Waddell Wilson
Waddell Wilson (born December 29, 1936) is a former NASCAR Winston Cup Series crew chief and engine builder. He was the winning crew chief for the Daytona 500 in 1980, 1983, and 1984. He was crew chief or engine builder for Holman-Moody, Harry Ranier, and Hendrick Motorsports. Drivers included Bobby Allison, Mario Andretti, Buddy Baker, Geoff Bodine, A. J. Foyt, Junior Johnson, Fred Lorenzen, Cale Yarborough and Ricky Rudd. Background Wilson grew up Bakersville, North Carolina. After graduating from the Nashville Auto and Diesel College in Tennessee, he worked for Cummins Diesel in Miami. Career He started driving jalopies, street stocks, and modifieds at the Hialeah, Palmetto and Hollywood short tracks in Florida. "I won a few," Waddell said, "but before long I figured building engines really was my niche." Wilson began as an engine builder for Holman-Moody in the early 1960s and he worked for them into the 1970s. He became recognized after building the engine that Fireball Rob ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bakersville, North Carolina
Bakersville is a town in Mitchell County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 464 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Mitchell County. History In prehistoric times, local mica deposits were extensively mined by Native Americans. The first Euro-American settlers arrived in the area after the American Revolution, establishing scattered homesteads. The town of Bakersville dates from the 1850s and was named for David Baker, a Revolutionary War soldier and one of the first to live in the area around 1790 and described as "a large land owner, innkeeper, merchant and political leader until his death in 1838. Some of David's sons and daughters remained and were equally influential in the area for many years after David's death. " Situated on the main route leading over Roan Mountain and westward into Tennessee, the town developed slowly. Traveler Frederick Law Olmsted passed through Bakersville in the early 1850s and noted that the "town" consisted of only a couple ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Fred Lorenzen
Frederick Lorenzen Jr. (born December 30, 1934), nicknamed The Golden Boy, Fast Freddie, The Elmhurst Express and Fearless Freddy, is a former NASCAR driver from Elmhurst, Illinois. Active from 1958 to 1972, he won 26 races including 1965 Daytona 500. Early life Fred Lorenzen was 15 years of age when he and his Elmhurst, Illinois friends competed in a contest to see who could flip a 1937 Plymouth over first by cranking it around in circles. Lorenzen claimed to be the victor of that confrontation. NASCAR Early career After graduating from high school, Lorenzen began racing modifieds and late models, and made his NASCAR debut in 1956 at Langhorne Speedway, finishing 26th after suffering a broken fuel pump, winning $25. He moved to a USAC stock car, and won the 1958 and 1959 championships driving his Talarico Bros. built Chevrolet. The Holman Moody Years On Christmas Eve 1960, Lorenzen received a phone call from team owner Ralph Moody that would change his career. Moody asked ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Talladega Superspeedway
Talladega Superspeedway, nicknamed “'Dega”, and formerly named Alabama International Motor Speedway (AIMS) from 1969 to 1989, is a motorsports complex located north of Talladega, Alabama. It is located on the former Anniston Air Force Base in the small city of Lincoln. A tri-oval, the track was constructed in 1969 by the International Speedway Corporation, a business controlled by the France Family. , the track hosts the NASCAR Cup Series, NASCAR Xfinity Series, NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, and ARCA Menards Series. Talladega is the longest NASCAR oval, with a length of , compared to the Daytona International Speedway, which is long. The total peak capacity of Talladega is around 175,000 spectators, with the main grandstand capacity being about 80,000. History During the 1960s, William "Bill" France, Sr. wanted to build a track faster and longer than his Daytona International Speedway. After failed attempts to reason with local government in Orange County, North Car ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Benny Parsons
Benjamin Stewart Parsons (July 12, 1941 – January 16, 2007) was an American NASCAR driver, and later an announcer/analyst/pit reporter on SETN, TBS, ABC, ESPN, NBC, and TNT. He became famous as the 1973 NASCAR Winston Cup Series champion, and was a 2017 NASCAR Hall of Fame inductee. He was the older brother of former NASCAR driver, car owner, and broadcaster Phil Parsons of Phil Parsons Racing. He was nicknamed ''"BP"'' and ''The Professor'', the latter in part because of his popular remarks and relaxed demeanor. Early life Parsons was born in Wilkes County, North Carolina. He spent his childhood years in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina and played football at Millers Creek High School (now known as West Wilkes High School). Following high school, he moved to Detroit, Michigan where his father operated a taxicab company. Parsons worked at a gas station and drove cabs in Detroit before beginning his racing career. While working at the gas station one day, a coupl ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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David Pearson (racing Driver)
David Gene Pearson (December 22, 1934 – November 12, 2018) was an American stock car driver, who raced from 1960 to 1986 in the former NASCAR Grand National and Winston Cup Series (now called the NASCAR Cup Series), most notably driving the No. 21 Mercury for Wood Brothers Racing. Pearson won the 1960 NASCAR Rookie of the Year award and three Cup Series championships (1966, 1968, and 1969). He never missed a race in the years he was active. NASCAR described his 1974 season as an indication of his "consistent greatness", finishing third in the season points having competed in only 19 of 30 races. Pearson's career paralleled Richard Petty's, the driver who has won the most races in NASCAR history. They accounted for 63 first/second-place finishes, with the edge going to Pearson. Petty had 200 wins in 1,184 starts, while Pearson had 105 wins in 574 starts. Pearson was nicknamed the "Fox" (and later the "Silver Fox") for his calculated approach to racing. At his finalist nomina ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Pole Position
