“I enjoyed that life, too,” he noted. “I had a good relationship with our customers for many years and that was good. Thank God I had some basics of the business before I went in and that helped a lot.”
In 2012, Davis endured the most difficult transition of his life. His father was struggling with health issues and the decision was made to close the business and liquidate the assets.
“It was terrible,” he explained. “Absolutely terrible. One of the worst things you can do in your life. When my father called me that Sunday evening and told me to get the men together who worked for us and tell them we were closing the doors, that was very hard. He asked if I could stay around and help sell all the equipment, the trucks, the building and help let all our customers know.
“I had customers I had been with for 25 years and they had been my father’s customers for 49 years. Wow.
“It took me two months to sell everything,” he continued. “Thank goodness we didn’t have to have an auction or a foreclosure. We had great people who came and bought our stuff. We were a union contractor and we lined up work for all of our men. They didn’t miss a week’s work. We sold every nut, bolt and screw in two months. It took a little longer to sell the building but finally it came around and sold.”
Davis had endured the whirlwind process without any idea of the next chapter of his life. Then he had a chance discussion with one of his longtime customers who asked what he was going to do next.
“I told him I had no idea at all what I was going to do,” he recalled. “Right there on the spot he offered me a job. It was a miracle, just wonderful. Everything I had worked for went away when we shut those doors. But it led to something good that followed.
“My father had some serious health issues and that was a very stressful time. I felt like I hadn’t slept for two months.”
Davis’ new opportunity was with VersaTech, a firm that provides electrical services to the oil exploration industry. Although his family remains in Memphis, Davis works for weeks at a time in the oil fields of south Texas.
Among the hundreds of men with whom Davis works, almost none know of his racing history. Here is a man in the Hall of Fame, yet his great exploits are anonymous in his current world.
“Nobody knows much about racing down here,” he said. “I don’t ever talk about it or say anything about it, but a few of our guys found out I used to race. We were at a restaurant one time and a guy sitting at the counter was from Volusia County. He recognized me and said hello. I was eating with 12 of us from our work.
“I had to do some explaining about why that guy recognized me. Those guys had no idea I’d ever raced.”
The recent Hall of Fame experience in Knoxville, Davis said, was a nice glimpse back at a world of long ago.
“All of that seems like such a long time ago,” he said. “Yes, it sure does. I hadn’t seen some of those people for 25 years and that was wonderful. Kenny Woodruff, Ron Shaver, Casey Luna, it was great to see them.
“For many years we raced 120 nights a year and the other nights we spent working on the car,” Davis remembered. “That’s a lot of motel parking lots. It was a tough life, but I have good memories. Lots of good memories.”