brown had for sale. I said, ‘Aric, lets go.‘ I look at him and he‘s sitting in it; I asked him if he could drive it and he says, ‘Oh, yes.‘ He said, ‘You buy it and I‘ll drive it!‘ I really didn‘t think much of it. We go back again and there he is sitting in it again. I told him to talk to his mom and stepdad and, if they are OK with it, we‘ll think about it. They said it was OK, so I bought it for him.
“Then me and my wife Linda decided to build a dirt go-kart track (Dirt Devils Speedway) north of Tampa. Once we pulled the trigger, I was done with sprint cars for good. There just wasn‘t gonna be enough time for everything. I‘m anal about doing things right. If you do it halfway, it‘s just a waste of time and money, and I‘m not gonna do things like that. I got the track done.
“Bucky Milam had bought one of my old cars. A couple years later, in about 1996, he says, ‘Why don‘t we build a new car and we can race it when we wanna race it. We don‘t have to race it every week.‘ That‘s what got me out of retirement for a short time … for a couple of months, not long.
“Doug Wolfgang had started building cars. I called him up and told him I needed to buy a car. He said, ‘What are you planning on doing?‘ I told him I‘m gonna come back and run part-time. I got the car running decent and I went out and it got slick and I won the race early on.
“I had some things going on at the track and I wasn‘t going to be able to run for about three weeks. Bucky says, ‘Hey man, what do you think about, when you‘re not driving the car, I let David Steele run it?‘ I said, ‘Bucky, if you wanna do that, come get the car and let David run the car all the time. Listen, if you want David to drive the car then he needs to drive it fulltime. If you want me to drive it, then I‘ll drive it fulltime when I get a chance. I‘m not going to share a race car with somebody else. I‘m not teaching anybody how tune a dirt car. I‘m not in that business. No hard feelings.‘”
With that, Rodriguez‘s comeback came to an end.
Ultimately, the timing would prove fortuitous, as Aric was launching his racing career and Rodriquez could now spend more time mentoring his grandson.
“Aric would go to every race when he was younger, with my wife. He was always hanging around the shop. I never really thought about him racing until we got him a go-kart. Once we got the kart and started running a few races, he accelerated his skills. I certainly never thought he‘d be a NASCAR racer. He‘s like I am; he‘s anal about what he does and he gives it 150 percent. That‘s how he‘s become the racer he is.”
Rodriguez guided Aric into pavement modifieds, then eventually pavement late models, as he helped him advance his career.
“I‘ve been asked many times why I didn‘t start him out in sprint cars. The truthful answer is, I really thought if I steered him sprint car racing, he‘d become a local racer in sprint cars and never get out of Florida.
“There was a guy that raced at my race track that was related to Aric‘s stepfather by marriage. Bruce Miller had a modified. He decided he was gonna quit modified racing. He calls me up and said, ‘Wednesday I‘m gonna be at Desoto Speedway testing my modified. Why don‘t you bring Aric out and we‘ll let him make a few laps?‘ We go to Desoto and he makes a few easy laps. By the end of the afternoon, he‘s running under the track record with used tires. It kinda just took off from there; he showed potential right way.”
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