“I got hit by something at Williams Grove and it went through my shield and broke my nose and my cheekbone,” Brad Doty explained, referring to a racing injury he suffered in 1986. “I mean, I was a mess. My eye swelled up the size of at least a baseball, if not a softball. I spent the night in a hospital…blood everywhere, all over the inside of the car. I mean just, my suit was soaked, my gloves, the inside of my helmet. I mean, it was a mess.
“I got up in the middle of the night and I struggled and, by myself, I just went to the restroom and looked in the mirror and, my God, the whole side of my face was just massively swollen. But that brings me to Kenny Woodruff again. Cause he drove the motorhome to the hospital with (Brad‘s wife) Laurie and (daughter) Brandy, and when he saw me, the look on his face…I mean, he had emotion, and I mean, it was pretty obvious he was torn up by what I looked like and what I was going through. So, again, that‘s that other side of him.”
“Kenny was a great guy,” Dale Blaney adds. “A great guy to go up and down the road with. You know, the Kenny off the race track was a 90 degree change from the Kenny at the race track. That‘s just the type of guy he was. He was an absolute great guy.”
“You know, when you‘re not running good, I mean, you feel like the world‘s caving in on you,” Donny Schatz explains, recalling his challenge to improve his race team and develop a career. “And we had those scenarios too. And I remember, Kenny‘s shop was in Broken Arrow and we drove all the way to Dallas one night to test at Devil‘s Bowl. We were having some issues with getting our motors to run. And we went to Devil‘s Bowl, and I rode in the truck with him and one other guy, and we tested, and we tested, and we tested, and we were terrible! And, everybody was discouraged when we left, “And Kenny had people that he confided in on a daily basis that he was loyal to. He was loyal to Ron Shaver, he was loyal to Jack Elam, he was loyal to Daryl Saucier. You know, they had friendships that you couldn‘t break, and I remember leaving the track that night, and I crawled in the top bunk of the truck and we were headed back to Tulsa. And we had a four-and-a-half hour trip. I started to tell myself, you know, ‘I‘m not gonna make it. I‘m wasting time, I‘m wasting money. Yeah, we‘ve won a few things, but I don‘t wanna just be a win this, win that guy, I wanna be here every day.‘
“And Kenny thought I was sleeping and he was having a conversation with Daryl Saucier. And they always had this motto: ‘if something wasn‘t right, the driver didn‘t have the butterflies vertical,‘ meaning he wasn‘t running the gas pedal. And that was a Kenny thing. That was a Shaver thing. That was a Daryl Saucier thing. And Kenny had this thing on speakerphone going down the road. And he was telling Daryl how bad our motors would run, and he thought it was this and he thought it was that. I heard Daryl say, “Well bud, that thing ain‘t gonna go anywhere if the butterflies ain‘t vertical.” And all I heard Kenny say was, “Daryl, f**k you! This guy‘s got the gas pedal smashed through the floor pan so don‘t give me no sh*t about the butterflies being vertical!” And he hung up.
“And, you know, I guess it was one of them moments where you realize that that was his way of defending you. He defended you if he needed to.”
Dave Blaney pauses before stating, “I was with him for five years. I‘m not sure how many Outlaw races we won in five years, but he definitely elevated me in every way.
“This guy was…he was like my dad, where he worked like crazy. So, you‘ve gotta give that guy a lot of respect. To work like he worked. I mean, as far as I could see, he worked harder than anybody. He kept his stuff nicer than anybody, worked harder, was organized, just really good with everything, and took me from a three or four wins a year guy to a 10 or 12 wins a year guy when I got in his car. So, it was a big jump for me and I learned a lot.”
“Under our breath we all called him ‘Grunty,‘ Bobby Davis Jr. recalls with a laugh. “And, if you got one grunt it was OK, but if you got two grunts, he didn‘t like what you had to say. But, hey don‘t take me wrong, he was a big teddy bear.”
“He definitely had a big heart,” Brad Doty adds. “And, some called him a big teddy bear. We weren‘t together as long as a lot of drivers he had, but the time we did have, with the resources we had, we were fast and got along really good.”
“In the end we didn‘t have a ton of success,” Dale Blaney admits. “You know, we won one race, which was The Historical Big One in ‘98, so one of the biggest races I ever won he was with me. Or, I was with him, basically,” he corrects with a laugh. “I didn‘t shine when we raced together, but he made me a better race car driver by racing with him for a year. George (Fisher) and him did a lot of the same stuff to the race car, but I got to the point where I could race for George because I raced for Kenny. So, Kenny gave me a car that was difficult for me to drive but, as the years went on in my career, I was able to be a better race car driver because I was able to drive that type of car.”
“He taught me a lot about setting cars up. And, maintenance,” Danny Smith adds. “He was probably the best maintainer out there. Very thorough on maintenance.”