Maritime motorsports photographer and archivist, Ken MacIssac, recently visited with John Flemming. Much has changed for the five-time Parts for Trucks Pro Stock champion in the past six months, starting with his announcement last fall that he would step back from full-time driving in 2016 to help grow the career of DJ Casey, then in March Flemming lost virtually all of his vast collection of tools, memorabilia, and racecars in a devastating fire that ripped through his race shop. Now, a race season has started, and for the first time in over 30 years, John Flemming is not behind the wheel of a racecar – at least for now… Learn more about Flemming’s racing career and what the future holds for ‘five-time’ in Ken’s extensive interview and photo gallery… —————————- KM – First thing I want to ask you is, how did you get interested in stock car racing? JF – My dad took me to Atlantic Speedway in Halifax when I was a kid. He was good friends with Junior Hanley back then and he’d take me to see him race. We’d watch Billy Jones too. That’s my earliest memories of racing. KM – So, once you got a little older, you figured you’d give it a try? JF – For sure. I never had much money growing up. Me and my buddies would get these old 50 dollar cars and go back in the woods and race each other. You look back, and just shake your head. But it’s what we did. KM – First time I saw you race was at Scotia in 1989. Would that have been your first car? JF – I actually entered a Demolition Derby in the mid 80’s at Exhibition Park. So, that was my first car. But my first stock car was an old street stock at Onslow. Only ran a few races. I built a street stock for there. Remember towing it there on a rope, behind a station wagon. The shoulder strap was broke. Only had a lap belt. I still remember leaving the pits, heading out on the track, and the pit guy stopping me. He said “whoa whoa whoa… you can’t go out there like that.” And he tied the broken strap in a knot for me and said “ok, you can go”. The first time I went out on the track, maybe lap 4 or 5, they had tires hanging off the front stretch wall. The car was drifting, and it hooked a tire and tore the rear end out of it. Destroyed the car. I ended up just leaving it there in the pits. KM – So, tell me about the Chevelle street stock you ran in 1989? JF – We built that car at Billy Smith’s. Billy and Gordie DeYoung helped me with it. It had a 400 small block in it. We didn’t know how to set up a car or scale it. Didn’t know nothing. We just took it to the race track and learned. After a while started winning races. It was fun and I was hooked after that. KM – No in 1990, you ran a black Chevelle. Same car? JF – No. That’s another new car. Stan and Tony Leonard let me build that at their place. They had L & L Auto Salvage. It was a good car, but it didn’t last long though. I destroyed it early in the season at Scotia. There was a big accident on the backstretch and I ran into it. Just destroyed it. KM – So 1991. Another Chevelle? JF – Yes. The Double Deuce Roadhouse car. That was bar off of Hollis Street. Frank Fraser helped me with a set up on that car, and I won quite a few races with it. Even ran it at Riverside. I was testing with it one day, and Paul Evans was helping me. He changed the throttle linkage and the gas pedal stuck wide open, and I went over the bank and destroyed that car too. It buckled and wrinkled, bad. KM – You were wrecking cars quite a bit back then? JF – Hahaha… oh ya KM – So in 1992, you had another sharp Chevelle. JF – The yellow and green car was by far the best street stock we ran. All the things we learned up until that point paid off with that car. Great car. Won a lot. In ’93, we just reskinned it and painted it white. I ended up selling that to Gary MacDonald #8. And he won a lot with it too. KM – I 1994, you ran MASCAR? Was that a big move for you? JF – I wanted to move up. I found a car in the Auto Trader. It was owned by Derrick Steeves. It was listed for $6000.00 and came with a transmission, lots of parts, ready to go. I drooled over it for 2 months. I went to R&D Performance, and Dwight said he’d build me a motor, and I could pay him over time. So I bought the car, and away we went. KM – You weren’t interested in moving from a street stock to an open wheel modified? JF – I never really liked the open wheels. I mean, I liked watching them but I preferred the full bodied,full-fendered cars. My plan when I started running street stock was to move into a sportsman car eventually. But the track moved to the open wheel cars. Then I saw the MASCAR for sale so I bought it. KM – You only ran that Lumina your rookie year in MASCAR? JF – Yes. The second MASCARwas my first brand new car. It was a Howe XL chrome moly chassis. It was a sweet car. Randy Jollimore along with Tony and Gary Jollimore built it. Them guys were a great help to me through the years. I took that car to Riverside for the first tour race. And we were fast in practice, right off the trailer. But we forgot to set the sway bar. And didn’t I stuff it in the wall? Tore the whole right side off of it. We fixed it and ran decent all year with it. KM – So, ’96 was the Hanley car? JF – Yes. Junior had built that car for Tracey Gordon of Maine. Tracey decided he was going to run a different series that year so he didn’t want the chassis. Scott Fraser was running a Hanley car at that time too and whooping everybody. So I thought about getting a Hanley one. I talked to Junior, he said “I got a great car up here. A great deal. Nobody on it”. So we drove up and got it. We ran well with that car too. But we didn’t start running extremely well with it until we changed the body on it. We switched from the Firebird to the Monte Carlo. I didn’t know it made a difference, but with the rear downforce on the Monte Carlo body, we started winning races right out of the box. Ran that car for a ton of years, and I sold it to Greg Proude. He ran that up until 4 or 5 years ago I think. KM – You ended up buying Scott Fraser’s Hanley car too? JF – I bought the mate to my car too. Scott had it in the back yard and was doing nothing with it. I wanted to have another car. You know what? That car was even faster than the first Hanley chassis. I don’t know what it was, but that car was a bullet. But I only raced that car a few times, then I sold it to Dan MacKay. KM – During this time, you were going to the Oxford 250 every year. JF – I love Oxford. We’re talking about going down for the 250 this year and renting a car. KM – Pat Ryder has been a steady supporter of your’s over the years. How did you guys meet? JF – Zenith Chrome sponsored me when I first got the Hanley car. That was the first time I met Pat. He owned Zenith Chrome at the time. Over time, he started coming to the races and started helping me. He’s been with me ever since. KM – You seem to run well at all the tracks in the Maritimes. I remember you winning at Moosehead Speedway. You were really on a roll back then. JF – I loved Moosehead Speedway. The very first time we raced there, I won. It was probably the time we won 3 in a row. Fredericton, Moosehead and another track. KM – Another race that stands out for me is your win in the 2000 Atlantic Cat 250. JF – I took no gas that night. I had a carburetor problems all day and Andy Shaw lent us one. During the race he was over telling my guys “that carburetor is hard on gas, tell him he’s got to pit”. My guys came on the radio and said “you gotta pit for gas”, and I said “I ain’t pittin’”. I remember Scotty (Fraser) was breathing down my neck and Ben Rowe was breathing down my neck. They had tires and I didn’t. I thought I was dead in the water cause I had no drive left. I had the tires burnt right off from the restarts. On a late restart they were whipping each other so hard that I got a little jump on them, ended up holding them off. It was pretty cool. KM – Tell me about the Oxford 250 that year? JF – We put a new body on the Hanley car that year down there. We were starting to learn things. Had the carbon fibre hood on it, and roof. We went all out that year. Ran really well. Probably the best car I had at Oxford. But the heat. I must’ve been dehydrated or something . It was a hot weekend. It was taking its toll on me. I drove by Hanley on the outside, making good ground and the front tires must’ve caught the dirt and drove me into the front stretch wall. Stuffed it under the flag stand. Just pushing it too hard. KM – In 2000, you decided to try the Snowball Derby. JF – I had just bought the Dodge from Rollie. That was the same car that Scotty (Fraser) drove a bit. I bought fenders and a nose in New Jersey on my way down. It was a speedway body. Supposed to be better aero wise. The car wasn’t bad. Broke the rear end. Fixed it. But I made a booboo in the last chance qualifier. Didn’t make the show. KM – I didn’t know that you went down again? JF – Maybe 10 years ago? TJ Brackett from Maine was my crew chief. Car wasn’t bad but had motor problems. The head gasket went on it. Man, that big Dodge motor…we had motor problems almost everywhere we went. Big horsepower, big torque. We kept thinking we had the wrong gaskets in it. Maybe 2 years ago, Alan Armstrong finally figured out what the problem was. He found a pinhole in one of the cylinders. That problem plagued me for about 10 years. KM – How did he find the problem? JF – He rebuilt the motor and had it on the dyno. It was sitting there overnight. When he came out in the morning, all the water was out of it, on the floor. That’s how he found it. So he put a sleeve in it, never had an issue since. KM – You were at the very first PASS race ever held in 2001. JF – Oh ya. Lee Speedway in New Hampshire. The car was good but it melted the battery out. It was too close to the exhaust. Car started shorting out. KM – Cy Harvey was running your back up car in 2001. How did that come about? JF – I was running down the states a bit, and he came to me and said “what’s the chances of me renting your car?” I said “Cy you can borrow it, just bring it back the way you took it.” KM – And did he? JF – No (laughing). He definitely didn’t bring it back the way I gave it to him. He had lead taped to the roll bar. Oh my god, the things he had done. He’s a character. KM – 2002 and 03 were awfully good years for you? JF – Felt like we could do no wrong. Back to back championships. KM – In 2004, you ran a yellow car in a few races. Tell me about that? JF – That was Scotty’s old car that we sold to Dan MacKay. We were trying to