TVR: Of all your competitors and associates (drivers, mechanics, etc), who were your closest friends?
Lynn: Lots! I mean, there was a rule that said that you didn't make friends with your competitors. That's baloney. I'm still life long friends with all of them. Very few that I don't have a good personal relationship with. That was competitors... drivers... I enjoy walking up and saying hello and stuff like that. There's very few, even some of us that had some problems with one another. It's water over the dam. We laugh and joke about it now. 

Van May will come in here every now and then and we'll talk about it. I mean, Van put a job on me. I was gonna win 3 features in one weekend, which was tough to do... win Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I won Friday night at the Grove, Saturday night at where ever we ran. I got up behind Van at Susquehanna and I was all over him. I kept trying to suck him down a little bit. Susquehanna was a tough race track. You had to put a hell of a bottom move on. Usually, the top was the quick way and if you ran the top, you had to work hard. Well, I kept trying him, he finally made a mistake and he pulled won on the white flag lap. I got on the outside of him. Well, that was it. I went in the first turn... Van never lifted. He come in, hit me wheel to wheel... knocked me up over the cushion. Then he jumped up over the cushion and low and behold, Dubby (Dub May) was running 3rd. We already passed Dubby, Van's brother, and he won the race. 

I ended up finishing 3rd and I wasn't happy with Van. I wanted to talk to him. I know, I was mad. It wasn't a fighting mad, it was just... explain to me what you were doing. "Well," he said, "My brakes went out." I said, "Van, you and I both know that brakes going out... you don't run with brakes. Brakes are something to help in traffic." He finally admitted he screwed up and it was the last lap. He snookered me and asked, "What was I supposed to do?" He knew he had done wrong. It was just one of those things. But Van... we kid about it now.  

TVR: If you could pick a list of the greatest drivers ever (including yourself) from any point in history, from any venue in racing, and could magically bring them through a time machine to compete together in a race, who would they be and why? 
Lynn: First of all, anytime you are rating somebody, you have to take yourself out of the equation. It's not fair. Your biased in one respect, you understand? I know Tommy Hinnershitz and I had to sit down and decide the top 25 racers of the century. Think about that! The 25 best sprint car drivers of the century. That's an impossible task. Comparing from Barney Oldfield's day, to Steve Kinser's day...you understand? There just so many people... it's a very difficult task. I don't think you could do it. 

What you would do is you would take that list of those people and just start peeling it back. I always said that... some people always got upset with the Outlaws when they came to town. They thought tracks catered to the Outlaws. I said, "I want to tell you something." A lot of people can understand golfing terminology. If you go out and you're a golfer and you shoot 75, or something like that. You're out shooting a round with guys who shoot around you, or 80... something like that and you have a good day... that's fine. Now you go out and shoot with those guys that shoot 68 with, you know, regularity... probably the best. Then you find out what you're made of. That's what the Outlaws do. You're running against the best. That's the best way to gauge where you stand. I think running against the best is the only way you can gauge your performance, or your equipment. I was always honored to do that and do reasonably well. People, they forget that... they forget that. How do you know how good you are unless you go out and run against the "the best" in your given field? That's all you can ask for, is that chance to do that. Then you find out where you're deficient. Sometimes, you found out more than you wanted to find out, you know... <laughs> Once in a while, you got lucky and did real well. 

Racing's one of the few places where a batting average of 300 isn't bad. I've lost a hell of a lot more races than I ever won, I'll tell you that! And, I won a lot of races.  

TVR: What changes do you think could, or should be made in racing today that would improve the sport most?
Lynn: Put the driver back in the equation. Now you're gonna ask what I meant by that. Right now, a driver is a jockey. They want a little light guy, because they don't want anybody heavy. That cars are fast, brutally fast... brutally light. They're built strong, don't get me wrong. But, right now the cars run wide open the whole way around the place. There's no such thing as getting in the corner further, like we use to do it. I think what you have to do now... it would be easy for me to say get rid of the power steering, get rid of some tire and some wing and stuff, which I think is where they're going to have to look. Getting rid of some of the wing... now the wing is a safety factor. But, too much wing lets you hook up all the horsepower you got. And, to my way of thinking, when the track gives up, they guys who were sharp were the guys who use to know how to feather. A little smarter, maybe in the setup and stuff. They've got to put the driver back in the equation. 

And that is, get rid of some things you can see. First of all, I think a weight limit would save a lot of money and they're doing that now. I think the only things you should police are the things you can see. You don't need to worry about all kind of horsepower, if you take some of the wing away and take some of the tire away. If you do that, it'll slow 'em down. Now that'll turn some people off. I love going to Silver Springs and watching the sportsman. They cars weigh 1900 pounds, or there abouts. They got small wings, manual steering and its the best show. The cars, they run the cushion, stand them up on one wheel... I seen one night, Rich Eichelberger do an endo and keep going down the backstretch. They threw the red light for him and put him to the rear, but who ever thought you were gonna do an endo and keep going? 

