Among a seemingly never-ending sea of black and white boxes in the pits, the hauler of Doug Penny stands out. He repurposed a school bus to take his modified to the races. Penny did so, because he remembers how he viewed racing as a kid.
“When I was four years old, I was living in Georgia, and there was a school bus hauler,” Penny, 23, of Vass, North Carolina, said. “It was something I always wanted.”
During the off-season, Penny picked up a retired 1990 school bus for around $3,000. As Penny began turning the bus into a hauler, he received help from a neighbor down the road, Larry Smith, who owned race cars, and Penny’s father, Wayne Penny. The project put skills Penny learned as a kid on his father’s race cars to the test.
“I’ve always been talented with fabrication,” said Penny, who is active duty in the U.S. Army. “Mr. Larry Smith, he helped me out, because he had three buses [he had converted into haulers]. My dad helped me with the electrical.”
Turning a bus into a hauler involves a little more than just ripping seats out.
“[We] cut the back door [section] off and built the dovetails … to get the car [to enter] at the right angle,” Penny said. “I had to design a dovetail to let the car in without hitting the ground with [its] rear bumper. I tried [different angles] a couple of times and got what I got now, and it works. Then, I built ramp-overs up to the rear fender wells, and that’s where the car stops.”
Doug Penny then turned the front portion of the bus in a toter-home-style living area, where he and his family — wife, Autumn, and one-year-old son, Phillip — can spend a night, if they need to, or stay in an air-conditioned environment during a hot summer night.
“Pretty much everything on the bus I bought off of Facebook Marketplace,” said Penny. “I got the seats out of an old conversion van. We put down plank flooring and ran [electrical] through it to the generator. I built a cabinet and a toolbox.”
Penny estimated he spent an additional $5,000 in converting the bus over, including registration and license plates. At a total of around $8,000, he had a hauler that’s much more than a box on wheels. Plus, it offers another benefit.
“There’s nothing better than seeing an open trailer,” Penny said. “But, you never see a race modified hanging out of a school bus. It used to be my favorite thing to do on the way to the racetrack — counting how many race cars you see.”
The bus does come with limitations, with the main one being its engine. It can only go up to 55 mph, making long hauls on highways laborious.
“And, that’s with the governor maxed out,” said Penny of the power plant. “It’s got an 8.2L Detroit engine in it. It’s not the most powerful thing, but it’s very reliable. I can drive it eight hours straight and only use 12 gallons of fuel. In the future, I plan to do an engine swap. I’ll probably end up going with a 5.9L Turbo Cummins engine.”
Other changes are on the horizon for Doug Penny. He recently moved up to UMP modifieds, which will require significant travel as they do not race much near his home. With the additional miles on the road, Penny acquired a stacker trailer from his grandparents, which had been sitting idle for a while. However, this does not spell the end to the school bus trailer.
“My wife has a Legend car, so we’re going to use the bus for the Legend car, because we can race it local,” Penny said. “I’ll take [the school bus hauler] for [my modified to use] in car shows for my sponsors.”
For more on Doug Penny’s school bus build, visit his YouTube channel, “Nothin But Dirt,” here.
The Outside Groove Executive Editor has covered motorsports since 2000. His many awards include the 2019 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Jim Hunter Writer of the Year and the 2013 Russ Catlin Award for Excellence in Motorsports Journalism.
