Cale Yarborough
William Caleb "Cale" Yarborough was born March 27, 1939 in a tiny town in South Carolina, and seemingly cut his racing teeth at an early age. When he was 10 yeras old, he started racing in the soapbox derby, and by age 15, had starting building his first real race car for running the local short tracks. At age 17, he raced in the Southern 500 at Darlington, at a time when the rules said you had to be 21. After getting a firm foot inside of the NASCAR gates, Cale landed a ride with the famed Wood Brothers, piloting their famed #21 Purolator Mercury with success. Handing that ride over years later to David Pearson, Cale found himself teamed up with legendary car owner, and former driver, Junior Johnson, in the late 70's. With sponsorship from Holly Farms, and a fast Chevy, Cale had his most successful years in this combination. This is the time that he won 3 Winston Cup titles. 1976, 77, and 1978. He still holds the record for being the only driver to win 3 consecutive championships. Cale had two races televised that would be his most memorable, the first is the 1979 Daytona 500, where the images of him and Donnie Allison beating and banging into each other stay fresh in every fans mind. Then towards the end of the race, when they collide, and you see both men fighting in the infield, along with Donnie's brother Bobby, that's what racing meant to these guys. The other image of Cale is when he teamed up with Harry Ranier, and in the Hardee's sponsored Chevrolet, using an in-car camera, you see an unforgetable image of Cale, raising his fist in victory after winning the Daytona 500. Oh I almost forgot another one, that really stands out in the history of the sport, Cale racing side by side with Richard Petty, in the 1984 Firecracker 400 at Daytona, both cars touching as they come to the stripe to take a caution flag, which would end the race and award Richard his 200th win. Durin his career Cale competed in 558 races, winning 83 of those, an impressive 14.87 winning percentage, ranking as the fourth best percentage of anyone competeing in more than 300 races. His wins rank him 5th on the all-time leader board. He also won 70 poles, which ranks 3rd on the all-time list. Cale retired as a driver in 1988 and put forth the effort as a car owner. After many years of struggling with sponsorship, his only win as a car owner came at the 1997 Firecracker 400 at Daytona, with driver John Andretti. Cale has stepped aside from ownership for now, concentrating on other business aspects. We miss seeing Cale at the tracks.