The Ghosts Of Daytona
“The Great American Race” can be described as 200 laps of 2.5 miles each, but it’s much more than that. Ask any NASCAR fan.
Stripped to its bare metal, the Daytona 500 could be described as 200 laps of 2.5 miles each, but the burning rubber that meets that well-traveled road does more than produce tire squeals and skid marks. It also conjures up misty, gray ghosts who tell tales that go way beyond mere miles and milestones. Here are but a few:
In February 1963, a big man called “Tiny” traveled to the east coast of Florida for the biggest race of his life. His name was Dewayne Lund, a stock car driver since 1955, winless in nearly a decade of trying. There was just one problem: He didn’t have a ride.
If Tiny Lund’s ride-bucket could be described as dust empty, Marvin Panch’s was brim-splashing full: After qualifying for the 500 in the Wood brothers’ sleek-roofed, hefty-horsed Ford Galaxy, Panch was offered a chance to test-drive the experimental Briggs Cunningham Maserati 151.
Who could turn down that ride? Not Panch, who had won “The Great American Race” in 1961, driving a 1960 Pontiac.
Lund watched as Panch made his Maserati run. Watched as the beautiful, red, curvaceous car with its powerful 7-litre Ford V8 churned through the course. Watched as the M-151 neared 180 miles per hour. Then watched as it went airborne, barrel-rolled and landed upside-down, with the veteran stock driver trapped inside.
What happened next is legendary. Storybook. The stuff dreams are made of. Tiny Lund ran to the site of the fiery crash and joined the rescue effort, risking his own life as he pulled Panch feet-first from the burning wreckage, an act of courage that would ultimately win the bigger-than-life man from Iowa the Carnegie Medal of Honor for heroism.
But that’s just the start of this stellar story.
Panch, hospitalized and unable to drive, persuaded the Woods brothers to let Tiny drive the team’s Ford in the 500. Lund returned the favor by winning the race, sputtering out of gas as he crossed the finish line — still rolling on the same set of tires on which he started. It was his first career victory. His winnings: $24,550. (Compare that to the $1,581,453 Joey Logano won in 2015.)
Though Lund and Panch went on to win other races, neither returned to Daytona’s victory lane. The two are etched on a long list of Great American Race one-timers, an exclusive club with a member mix of journeymen and legends.
From Derrike Cope, the 1990 champ, who’d originally planned to be a professional baseball player and had been scouted by the Cubs and Orioles, to 1972 winner, A.J. Foyt, the King of Indy, who won at the Brickyard four times and drove victory laps at Le Mans, Sebring and the 24 Hours of Daytona — twice.
From Pete Hamilton, who won both Daytona and Talladega in 1970, to seven-time NASCAR champ Dale Earnhardt Sr., who knew something about winning at Talladega, but conquered the Daytona 500 but once, in ’98.
Other one-timers include Mario Andretti, all-everything driver, who crafted his world-class image by taking on any and all four-wheel challenges, including Indy, F-1 and CART. Plus Junior Johnson, Fred Lorenzen and Fireball Roberts; Buddy Baker, Lee Roy Yarbrough and Ward Burton; Benny Parsons, Geoff Bodine and Davey Allison; Ernie Irvan, and Darrel Waltrip.
And Lee Petty. Class of ’59. In the christening race that started it all.
Petty came to Daytona wielding the wheel of a huge ’59 Oldsmobile Super 88 coupe. The track he came to tame was a monster speedway willed into existence by the Godfather of NASCAR, Bill France.
Racing already had roots in Daytona Beach’s sandy soil, but the initial seed had produced a hybrid track: part beach, part road. France yearned for more. He envisioned a dynamic tri-oval that had more in common with runways than a speedway. Its massively curved banks swept up at a G-force straining 31 degrees; its extended straightaway, offering a tantalizing 3,000 feet of pedal-pushing, go-fast freedom; its colossal, sculpted presence shouting to all the world: “Big-time” racin’.
The track reeked speed — and drivers responded accordingly.
In 1959’s lead-swapping, tire-screaming, plot-twisting, controversy-oozing contest, Johnny Beauchamp in the No. 73 Thunderbird and Petty’s No. 42 Super 88 snapped into history, with Beauchamp winning. But, like a latter-day saint, Lee Petty’s chances — dead and buried when the checkered flag fell — resurrected on the third day, the result of what one wag quaintly referred to as “pictorial evidence” that showed the big bold chrome bumper of the Olds barely nosing out the beleaguered beak of Beauchamp’s ‘Bird.
