Anyone who has been following grassroots asphalt racing in Virginia and some of the surrounding states for a long time likely knows about the legend of the Flying 11.
NASCAR Hall of Fame (HoF) nominee Ray Hendrick made the car famous, and his son Roy continued the legacy, carving out a successful grassroots career in his own right. This year, due to Ray’s first-time HoF nomination and Roy’s passing in August, there’s been an uptick in tributes and throwback paint schemes to honor the Hendrick family.
In September’s ValleyStar Credit Union 300, the annual late model race at Martinsville Speedway, there were two Flying 11 schemes. Ray Hendrick is the all-time wins leader at Martinsville, going to victory lane 20 times there.
One of the tribute schemes was driven by Buddy Isles Jr., who always races the Flying 11.
“It’s big to run it here [Martinsville],” Isles told Frontstretch. “They’ve got the all-time wins here with the Flying 11. It’s pretty huge.”
Before Isles raced the iconic scheme, his father Buddy Isles Sr. carried the torch.
“We’ve been running it 17 years now, 20 years total, including asphalt,” Isles said. “Dad caried it for about 35 years. We’ve got a lot of wins between me and my dad, and I think Ray’s [Hendrick] got like 800. It’s well over 1,000 wins [total] now between just the three or four people I knew that drove it.”
The reason the Isles family is so ingrained with the Flying 11 is because Isles’ uncle, Jack Tant, was its creator and original owner.
“Jack Tant, my uncle, actually designed it [the Flying 11],” Isles said. “He owned the car, built the motors and designed it right in his shop in Littleton [N.C.].
“So Jack Tant created it and all and had a couple drivers before Ray that were really good. But when Ray took over, he was just dominant. Jack stayed with the motors, and then Clayton Mitchell did all the setup work.”
That trifecta of Ray Hendrick, Tant and Mitchell delivered 700+ wins in NASCAR-sanctioned races in the modified and late model sportsman (now the NASCAR Xfinity Series) divisions. Hendrick won five track championships at South Boston Speedway, and he also scored victories at tracks such as Charlotte Motor Speedway, Talladega Superspeedway and Dover Motor Speedway.
The NASCAR Hall of Fame website labels Hendrick as “a driver that was willing to race ‘anywhere and everywhere,’ filling his schedule with modified…
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