David Pearson, NASCAR Hall of Famer, Dies at Age 83
David Pearson will forever be remembered as the guy puffing a cigarette at 190 mph with the King in his crosshairs, during the pinnacle years of American stock-car racing. The NASCAR Hall of Fame driver with the second-highest number of Cup wins died on Monday. He was 83.
A South Carolina native, Pearson grew up on dirt tracks and started his rookie season in 1960, just two years after NASCAR stopped racing on the Daytona Beach sand. When Hollywood makes NASCAR parodies and we laugh, it's because men like Pearson put every last ounce of gut and personality into the sport. Pearson kept a lighter in his car and sometimes blew smoke out the window at other drivers. He won his first race with a flat tire blowing sparks for an entire lap and a half at Charlotte. Yet Pearson kept a low-key strategy for most of his races, surveying the scene ahead and popping out at the last possible moment to strike, which was part of what earned him the nickname Silver Fox. His handsome ruggedness-a "plain old country boy," as Pearson described himself-also packed more than a few gray curls. Richard Petty was his archrival, the only racer on the oval who stood between him and that day's victory.
"[Petty]'s probably the one that made me win as many as I did," Pearson said during his induction into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2011. "I ran hard because he'd make me run hard. Sometimes he'd make a mistake and I'd pass him. Of course, I didn't ever make no mistakes. I always accused him of having big engines when he passed me."
Pearson, across his career with Holman Moody, Wood Brothers, and other teams, never once raced every event for a full season. Yet out of 574 starts, he won 105 times, second only to Petty's 200 wins. Petty, however, entered more than twice as many races.
"I have always been asked who my toughest competitor in my career was," Petty said in a statement. "The answer has always been David Pearson. David and I raced together throughout our careers and battled each other for wins-most of the time finishing first or second to each other. It wasn't a rivalry, but more mutual respect." For the record, NASCAR says Pearson and Petty finished 1-2 in 63 events, with Pearson winning 33 of those.
Pearson scored plenty of firsts. He was first to exceed 190 mph at Daytona, won a record 10 times at Darlington, and scored another record 14 pole positions at Charlotte, 11 of which he secured consecutively from 1973 to 1978 (the track hosted two premier events a year in that era).
Pearson won the 1976 Daytona 500 after a dramatic crash that saw him and Petty spin into the grass on the final turn. He won three championships-and found time to win in Trans-Am-before retiring in 1986 and returning in 1989. Then 54, Pearson decided he would quit for good. Honest and humble, he admitted his body ached and that there was no way he could "do justice to myself and the Wood Brothers."
Other NASCAR drivers, even those who were in grade school when he hung up his overalls, expressed respect and admiration.
"I'd have to say if there was one driver who inspired me the most on the racetrack it was you," Brad Keselowski said on Twitter. "Always gritty, witty and in position at the end when it counted."
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