While looking at history on the career of Buddy Baker I looked at the history on David Pearson. I knew he had won 105 races 2nd to Richard Petty. What I did not know was that after starting a NASCAR racing career from 1960 to 1986 he only ran 3 full seasons. Those were the seasons that he won his Cup Season Points Championships. He always seem to drive for good car owners, even for the Petty’s Team. Wonder how many championships and races he would have won if he had raced more full seasons. Those were the grand NASCAR days, starting from drivers driving and t shirts and wingtip shoes til the likes of the Pettys, Bakers, Pearson and other earlier drivers retired.
Pearson was pretty amazing, if I am not mistaken, his win percentage is way better than Petty. I had a cool experience with him back in the late 90’s. He came to St. Augustine Speedway with some little mini cars, powered by I think a Mazda 4 cylinder engine to test them for a school or series or something. I was running late models there then, and he was selling laps in the little cars for $10.00 a lap to a few of us drivers that showed to watch the test and see the great David Pearson. After I ran a few laps and came in, he came over and leaned in the window and asked what I thought. After I got out of the car I sat on the tailgate of a pickup with him and chatted for half an hour of so. It is a memory I cherish!
Very cool, Jacko!
I watched an interview once with Richard and David, and in the course of it, the “best driver” thing came up. Here is an approximate transcript:
Moderator --“Richard, who was the best there was, in your opinion?”
Richard–“David Pearson. He was tough and always seemed to be there at the end.”
Moderator–“And you heard Richard’s answer, who do you think was the best, David?”
Pearson–“I’m not going to sit here and argue with the man!”
[QUOTE=OldSchool+;163889]Very cool, Jacko!
I watched an interview once with Richard and David, and in the course of it, the “best driver” thing came up. Here is an approximate transcript:
Moderator --“Richard, who was the best there was, in your opinion?”
Richard–“David Pearson. He was tough and always seemed to be there at the end.”
Moderator–“And you heard Richard’s answer, who do you think was the best, David?”
Pearson–“I’m not going to sit here and argue with the man!” [/QUOTE]
That is awesome! What a couple of great guys in our sport!
There are a lot of guys who ran in Nascar that would probably have won many more races if they had full time rides all the time.But back then the schedules were so heavy with sometimes 5 nights of racing a week,and travel being what it was with so many interstates and roadways not completed it made things impossible for car owners and drivers alike.And in the 60s and 70s too think of this fact.USAC had its own stock car division as well as ARCAs been around since the 50s.What if some of those USAC drivers wouldnt have been commited to all of those USAC races?Foyt,Andretti,Unser,Bowsher,Bettenhausen,Mears,would all have been names you would talk about.All these guys drove stock cars too but primarily in the north.Only Daytona seemed to bring them all together as well as an once yearly road course race at Riverside California.