In a motorsports race, the pole position is usually the best and "statistically the most advantageous" starting position on the track. The pole position is usually earned by the driver with the best qualifying times in the trials before the race. The number-one qualifying driver is also referred to as the pole-sitter. The pole position, pole sitter, starts the race "at the front of the starting grid. This provides the driver in the pole position the privilege of starting ahead of all the other drivers" Grid position is typically determined by a qualifying session before the race, where race participants compete to ascend to the number 1 grid slot, the driver, pilot, or rider having recorded fastest qualification time awarded the advantage of the number 1 grid slot (i.e., the pole-position) ahead of all other vehicles for the start of the race. Historically, the fastest qualifier was not necessarily the designated ''pole-sitter''. Different sanctioning bodies in motor sport em ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Southern 500
The Southern 500, officially known as the Cook Out Southern 500 for sponsorship reasons, is a NASCAR Cup Series stock car race at Darlington Raceway in Darlington, South Carolina, United States. The race distance is and consists of 367 laps. From 1950 to 2003, and again since 2015, the race has been held on Labor Day weekend. The Southern 500 is largely considered one of the Crown Jewels of the NASCAR calendar, and has been nicknamed NASCAR's "oldest superspeedway race." For decades, the race has been considered by competitors and media as one of the more difficult and challenging races on the NASCAR schedule, owing much to the track's unusual, asymmetrical egg-shape, rough pavement, and overall unforgiving nature. Darlington Raceway itself has a long and storied reputation as the "Track Too Tough to Tame." The Southern 500 has a storied history, including Bill Elliott famously winning the Winston Million in 1985, and Jeff Gordon doing the same in 1997. It is also the site ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Fireball Roberts
Edward Glenn "Fireball" Roberts Jr. (January 20, 1929July 2, 1964) was an American stock car racer. Background Roberts was born in Tavares, Florida, and raised in Apopka, Florida, where he was interested in both auto racing and baseball. He was a pitcher for the Zellwood Mud Hens, an American Legion baseball team, where he earned the nickname, "Fireball" because of his fastball. He enlisted with the United States Army Air Corps in 1945, but was discharged after basic training because of his asthma. Racing career He attended the University of Florida and raced on dirt tracks on weekends. In 1947, at the age of eighteen, he raced on the Daytona Beach Road Course at Daytona, for the first time. He won a 150-mile race at Daytona Beach the following year. Roberts also competed in local stock and modified races at Florida tracks such as Seminole Speedway. "Fireball" Roberts continued to amass victories on the circuit, despite the changes in NASCAR, as it moved away from shor ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hialeah Park Race Track
The Hialeah Park Race Track (also known as the Hialeah Race Track or Hialeah Park) is a historic racetrack in Hialeah, Florida. Its site covers 40 square blocks of central-east side Hialeah from Palm Avenue east to East 4th Avenue, and from East 22nd Street on the south to East 32nd Street on the north. On March 5, 1979, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. Another listing for it was added in 1988. The Hialeah Park Race Track is served by the Miami Metrorail at the Hialeah Station at Palm Avenue and East 21st Street. History The Hialeah Park Race Track is one of the oldest existing recreational facilities in southern Florida. Originally opened in 1922 by aviation pioneer Glenn Curtiss and his partner, Missouri cattleman James H. Bright, as part of their development of the town of Hialeah, Florida, Hialeah Park opened as a greyhound racing track operated by the Miami Kennel Club. The Miami Jockey Club launched Hialeah's Thoroughbred horse racing track on ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Modified Racing
Modified stock car racing, also known as modified racing and modified, is a type of auto racing that involves purpose-built cars simultaneously racing against each other on oval tracks. First established in the United States after World War II, this type of racing was early-on characterized by its participants' modification of passenger cars in pursuit of higher speeds, hence the name. There are many sanctioning bodies for modifieds, each specifying different body styles and engine sizes. History A typical early “modified stock car” was, as it name implies, generally a stock automobile, with the glass removed, a roll cage installed, and a souped-up motor. NASCAR began by organizing the modifieds, and ran its first race in Daytona Beach in February 1948 at the beach road course. (In June 1949, NASCAR organized its first “strictly stock” later model car race at Charlotte, NC, which evolved into its well know premiere division.) What started out as minor modifications t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Jalopy
A decrepit car is a car that is often old and damaged and is in a barely functional state. There are many slang terms used to describe such cars, the more popular including junk car, beater, clunker, hooptie, jalopy, shitbox, junker, and banger. Age, neglect, and damage tend to increase the expense of maintaining a vehicle. The vehicle may reach a point where this expense would be considered to outweigh the value of keeping it. Such vehicles are generally stripped for parts or abandoned. However, abandoning a vehicle on the road as a parked car is illegal in many jurisdictions and if a vehicle remains parked, the local authority commonly tows it to the scrapyard. Some owners choose to keep the vehicle. These old, neglected, and oftentimes barely functional cars have been used not only for transport, but also as racing vehicles. Their use has earned them a place in popular culture. History During the 1930s, particularly in the wake of the Great Depression, the market for used ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Miami
Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at the 2020 census, it is the second-most populous city in Florida and the eleventh-most populous city in the Southeastern United States. The Miami metropolitan area is the ninth largest in the U.S. with a population of 6.138 million in 2020. The city has the third-largest skyline in the U.S. with over 300 high-rises, 58 of which exceed . Miami is a major center and leader in finance, commerce, culture, arts, and international trade. Miami's metropolitan area is by far the largest urban economy in Florida and the 12th largest in the U.S., with a GDP of $344.9 billion as of 2017. According to a 2018 UBS study of 77 world cities, Miami is the second richest city in the U.S. and third richest globally in purchasing power. Miami is ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |