Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 1, 1990 TAG: 9004010061
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Randy King
DATELINE: DARLINGTON, S. C. LENGTH: Medium
Over the years, he has wandered through the garage, moving from team to team, going from car to car.
Ten years. Thirty different teams. A Ford last week, a Chevrolet this week, a Pontiac next week. Here today, there tomorrow.
Morgan Shepherd, the nomad of NASCAR, learned a long time ago to keep the suitcase packed.
"You never know what tomorrow is going to bring," he said. "Throughout my career, I've always seemed to be a man on the move."
Until now. At age 48, the journeyman driver says he hopes he finally has found a permanent home.
"Bud Moore and I just get along, that's all," said Shepherd, speaking about his new car owner.
"It's been an unbelievable change for me. Bud and I hit if off right off the bat. Things are looking good here."
No kidding. In his first four starts in Moore's Ford, Shepherd has notched four top-10 finishes and stands second behind Dale Earnhardt in the Winston Cup points race.
"I know other people are surprised at what we've done, but I'm not," Shepherd said. "I've been around a long time and so has Bud. We both know what it takes to get the job done."
Moore, who since 1961 has fielded cars for such stars as Cale Yarborough, Bobby Allison, David Pearson and Dale Earnhardt, has watched Shepherd revive a team that appeared to be in serious decline.
"Morgan has done a great job for us," Moore said. "He's good at working with the cars' chassis. We're all excited about things."
Shepherd said Moore has given him room to do his thing.
"He's let me have a say in what's going on," Shepherd said. "He's made me part of the team. That says a lot about how much he wants to win and how we're working together.
"I've watched Bud for a long time around the garage, and I know his attitude has never been any better than it is right now."
Same goes for Shepherd, a man who has seen more wrong than right - at the race track and in life.
Despite being considered a more-than-capable driver, Shepherd never has been able to keep a steady job. He has bounced from team to team with regularity.
In nine full seasons, Shepherd has driven for the same car owner the entire year only three times. After winning a pole and a race (at Martinsville, Va.) for car owner Cliff Stewart in 1981, Shepherd's sometimes volatile personality interfered, and he left the team after 17 races.
"Biggest mistake of my life," Shepherd says now.
He went on to drive for three more teams in 1981. The drifting never stopped as he drove for three teams in '83, seven in '84, six in '85, five in '86, five more in '88.
"If you look at it, there wasn't a whole lot of stability on a lot of those teams," said Shepherd, trying to explain his constant car-shuffling act.
The biggest reason, though, was Morgan Shepherd. The son of a North Carolina whiskey runner said he realizes he doesn't present the ideal poster boy image that NASCAR's corporate sponsors crave.
"I'm not a Darrell Waltrip," Shepherd said. "I don't like to make speeches. I can't go out and sell myself.
"I'm an uneducated person. I left school after the eighth grade. I know how to write my name and that's it. I can read anything, but I can't write."
But he does know cars. He was 12 when he got his first car - a 1937 Chevrolet.
"I could tear down an engine and put it back together at 13," Shepherd said.
Cars were a much-needed escape for a kid who grew up the hard way.
"I had a bad childhood," Shepherd said.
He didn't see his father until he was 3 years old.
"My mama pointed down the road one day and said, `There comes your daddy. He had been in prison for 2 1/2 years for making bootleg whiskey.' "
Shepherd turned to racing as a teen-ager, running the local short tracks around Conover and Hickory. He made his Winston Cup debut in his own car in 1970.
"I had no financial backing at all," he said. "I didn't have a wealthy daddy or some other relative to help finance me. The only thing I had was Morgan Shepherd and what I knew about cars."
Shepherd's knowledge of cars is well documented in the stock car garage.
"Morgan is chassis expert," three-time Winston Cup champion Earnhardt said. "He probably knows as much or more about race cars than any driver out here."
Right now, he's just glad to have a regular place to hang his helmet.
"It's nice to have a steady home," Shepherd said. "I just can't tell you what this situation means to me.
"Bud Moore has won a lot of races before and he's going to win a lot more. I want to be there with him when that happens.
"The way I feel right now I'd like to finish my career with Bud Moore. I hope this holds out."
If it doesn't, Morgan Shepherd will hold out - his thumb - and once again try to flag down the next car.
by CNB