I thought that I would share a funny story about an experince I had with James Hilton a few years ago.......
I was actually James Hilton's crew chief at Pocono for a few minutes!!! let me explain......As I was walking thru the hot pits before an ARCA race at Pocono in the late 80's, A man reached out and grabbed me by the sleeve pulled me next to him and said: When you hear that man up there call out my name (James Hilton), I will yell "here", then when he calls out "crew chief", you yell, "here".
What I did not realize at first was that the ARCA driver's meeting was about to start and apparently James Hilton's crew chief overslept or something, so he needed a random voice from the crowd to "stand in" as his crew chief. When the time came, I yelled "here" as planned and the ARCA officials were none the wiser.
I talked with James for a few minutes afterward, he thanked me and he went racing and I went to the grandstands to cheer him on. He fell out of the race early, but ever since I have been a fan of his.
He has made a career out of racing in the big time series with little to no support. One the last true independant racers. It would have been awesome to seem him make the 500....