qualify for the PASS race at Scotia. Donald Chisolm and Gordie Ryan were racing hard and they got together. I was on the outside and landed in the wall, hard. It destroyed my car. So, I needed a car for the next day and Dan said “go take my car”. So I went and put a seat in it, scaled it, and put Dodge decals on it. I lead a ton of laps in the feature. Me and Ben Rowe were duking it out for the win, and with about 5 laps to we both spun out – side by side. Not giving each other an inch. It was still a good race. KM – In 2006, another new car? JF – Howe car. That was one of Mike Rowe’s cars. Kyle Busch drove it in the Oxford 250 in 2005. That car won a lot of races with Mike Rowe driving. The Cat 250, Oxford 250. It’s the same car that Stephen Ross is driving now. KM – You had a different car at the Oxford 250 that year? JF – That was a brand new Hamke car. I got Mike MacKenzie to put it together. I put the best of everything on it and saved it for just the big money races. You know what? Every time we’d race it, it ran like crap. Anyway, took it Rollie’s and he went all over the car and found some things. Rollie took the car to Riverside and got involved in that huge wreck. Just destroyed it. KM – Your boy was racing a Bandolero in ’06. JF – Aww man. I wish he’d stayed with it. It was a lot of fun watching Cody race. I didn’t know at the time, but he told his mother he felt too much pressure to win. He just lost interest in it. KM – In 2011, you went to North Wilkesboro, North Carolina for that big PASS race. JF – When we tested there, the car wasn’t too bad. I figured we had maybe a 10th place car, or better. During practice, I burnt the brakes off…. So we had to replace that. In my heat, I got together with another car in turn 1. It tore the spindle off and destroyed the right side of the car. The main event was the next day, and we worked our tails off fixing the car overnight. We got out for the last chance qualifier, and during the race I noticed the throttle was sticking. I started near the back in the race, and slowly started working my way to the front. I got up as far as 5th, and it was over. They only took the top 2 cars, so we didn’t make it to the main. KM – So what’s your secret in winning the IWK 250 twice? JF – Ha – we just try and stay near the front all night. Man, Donald should have won it that time (2014). I felt bad. KM – Last year you ran the Irving Blending & Packaging 250 at Speedway 660. Tell me about that? JF – During practice, I either dropped a valve or broke the timing chain. I figured we were done, and we started loading up. Lonnie Sommerville came over and offered me his car (Stella). He said there’s no shocks on it or sway bar, but you’re welcome to run it. The car was in Lonnie’s shop in Saint John. I said “thanks, but we’re going to head home”. Then, I started thinking about it for about 20 minutes. I went over to Lonnie and said “were you serious about offering me your car?”. Lonnie said ‘yes’. Then he called a buddy of his, and he went to the shop, stuck some old shocks on it, loaded it onto a trailer, and brought it to the track. We put my shocks on it and used Lonnie’s set up notes, as well as mine. I had no practice. Made it out for the last chance race. I’m taller than Lonnie, so I was having a little trouble getting comfortable with the pedals. So in that race, I stepped on it going down the backstretch, and my foot got caught under the gas peddle. I drove up the bank heading to turn 3, and slid down it. It broke the brake line where it goes into the master cylinder and messed up the duct work around the nose. We fixed it all up, and we got added to the main event. KM – You were impressive in the feature. JF – Car was hooked up. There was restart late in the race. Alexandra O’Blenis was a lapped car, and she restarted on the outside. I was near the front heading into turn 1. I ducked down left heading into the turn, and didn’t realize she was there. I turned her and caused that big wreck. I still feel horrible over it. It was late in the race, heading to the front, and I hesitated and didn’t check to see if the opening was still there, and spun her. My fault. KM – Why did you step away last year? JF – I needed a break. I really did. We had some frustrating seasons lately, and it was starting to get to me. I really enjoy helping DJ. It’s something that’s new to me. He has a lot of talent. But I’m not done driving. I’ll be back. KM – The fire. I can only imagine how you felt when it happened. JF – I’m still disgusted. I lost everything. I had a wall of parts on shelves. Gone. My pro stock that DJ was running. Gone. The Canadian Tire car… we saved the center section….. we’re going to rebuild that one. JP Arsenault had his sportsman car there. Gone. I had banners and trophies, checkered flags from race wins, all gone. KM – Other than helping DJ, do you have anything planned for this year? JF – I’m going to rent a car from Lonnie Sommerville to run the IWK 250 – can’t miss that race. I’m about 99% sure I’ll be running the Atlantic Cat 250, but I can’t say for sure yet – still finalizing that one. I’m talking to a team right now about running the Oxford 250 as well as the 250 at Speedway 660. So you’ll see me driving a few times this summer. Photo Gallery
