How driver-owners have played key role in NASCAR's long history

From the day NASCAR’s founder, Bill France Sr., oversaw the running of the first Strictly Stock race on June 19, 1949, at North Carolina's Charlotte Fairgrounds, there have been driver-owners within the fold of NASCAR’s top-tier divisions.

Over the past 75 years, the vast majority of NASCAR drivers have been hired by team owners to wheel their cars. Some drivers have chosen to drive and manage the business side of the team themselves, thus creating a driver-owner scenario that has surfaced within NASCAR’s storied history.

Lee Petty formed Petty Enterprises in 1949, recorded 54 wins and won NASCAR championships in 1954, 1958 and 1959. In 1964, he turned his attention to team ownership after suffering a near-fatal crash three years earlier at Daytona. He operated the team until his full retirement in the early 1970s when he passed the business on to his sons, Richard and Maurice. Richard collected 200 wins and seven career Daytona 500 victories before his retirement from driving in 1992. All told counting wins from other drivers for Petty Enterprises, the organization is credited with 268 wins and 10 Cup Series championships.

“Daddy didn’t even start driving until he was 35 years old,” Richard said. “He did some other things before that to support the family but decided on driving race cars to make a living. He was the first driver that I know of that began making a living solely from driving race cars. Racing is just what he did. That was just a way of life for the Pettys and still is. Other than some farming, we didn’t really do anything but race.”

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Independent drivers are those who raced in the Cup Series without financial backing from the big three automakers — General Motors, Chrysler or Ford — or major corporate sponsors. In the 1960s and '70s, it was once a long list and one name on it was Richard Childress, a driver in the Cup Series from 1969 until 1981. He entered 285 Cup races with no wins but logged six top-fives and 76 top-10s over 12 seasons.

After starting 20 Winston Cup races in 1981, he elected to step away from the driver’s seat as a way to adjust to what was becoming a very expensive sport. Dale Earnhardt, the reigning Cup Series champion, was the perfect driver to put in his car with 10 races remaining in the 1981 season. Earnhardt went on to collect 67 of his 76 career wins with Childress, as well as six of his seven Cup Series championships.

Others, such as Ricky Rudd, Darrell Waltrip and Alan Kulwicki, as well as modern-era drivers Tony Stewart and Brad Keselowski, to name only a few, also have been successful driver-owners.

Rudd logged 23 wins during his career from 1975 through 2007. The Virginia native drove for Moore, Childress, Kenny Bernstein, Rick Hendrick and Robert Yates but six of those wins came while driving his own Rudd Performance Motorsports Fords from 1994 through 1999.

Waltrip won Winston Cup championships with team owner Junior Johnson in 1981, '82 and '85 as well as 84 career victories. He also drove for Hendrick for six seasons but what was billed as “The Dream Team” didn’t materialize. Waltrip returned to team ownership as he had done at the start of his career in 1972 and logged one win in 1975 as a driver-owner and logged five more from 1991 through 1998.

Kulwicki became a NASCAR champion in 1992 while driving his own Fords with only a dozen crew members against the sport’s mammoth organizations with three times the number of employees.

Kulwicki won twice in 1992 at Bristol Motor Speedway and Pocono Raceway. His consistent 11 top-fives and 17 top-10 finishes paved the way for a nail-biting finish at Atlanta Motor Speedway between himself and 1988 champion Bill Elliott. Kulwicki won the title by a mere 10 points for leading at least one lap and another five points for leading the most laps.

“The goal was to win a lot of races and championships. There’s a lot of satisfaction in doing it (team ownership) this way,” Kulwicki said during NASCAR’s Winston Cup Awards Banquet in New York in December of 1992. “…I hope in the year to come I will be a good representative. I hope when 1993 is over that the people at Winston (R.J. Reynolds-series sponsor), the people at NASCAR and all the competitors look back and say we were proud to have him represent us as our champion.”

Kulwicki was unable to defend his title, as he lost his life in an airplane crash on April 1, 1993, while flying to Bristol Motor Speedway.

Tony Stewart won his third Cup title in 2011 and became the first driver-owner to pull off a championship since Kulwicki. Stewart won two Cup Series titles with Joe Gibbs Racing in 2002 and '05 before making the decision to join team owner Gene Haas to form Stewart-Haas Racing in 2009.

The Columbus, Indiana, native won five of the final 10 races including the final race at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Having been tied in points with Carl Edwards of Roush Fenway Racing at race’s end, the title went to Stewart by virtue of more victories during the season.

“…No matter what the record books say at the end of the day and the greats that are a part of it, it’s a huge honor just to be in those record books with those guys,” Stewart said. “I don’t care how many races you win, how many championships you win, you never feel like you measure up to the greats of the sport. That’s what makes trying so much fun.”

Owner-drivers are rare now. Brad Keselowski, NASCAR’s 2012 champion and winner of 35 races, is part-owner of RFK Racing with fellow team owners Jack Roush and John Henry. He continues his driving career with the Concord, N.C.-based organization and searches for his first victory of 2023 while teammate and hired driver Chris Buescher has three wins this season.

“(It’s) tremendous to get up front and to be able to control races, just execute at a very high level while also having the pace and just earn it,” Keselowski said after finishing second to Buescher at Daytona on Aug. 26. “We're not winning races that we don't deserve to win. You certainly have races that you lose that you probably deserve to win. Probably goes both ways. I think you look at the wins that RFK has had this year, they're not fluke wins, they're earned wins. We're proud of that….”

This week's NASCAR race

• What: Bass Pro Shops Night Race at Bristol

• When: Saturday, 6:30 p.m.

• Watch: USA

This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: How driver-owners have been key to NASCAR history