So, I think putting the driver back in, I mean the driver where... not the guy who just keeps his foot planted on the throttle the whole way around and hopes he don't run into anything. But, have it to where a certain point of that race track, the guy who knows how to feather and maybe can't run wide open the whole way around... you gotta put the driver back in the equation... so that the guy who knows when to back off is gonna go faster than the guy just stands on it, lighting the tires up all the time. I think that's where it's at. I think that's what has to happen. You can't have nose to tail, nose to tail, nose to tail. Racing to me is having two or three grooves. I still love going out and watching a guy, where he can't run the bottom as good as the other guy, but he goes up and stands her up on one wheel, up on the cushion and is really fast up there and blows them off. I still enjoy going out and watching a guy make a difference like that. 

It use to be it was 50/50. You had to have a good car and the driver could make it up. Now it's about 90/10. The preparation of the car, now the driver can have something to with that, it's 90%. I still like to see that 10% win a race every now and then. It just doesn't happen that much anymore. 

TVR: What advice would you give to a young man or woman who was thinking about starting a career in racing?
Lynn: Whew! You got a tough road to hoe! I'm speak... I'm gonna go speak at Bermudian Springs Middle School at Career Day. the first question I ask is, "How many of you'd like to make a living in motorsports?" And boys and girls, 90% of them, hands go up. I say, "That's neat! It's nice to see the girls interested." There's some good women racers. When I said make a living, I don't mean just driving. There's other things other than drivers. Driver's the glamour part of it, but other people make a good living at it. So I ask, "What do you do? How do you start?" Any career's a ladder. What is the bottom rung of that ladder? I said, "I'll tell you how I did it." 

When I was a young boy, after my Dad closed the garage, he rented part of the garage out to a racing crew. They had a Class A at Lincoln and stuff like that. I was just this young 7, 8, 9 year old kid. I'd go in and ask them a bunch of questions and they'd throw me out! The next day, I'd go in and ask a bunch of questions... and they'd throw me out. So, now I realized if I was gonna go in there, I had to do something for them so they would tolerate me. So what I did, I washed parts and swept the floor. Now, they still threw me out, but at least they'd answer a couple of questions before that happened. Then I found out that if I swept that floor and maybe I wasn't cleaning the parts right, they'd come over and say, "Look. Be sure you get this out of here...", I made sure I did the best job I could. After a while, they'd say, "Hey! You're doing a good job here." they moved me up to something a little more, you know... and I couldn't wait to see what was next, And I did that, coming from the bottom rung. Working on the cars, being a "gopher", but learning. All the time, learning. 

Then my next question is, "How many of you like English in school?" Most of them don't. I said, "Well, I didn't either." Then I said, "But, I will tell you this. Right now, everyone's brave and wants to be good, but communication is key. Your written and your verbal. That's English folks... learning how to use it. That's one skill you have to have, dealing with the public, dealing with sponsors and learning how to present yourself." 

Than I asked, "Does anybody know, out of a thousand people that want to be this, how many of them will actually make a living in motorsports?" You hear all kind of answers. "Two percent! Two to four people out of a thousand, and that's not all as a driver. It could be somewhere else." I said, "So, right away, you've got a tough career field. The guy who's going to get it done is the guy who's got the best tools. What's the best tools? English, right here at school! Do your homework. The person with the best tools, even though you might think it takes more guts or bravery or something like that. Huh uh... the tools are right here at school. Learn them. Do it, because it's a very competitive market right now. You can go up the ladder, as far as you desire. It has nothing to do with talent. It's desire."

I knew a lot of people who had natural ability, like you wouldn't believe, and wasted it. There were some other people that didn't, but had the desire and they got the job done. They worked hard and they wanted to get the job done. I'll take somebody with heart any day over somebody that has all the natural talent in the world that won't apply themselves. It's a shame, I've seen it a lot. I've seen a lot of good race car drivers who could have been a lot more than they were, but they weren't. Then I've seen some race drivers that weren't sh*t and turned out to be a hell of a race car driver. Rick Ferkel, perfect example. You know, just couldn't hit his ass. He persevered, worked damn hard at it... became a hell of a racer.   

TVR: When future generations find your name in the history books of racing, what is it about Lynn Paxton and his racing career that you would most like to be remembered for?
Lynn: Actually, that I did follow the intuition of my mentor, meaning Tommy Hinnershitz. That I tried to play fair. I raced hard, I raced clean and I enjoyed myself. That's all you can ask anybody to do. Do what you're going to do with a passion. When you don't have that passion, you better find something else to do. Try to play within the rules and also remember, do unto others... that old golden rule, that Bible rule still works everywhere. Don't do to other people what you wouldn't want done to yourself. You use that rule, no other one, it gets you a long way in this life. It did me and that's what people think, you know. He was fair, he went hard and he went clean. That's all you can ask for. And... he had a good time! 

TVR: What does Lynn Paxton do now?
Lynn: Tries to do as little as possible. Just had my first two grandchildren, which is a little late. I have 3 kids. My son, my oldest daughter, both had their first child. So, that's very interesting. I run Paxton Enterprises, which has been operating for 40 years now. I can't believe it. A guy sent me a thing that said "Congratulations for being in business for 40 years." I have storage rentals here at Dillsburg. I got about 70 storage... I have outside storage and inside storage. I rent out shops to a garage and some other businesses here. 

