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Despite Pain, Mods of Mayhem’s Billy Melvin Drives for Family, Love of Sport

By Chuck Corder

Look up “racer� on Dictionary.com and the first entry you’ll find defines the term as “a person, animal, or thing that races or takes part in a race.�

Billy Melvin certainly fits that description. After all the Birmingham, Ala., native has spent well over two decades chasing checkereds on short tracks across the southeast.

But Melvin goes beyond the pale in personifying what it means to be a racer.

“I’ve never done anything but work and race,� said the 48-year-old Modifieds of Mayhem driver, who owns Associated Heating and Cooling in Birmingham.

“And the only reason I work is so I can afford to race. Racing’s an addiction there’s no help for. You get hooked on drugs, alcohol, you can get help for that. Racing, you’re sorta stuck. I wouldn’t work a job this hard for anybody.�

Melvin reels off these epic observations with ease because it’s his truth.

He continues to race out of love despite the sport taking its toll on him. After 20-plus years of wrecks and collisions, Melvin has undergone two spinal fusions. To this day, he continues to battle chronic bone spurs and degenerative arthritis throughout his back.

“I’m not supposed to be racing,� Melvin admitted. “I told my wife (Beth), I’m good. I’d rather die living than live dying. I’m not a person to sit at home.�

Instead, this Friday night, he’ll be at Five Flags Speedway when the first-year Modifieds of Mayhem make their roaring Pensacola debut on Marty White Appreciation Night.

“We sound like a jet fighter coming through a gymnasium on a straightaway,� Melvin said in describing the Mods’ 700-horsepower engines. “But because of our 8-inch tires, we can’t use all of the horsepower.

“We’ll have to slow it really down before we get to Pensacola. That’s not a horsepower racetrack. That’s a handling track. You gotta dial it way back.�

That won’t necessarily be true for a certain group of racers come Friday night. The famed half-mile asphalt oval hosts its annual children bicycle races, and kids on two wheels only know one speed.

Super Stocks, Sportsman and Bombers will also share in the night’s festivities, which will begin by honoring White — the former Sportsman driver and longtime local radio personality who retires later this month from NASH 102.7 FM.

The gates open at 4 p.m. Friday with qualifying tabled for 6:45 and pre-race festivities set for approximately 7:55.

Admission for adults is $15; $12 for seniors, military and students; $5 for children ages 6 to 11; free for kids under 6.

The Modifieds of Mayhem are a fledgling touring series that will make stops at Pensacola, Mobile International Speedway, Montgomery and South Alabama Speedway in Opp this season.

“I think it’s gonna grow,� Melvin said. “A lotta people love to race modifieds, and at the end of the day they’re a lot cheaper. There’s a lotta people in late models going broke. If this series is a success, we continue to get decent car counts, and pick up another track, I look for some guys I know in late models to step back down to modifieds.�

Melvin, who has driven open-wheel modifieds for 20 years, won the most recent 50 lapper Saturday in Montgomery. A trip to Victory Lane he barely made.

“I took so long to get out of the car at Montgomery because I literally couldn’t stand up,� said Melvin, who only has three vertebrae remaining in his neck that have not been fused together. “I guess I must love it because I keep doing it.�

The Montgomery win came after capturing the Modifieds feature during the prestigious Rattler Weekend in Montgomery earlier this year.

There have been four different winners in the Modifieds of Mayhem first four races in its inaugural season. Melvin being the latest.

“It would not surprise me to see a different winner at Pensacola,� Melvin said. “Legitimately, there are six or eight cars that can win a race. The caliber of competition is very high.�

To this day, Melvin will tell you there was no better crowning achievement to his racing career than when he won the Modifieds Snowball Derby back in 2012.

“I race it every year. And I’ve lost it every way there is to lose it,� Melvin confessed. “Finally, when I win the thing, I’m so sick, I couldn’t get outta the car.�

As much as the sport may appear to take out of Melvin, he gives it more tenfold. He’s opinionated — but only out of a love and concern for safety of the sport.

“We gotta control the cost of this sport for it to be successful,� Melvin pleaded. “It’s hurting racing, in general.�

He enjoys mentoring the next generation of drivers. Youngsters like Ty Roberts and Parker Pugh — remember those names if you don’t already know them — have caught Melvin’s eye.

“They’re the future of the sport,� he dubs the likes of Roberts and Pugh. “Me, I’m on my way out. That’s why I try and help them.�

And, perhaps most importantly of all, Melvin makes the sport about family — both his immediate family and his “extended� family, which includes his crew chief Joe Dodd, who Melvin reared through the sport when Dodd was a young lad.

Melvin’s children, 18-year-old son Charlie and 13-year-old daughter Brooke, come to every race. Beth, his wife since 1995, comes along when she can.

Plus, they’ve added Roberts and Roberts’ parents to the party-rolling caravan, as the young hotshoe tries to learn from a savvy veteran like Melvin.

“My 18-year-old son drives the hauler. My little girl helps out, too,� Melvin said. “We do this as a family. It cost enough, and because there’s so much work and time you put into it, you just couldn’t do it without them.�

Billy Melvin not only defines what it means to be a racer.

He embodies the essence of the sport.

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