Youth Revisited, Road Trippin’ a Red Hot Camaro to Richard Petty Motorsports

When you get a call from Richard Petty Motorsports to come by the garage in Welcome, N.C. (near Lexington) to interview their hot-shot NASCAR Cup driver Bubba Wallace, you first say, “absolutely.” Then you ask yourself, “where can I get my hands on a nice, used Chevy Camaro for the road trip?” That second question was easy of course, as it only took a quick search on LeithCars.com to find the perfect car. You see, Darrell “Bubba” Wallace Jr. drives the famous Number “43” for Richard Petty Motorsports and LeithCars.com is sponsoring Bubba’s NASCAR Camaro ZL1 at the Bank of America 400 ROVAL at Charlotte Motor Speedway on Sunday, September 29th.

We wanted to make a good first impression on Bubba so our videographer, Daniel and I swung by Leith Toyota on Capital Boulevard in Raleigh to pick-up our “Red Hot” red Camaro. Prepped and ready to go was a 2.0 Liter 4-cylinder turbocharged 2018 Chevy Camaro LT1. It was just one of several Camaro sports cars we could have chosen from the vast LeithCars.com inventory but with Leith Toyota located just north of Interstate 540 from our North Raleigh office, the little red Camaro was the right choice. As soon as I saw the car, I flashed-back to my high school youth. There is just something special about a Camaro and this example would make our road trip to the Richard Petty Motorsports garage even more memorable.

You might be able to tell by my enthusiasm for Chevy’s “pony car” that not only was I super-psyched about getting the chance to interview Bubba Wallace for our Zero To 60 YouTube series, but this would also be my first opportunity to drive the latest sixth-gen Camaro. In fact, it’s been almost 15 years since I last owned a Camaro because, let’s face it, those teeny-tiny back seats are no place for children.  So, off we go with our camera and recording gear loaded into a surprisingly deep Camaro trunk-let. Daniel is streaming his favorite morning show through his ear-buds and I’ve got some classic rock songs playing on the Camaro’s radio because, what’s a good road-trip in a Camaro without some Van Halen, Ozzy, and Pat Benatar tunes kickin’ from the Bose sound system? Yep, this trip is starting to take me back to high school.

Speaking of high school and my “Camaro years.”  My first car was a (9 year old, slightly beaten-up) 1973 Camaro Rally Sport in brown metallic and cream vinyl top. I added a bolt-on ram-air style hood scoop (that use to let water into the car’s 2-barrel carb causing it to stall when it rained) and a pair of adjustable air shocks in the rear, giving the car a sort of a jacked-up stance. (It was a thing we did to our cars in the ’80s). Over the years, that ’73 Camaro turned into a new 1984 Camaro with a 5-speed stick and 2.8 Liter V6.  My final Camaro, before marriage and two kids, was my best Camaro. She was a beautiful pewter metallic 1999 Super Sport with T-Tops, a 6-speed manual, a real-deal 5.7 Liter LS1 V8 that kicked out the jams to the tune of 320 Horsepower. That car would slam you back in your seat like a proper Camaro should.

Back to the present, our Camaro “time machine”, the blazing red 2018 model we chose for this NASCAR road trip, promptly delivered us to the house “The King of Stock Car Racing” built, the Richard Petty Motorsports garage. Nestled away in an unassuming corner of an industrial park in Welcome, N.C., we parked the Camaro and walked inside. After being greeted by the RPM staff and getting our cameras and gear set-up inside the shop, I was plugging-in my microphone when out of the corner of my eye, in walks Darrell “Bubba” Wallace Jr…it’s show time.

You’ll have to watch our exclusive interview with Bubba Wallace for the full story and be sure to cheer-on our LeithCars.com No. 43 Chevy Camaro ZL1 by Richard Petty Motorsports at the Charlotte ROVAL. It’s gonna’ be a blast.

Written by Mark Arsen for LeithCars.com & LeithToyota.com

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