Lee’s win at that inaugural 500 must have spliced a slice of Petty DNA into Daytona’s karma, carving a crown for its greatest multiple winner: King Richard, who drove to victory in 1964, 1966, 1971, 1973, 1974, 1979 and 1981. But, contrary to some Mopar myths, the King’s final two wins were in GM products: Oldsmobile and Buick, respectively. (Just for the record, Richard finished a paltry 57th of 59 cars in the ’59 race, driving a ’57 Olds — not quite his father’s Oldsmobile.)
Petty’s ’79 run is remembered less for his win than for a heavyweight bout that took place some distance from the checkered flag.
Touted as the first “live” broadcast of the Daytona 500, TV viewers — particularly those snow-bound Northerners with few pre-cable choices — witnessed a dynamic driver duel between the prophetically named Caleb “Cale” Yarborough and Donnie Allison. The trio of A.J. Foyt, Petty and Darrell Waltrip trailed close behind, ready to trounce if the leaders slipped, which they did in Turn 3, ending each others hope for victory. Yarborough and Allison (along with Donnie’s brother, Bobby) got into a heated discussion that detonated into a good ol’ boy scuffle, giving race fans a memorable televised collage of mud, helmets, fists and gloves — an animated altercation that arguably got more press than the race itself.
A Petty loss at Daytona in 1976 is a race worth noting, highlighting, as it does, the infamously notorious David Pearson vs. King Richard rivalry, a blisteringly close life-long competition that found the duo sharing first or second place an astounding 63 times, with Pearson edging out His Mopar Majesty 33–30.
America’s Bicentennial found Pearson driving a Mercury; Petty, a Dodge.
The King, driving hard and strong, dominated the final laps, but Pearson, craftily using the draft, passed Petty in Turn 3 during the closing moments. In Turn 4, the two road warriors ran side by side, and then made contact. Chaos ensued. Like the final seconds in a brutal heavyweight match, both opponents faltered, but Pearson managed (somehow) to recover. Manipulating his clutch and nursing his engine, he lurched to the finish line, capturing the only Daytona 500 victory of his illustrious career.
But the King would go on to win another day — plus one, for a total of seven, still the record for multiple Daytona 500 victors.
In addition to Petty, other multi-Daytona winners include Cale Yarborough, who managed four wins, Dale Jarrett, Bobby Allison and Jeff Gordon, who each notched three, and Bill Elliott, Sterling Marlin, Michael Waltrip, Matt Kenneth, Jimmie Johnson, and Dale Earhardt, Jr., who snatched up two apiece.
Without doubt, Waltrip’s 2001 win stands as the most bittersweet moment in Daytona history, producing a storyline that only a six-pack drenched, blue-collar Shakespeare would dare pen.
Waltrip joined the ranks of NASCAR’s big boys in 1985 and went on to stack up a remarkable, but hardly enviable, 463 no-win streak — leaving a King Kong-sized, race-monkey riding mightily on his back. Who would dare take a chance on a driver with such a track record?
None other than Dale Earnhardt, Sr.
The Intimidator offered Waltrip, then age 38, a “new birth” of sorts, with an opportunity to drive the No. 15 Chevy for DEI. And drive he did, to an improbable victory — a “W,” finally, making the tally 1–463. But with the “Win” came a loss. No, make that a “Loss”: Waltrip’s mentor. His team owner. His “Boss,” friend, cheerleader and coach. Gone, like a Sunshine State cloud, just as victory smiled. And a new ghost rose afresh, to haunt Daytona.
As I said upfront, “The Great American Race” could be described as 200 laps of 2.5 miles each. Except it’s more than that. Much more. Ask any NASCAR fan. Better yet, go ask Trevor Bayne, or Ryan Newman. Kevin Harvick. Jamie McMurray. Even better, ask Dale Earhardt, Jr. Yup, ask “Little E.” He’ll tell ya there’s at least one ghost watchin’ the 500. That’s for sure.
Jim Lamb is a retired journalist and author of “Orange Socks & Other Colorful Tales,” the story of how he survived Vietnam and kept his sense of humor. As a kid he wanted to drive race cars. For more about Jim, visit www.jslstories.com.
