When it comes to setting up the cars, age is his greatest advantage. From the inaugural 1978 World of Outlaws season to now, Swindell said there’s only “little things” that are different between the current and old cars. The biggest change, he said, are the shocks.
“There’s so many things you can do (with the shocks),” Swindell said. “Before you just put it on and ran it. You might have 60 in your trailer and you have maybe eight that you like. And we didn’t have dynos to test them. Now, it’s just got so much more technical. Since there’s so much change you can really get yourself dialed in or dialed out.”
For a time, the older cars were faster than the newer ones, Swindell said because of weight and tire rules. However, the current generation cars have gotten back to being as fast, if not faster, then the old ones.
“They seem to keep getting faster and faster,” Swindell said. “You’ve got to be real quick. You’ve got to time everything a lot different than you used to.”
The cars are harder to drive now, too. Your time to make a move from corner to corner has shortened, he said, making it harder to pass.
“Sometimes it’s just hard because the times are so close now,” Swindell said. “A tenth, you can be up front or be from the mid-pack to the back. You have to work harder and have everything exactly right.”
He loves the challenge, though, he said. Running part-time makes it hard to keep up with the car race to race, but Swindell still believes he and his team can be competitive. There’s no slowing him down.
His legacy and passion for the sport is not lost on one of the current youngest World of Outlaws drivers, rookie Carson Macedo.
“It’s pretty incredible to get to race with him,” Macedo said. “He’s definitely a legend of our sport. I think it’s awesome he’s still in good enough shape and strong enough mentally to put himself in that racing position still at his age.”
While Steve Kinser may have been who Macedo looked up to growing up, his respect for Swindell grew with age, learning the staggering accomplishments Swindell has garnered.
“The more I race and the more I realize how physically demanding a lot of it is, being on the World of Outlaws tour for that long, and just he’s definitely accomplished a lot in his life,” Macedo said. “There’s a lot of times I think, in racing, Sammy hasn’t always been the most easy person to get along with. In some instances, some drivers don’t consider him their best friend, but at the end of the day, everybody has respect for him, because of what he’s been able to accomplish and how hard he’s worked to make such a successful career out of Sprint Car racing.”
The atmosphere in the pits are a little different for Sammy now. A lot of the drivers he grew up racing with, even some 10 to 12 years younger than him aren’t racing anymore. At 62-years-old, Steve Kinser retired in 2016. That’s impressive to Swindell’s son.
“I think it’s just truly impressive to think back on what those guys put their bodies through for so many years in a whole different era of medical remedies and what not,” Kevin Swindell said. “And he (Sammy) still can get after it with these guys at his age on a part-time effort.”
And get after it is what he plans to do.
“There’s not too many people in their 60s that have won an Outlaws race,” Sammy Swindell said. “It’s like every time I do, well, that’s a new record. It’s like, now I’m the oldest. Breaking records myself, my own records.”