I probably could just sit here and look out the window, but I still enjoy tinkering with old cars and old racecars. So, what I do is I restore old racecars and special interest cars. I have a champ dirt car here that I'm doing. I try to do one major job a year, and then I get other projects in. If people call me up and it sounds interesting, no matter what it is, if it sounds interesting to me, I'll do it. But if it gets redundant, or its just the same old thing, I'm not interested in doing it. It's gotta be somewhat of a challenge still. That's what I do.

TVR: You're also very heavily involved in the Eastern Museum of Motor Racing.
Lynn: Yeah... racing was good to me and I was involved through it's infancy when Jack Gunn started it at Williams Grove in 1975. I was always very interested in antiques and history. I actually owned an antique racecar back in '71 and '72. I predated, actually, the (Williams Grove) Old Timers. I liked it, I liked the history. I don't think a guy can go where he wants to go without being able to read the past a little bit, who went before them had made it maybe easier for them. I think the real, true racers are also historians. You understand what happened before. I think that gives them a little better focus of what's ahead. 

That's how I got involved, and then when Jack Gunn passed away in '80, it looked like Williams Grove Old Timers was going to fall by the wayside. A couple of us said no, there's something there. We gotta preserve the history of racing. So, we reformulated it, uh... other than just Williams Grove we went to the name Eastern Museum of Motor Racing. We wanted to tell the story of the racing in the eastern sector, all types of motor sport. 

We bought the old Latimore Valley Fairgrounds and worked hard the last 20 years to get that back functioning again. In '89, we built the first phase of the museum. Just last year, we finished the second phase of the museum. Its just a way of putting something back. Racing was good to me, I've enjoyed it. I enjoy the history of it and this is just a way of... What happens yesterday is history and umm, that stuff should be somewhere where the future generations can look back at what happened before. It doesn't interest everybody. A lot of people don't want to look back, they just want to look forward. I understand that, but I think there ought to be a place to tell the story from day one, all the way through. That's the function the Eastern Museum of Motor Racing does, I think, for the community in general and for the racing community in general, also. 

TVR: Okay, let me throw some names at you and give us your thoughts and maybe your favorite story about them. 

Mitch Smith?
Lynn: <pauses> Mr. Excitement. I want to tell you what. If a race track was wet, rough and heavy and I had all the money in the world and I wanted a guy to get the most out of my equipment, that would be the guy I'd put in. He'd stand on the loud pedal... he was fearless. Later in his career, he learned how to run on a slick race track too. But, that's a whole 'nother story. 

I have so many Mitch Smith stories... I will tell one. Mitch, behind the wheel,  you had to know everybody thought he was a little deranged. I mean, if he was running 7th, that's where you better be watching. He was gonna make something happen. Out of the race car, Mitch was quiet, very unassuming, unless you'd get him cranked up, which we did every now and then. Mitch was umm... he looked like a little school teacher. You wouldn't pick him to be a racer. 

Mitch and I were good friends and Mitch use to come over here. We raced snowmobiles together, built cabins together, we did a lot of things together. I knew Mitch was coming over and I said, "Mitch? I gotta go pick up some parts over at this guys place. Do you want to go along?" "Yeah, I'll ride along.", he says. So he rode along. 

Now I took him to this guy who hated Mitch Smith... hated him. Didn't know Mitch Smith from Adam. But... I mean, I talked to this guy enough that I know he hated this son of a gun. See? So, I went into see this guy... Mitch walked in... I didn't introduce Mitch. But, I mentioned about the races. "Hey! How about that Mitch Smith winning that race last week?" You know, blah, blah, bah. The guy said, "That son of a..." well, that son of a gun, he said it a little stronger than that. He went on and on and just berated Mitch. Mitch just stood there and listened to what the guy had to say. 

Finally, I said, "He can't be all that bad!"  "Oh! He's terrible!", the guy answers. I started defending Mitch, but he would have none of it. He just berated Mitch for a minute or two, you know. I kept sticking it and boy, he swallowed it hook, line and sinker. I had him really fired up. 

I said, "Did you ever meet Mitch Smith?" "No!", he says. "I wouldn't want to meet that so and so..." I said, "I want you to meet him... Mitch Smith, this is John Doe" (named changed to protect the innocent) <laughs> The guy shook his hand. <laughs> He was dumfounded. I had just pumped him, you know... Mitch shook the guy's hand and smiled at him. the guy didn't know what to say. You know what he finally said? "Well, my wife likes you." <laughs hard> That was the end of it. Of course, on the way home he said, "You son of a gun! You did that on purpose!" I said, "I sure did! I wanted to shut that loud mouth up." Mitch got a big charge out of that. 

I've got so many Mitch Smith stories, I could do 3 chapters and it didn't have all to do with racing. It had to do with playing hard too. Racing snowmobiles with Smokey Snellbaker and us. We went out and ran for the AMF team. We had some great times. As a matter of fact, Bruce Larson, national championship drag racer... he was part of the team. Bob Shawlie, the Triumph factory rider. So, we had some good times. 

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