Fairbury Speedway
After stint as wrench, McIntosh mulls future
By Kyle McFadden
DirtonDirt.com staff reporter
Georgia driver Donald McIntosh. (Josh James)
FAIRBURY, Ill. (May 9) — Donald McIntosh didn’t expect to find himself in an interim crewing role just weeks following March 7’s conclusion of Georgia-Florida Speedweeks.
But for last year’s Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series Rookie of the Year, a seven-week stint as an extra handyman for driver Garrett Alberson and crew chief Zach Huston at Roberts Motorsports seemed to be exactly what he needed.
After opening the season with Coltman Farms Racing during January’s Sunshine Nationals at Volusia Speedway Park — where he posted respectable finishes of 13th and 14th and even won a heat race in his Jan. 22 debut — the 33-year-old hasn’t raced since his one-off appearance March 5 in Billy Hicks’s No. 79 at Golden Isles Speedway near Brunswick, Ga.
Instead, he’s gained a fresh perspective on the day-to-day workings of a touring operation while serving as a traveling mechanic for Roberts Motorsports. The Dawsonville, Ga., driver joined the team March 20 and wrapped up his interim crew role Saturday at Fairbury Speedway as the Iowa-based operation welcomed new crew member Payden Hines, a recent University of Northwestern Ohio motorsports graduate.
And while McIntosh still badly wants to get back behind the wheel and find a long-term place in the sport after departing Billy Hicks Racing following last season, the crewing experience offered a perspective he never really had as a driver.
“I've learned a lot. It's been a lot of fun,” McIntosh said. “As a driver, watching from the infield, is something I've not done a lot of. So I've got a whole new perspective and I think it's a good thing. I mean, I think I can take a lot away from it that I haven't had before.”
McIntosh said one of the biggest takeaways came from comparing what Alberson felt inside the car versus what he and the crew could visibly identify observing from afar.
“Working with Garrett as a driver on what he feels versus what I see from the outside has been really cool,” McIntosh said. “Yeah, I've actually taken a lot from it and it's been fun. … It’s been a different discipline. But I've learned a lot. I have no regrets.”
Teaming up with the Roberts team also felt natural because of the relationship McIntosh had already built with Alberson’s crew last season simultaneously campaigning on the Lucas Oil circuit. While driving the Hicks-owned No. 79 until his departure last Oct. 19, McIntosh’s team parked alongside Roberts Motorsports for every event they both competed in from mid-May through Oct. 18’s Dirt Track World Championship at Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio.
“They're a good time,” McIntosh said. “Great people, too.”
As for what’s next, not even McIntosh has much of an inkling. He’s put out feelers here and there, but for the most part has taken a step back from constantly working the phones, instead staying respectful of his responsibilities with the Roberts Motorsports crew.
“No, I don't. I'm still trying to make some phone calls,” McIntosh said. “I really haven't had time to. Honestly, I’ve been busy, and honestly, it's kind of a respect thing while helping somebody. I'm not trying to (overstep my boundaries), so, yeah, now that I'm done here, I'm gonna start making some phone calls.”
And if nothing materializes, McIntosh already has a fallback plan.
“If I can’t drum something up, I've got my 007 race car that I could pull out and race,” he said, referencing his self-built “double-oh-seven” chassis that he built alongside Doug Stevens, who helped Gary and Ashton Winger launch Fusion Race Cars in late 2024.
McIntosh finalized the 007 chassis Dec. 29, 2017, and promptly won with it the very next night in the Hangover at Tennessee's 411 Motor Speedway.
“Obviously it's been several years,” McIntosh said. “But yeah, it was a car I built and we won the first race out in it. I actually won several races in that car.”
The dormant chassis is paired with perhaps an even more unique component: a Buick engine McIntosh and his father Dave built together in 2013.
In a Dirt Late Model world sprawling with cookie-cutter engine manufacturers and packages, McIntosh takes pride in racing something different, quipping that his engine is “more of a Buick than these Chevrolets are Chevrolet.”
“So when the spread bore started — actually, it was way after it started — we started racing and spread bore was a thing back in 2013,” McIntosh said. “Thats what everybody started to build. Now everything's pretty much spread bore. So I'm like, ‘Dad, let’s just build a Buick? Let's just build an all-aluminum Buick,' and yeah, so that's what we did.”
TA Performance of Scottsdale, Ariz., supplies the heads and blocks while McIntosh and his father assembled — and still maintain — the engine themselves. And according to McIntosh, the powerplant still carries much of the same DNA that made Buick engines innovative decades ago.
“It is the same as what Buicks were in the '70s, '60s,” McIntosh said. “Same valve angles … but Buick was way ahead of its time. So a Chevrolet is a 23-degree valve-angle head original. Now they're like 10 degrees, what we’re running now. Buick, back in the '60s and '70s, was 15 degree, which is what it still is. There's some things that have been updated, but yeah, it's still a Buick.”
The Buick engine isn’t merely a sentimental fallback option for McIntosh, either, as he won with it last October, capturing the Southern All Star Dirt Racing Series-sanctioned Dixie Shootout at Dixie Speedway worth $10,053.
“That's a fun motor,” he said. “Plus, it's just different. Like, I like the fact that dirt racing is changing to where everything's kind of getting streamlined and it's going the asphalt direction, but they've still got enough leeway that you can bring stuff like that. I think that's good for the sport, have it where you can bring something like that.”
For now, though, McIntosh remains in limbo. Financially, returning to racing full-time isn’t feasible — at least immediately. But after spending nearly two months helping the Roberts team, his desire to drive hasn’t waned.
“I mean, my finances aren't where they need to be to race,” McIntosh said. “Yes, I'd race tomorrow if that was an option. But I don't know when I’ll bring it out. If I can't find something to drive, I'll have to throw up enough to make a race here and there.”
And while he found satisfaction in crewing, McIntosh doesn’t foresee himself converting to a full-time wrench. If anything, it only reinforced how much he’d like another opportunity behind the wheel.
“Especially helping, I've enjoyed it, but at the same point in time, I still want to drive,” he said. “Like, I'm passionate about it. Especially in a lot of these tracks that I only ran once (during his rookie Lucas Oil season), going back, I really feel like I do better than I did the first time. But like I said, whatever's meant to be will be, but I would love to find something.”
