Record-setting driver Phil Warren remains on top at Langley Speedway as a crew chief

When Langley Speedway considers its inaugural Hall of Fame class in the next couple of years, discussion about the first inductees will be spirited. The candidate mostly likely to be picked with no debate is Phil Warren.

Brenden “Butterbean” Queen’s second consecutive championship, clinched Sunday, gave crew chief Warren an 11th Late Model title at Langley. Warren won a record seven Langley Late Model crowns as a driver, then mentored C.E. Falk through the first two of his tied-for-second-best four titles (2009-10).

What most amazes Queen is that Warren won his first Late Model championship in 1986 turning wrenches on his own car — his other driving titles came in 1988, ‘94, 95, ‘97, 2000 and ‘01 — and is still the guiding force behind the fastest car at one of America’s most competitive NASCAR weekly tracks. Not only did Queen win a division-best five races this season, he qualified on the pole for all but two points-race nights.

“For Phil to keep up with the technology over 40 years is what amazes me the most,” Queen said. “The technology of these Late Models is very different from what it was 10 years ago, so to keep up with all of the changes from the time he started, and keep winning, tells you just how good he is.”

Warren acknowledges, “At my age there’s a learning curve. The cars have at least 200 more horsepower than when I raced.”

Shock absorbers are ever-more sophisticated, and many weekly racing teams use expensive pull-down rigs that simulate a car’s travel on a track. Queen’s team can’t afford the latter, but Warren’s almost 50 years of know-how are proving a key complement to Queen’s improved driving the past two seasons.

Baseball’s loss was racing’s gain. Warren fell for racing while hanging out in the Norfolk garage of his grandmother, where his uncle, Bruce Warren, a four-time Langley Late Model champion (1963, ‘64, ‘66 and ‘67), prepared his car.

When youth baseball games prohibited him from making it to Langley for a couple of his uncle’s races, Warren gave up that sport for good. He began racing a Street Stock at Langley in 1980 and, before long, was holding his own in the Late Model Division against the likes of Elton Sawyer — a three-time Late Model champion (1983-85) who now is NASCAR’s Vice President of Officiating and Technical Inspection.

“Obviously that first championship I ever got was pretty special,” Warren said. “It was a little bit the same situation in that we were a pretty underfunded team and we finally got a pretty good car put together.

“We were racing Bubba Adams and he was one of the hot-shoes back then.”

Warren continued to race at Langley until 2001, but when the track changed from the type of Late Models more common regionally to its own package, he went on to race and win multiple titles at now-closed Southampton Motor Speedway. When Langley returned to traditional Late Models in 2008, he returned as Falk’s crew chief and, after lots of second-places that first season, helped him on his path to Langley Late Model dominance that lasted five years.

“That next year, we won opening night, won 10 races and won the championship,” Warren recalled. “Helping a young driver understand, sometimes, that you have to manage the whole race to win was satisfying.

“C.E. and Brenden both came from Legends, 25 laps as hard as you can run, but Late Model ain’t quite like that. You can’t punish a car for 100 laps and expect the tires and stuff to make it.

“You have to think through a race and learn when to pick your battles.”

The latest title with Queen gives Warren 15 in Late Model — 10 as a driver and five as a crew chief.

“I do think, ‘How much longer will I be doing this?’” said Warren, 63. “To be able to put a car on the track at my age, and trying to keep up with what’s going on in the racing world today, reminds me of the saying ‘You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.’”

And Warren says it’s not as easy to turn wrenches, physically, anymore, as his knees and joints remind him nightly. “The long days at the racetrack, at the end of the day you know it and realize you’re not 20 anymore.”

But with Queen on a roll and grandson Ryley Music — a two-time Bandolero champion at Langley — graduating to a Limited Late Model next year, it appears Warren isn’t going anywhere. He could have a hand in Langley Late Model championships well into his 70s.

“As long as (Queen’s team) will have me, I’ll stay here and we’ll go on from there,” he said. “I never thought I would be here this long, especially after I quit driving.

“I thought maybe it would stop at some point, but I’m not sure it will. It’s quite a busy life sometimes, but I wouldn’t have traded it for anything else if I had it to do over again.”

Marty O’Brien, 757-247-4963, mjobrien@dailypress.com