A part of the Bobby Isaac Story

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Just a small part indeed. There is much more to this story. One thing which should be clarified up front. The story of Bobby's on the spot retirement at Talledega is basically true. However Bobby never claimed to have heard "voices" telling him to get out the car though the story has been related that way for years. At the time he was driving a Ford for Bud Moore, and Bud relates the story as Bobby called him on the radio and asked Bud to find a driver to finish the race. Bobby said he just couldn't do this anymore. That night Bobby rode home from Talledega with his closest racing friend David Pearson, he told David that he had quit that day. Pearson was stunned and asked him why? According to David, Bobby only said he just wasn't going to be able to to compete at this level anymore. Some years later Ned Jarrett who was promoter for the Hickory Speedway relates he spoke with Bobby just prior to the last race Bobby was ever in. In this conversation according to Ned, Bobby told him, it just ain't right, I've won races, I've won a NAscar championship, and now I can't even compete at these little races.

The Quiet One: Bobby Isaac
by Doug Kennedy

As one publication wrote, "He was a misunderstood champion and a driver few people really knew." During his fourteen year career, this driver took the checkered flag thirty seven times. His name...Bobby Isaac.

In 1970, Isaac won the Winston Cup championship driving for the legendary Harry Hyde. By the summer of 1977, he was dead.

The career of Bobby Isaac is nothing short of dramatic. He was born in 1932 in Catawba, North Carolina, the second to the youngest of nine children. His father died when he was six, forcing his mother to take a job in a furniture store to provide income for the family.

At the age of twelve, Bobby took a job in a sawmill so that, as he said, "I could just buy a pair of shoes." One year later, Bobby would drop out of school, leading to rumors that he could not read or write, a myth he tried to live down throughout his entire life. By the time he reached the age of sixteen, his mother died.

To say that his early life was tough would be an understatement. By seventeen, Bobby saw his first race and immediately became hooked. Shortly after, he bought a 1937 Ford, placed a roll bar in it, and took it to the track. Five years later, he was racing full-time.

1958 may have been the year that helped formulate the career of Bobby Isaac. He would spend that year with the Ralph Earnhardt, racing against him and a host of other future legends like David Pearson and Ned Jarrett. The connections were being made.

For the next five seasons, Isaac got some shots here and there, but it would be in 1963 that he got his first break driving for Ray Nichels. By 1964, Isaac drove nineteen races and won one of the Daytona qualifiers. In that race, Isaac won in a photo finish when Richard Petty, who was leading by a half lap with one to go, ran out of gas. Isaac was able to barely cross in front of Petty at the finish, one that was not determined until four hours later.

The following year, NASCAR ruled against the use of the hemi engine forcing the team to move over to the USAC circuit. Nichels and his team would return late in that season, but Bobby decided to quit the operation to drive for Junior Johnson's Ford team. That was the same year that Ford would boycott the circuit for part of the season, leaving Isaac without a ride. When Ford did return, Bobby was fired.

So here he was, without a ride. He had quit the Dodge team and was not wanted by the Ford team. But his fortunes would change the following year when Nord Krauskopf and his company, K&K Insurance, fielded a car for the '67 season. Harry Hyde was chosen as the team's chief mechanic and selected Bobby to be their driver. By 1968, Isaac had taken the team to a second place finish in the point standings.

Hopes were obviously high for the 1969 season, and it clearly became Bobby's most productive one when he drove that #71 orange and white Dodge Daytona to victory lane 17 times. He also scored 20 poles, and was voted the most popular driver by the fans, but unfortunately not by his fellow drivers. Those 20 poles in one season are still a NASCAR record.

What happened in August of that year led to Isaac being tabbed as a "loner" and perhaps one who could not be trusted. A group of eleven premier drivers, including Richard Petty, David Pearson, Cale Yarborough, and Bobby Allison, met to discuss driver issues and to possibly boycott the inaugural Talladega race because of their fears of safety issues with the track. Isaac was not invited to that meeting and consequently did not become a member of the PDA (Professional Driver's Association).

Sure enough, the PDA group did not compete at Talladega, while Isaac did, finishing fourth. From that point on, I think Bobby may have been viewed as somewhat of a scab by his fellow drivers.

1970, however, turned out to be a banner year for the thirty-six-year-old driver, as he not only won the championship, but drove to 11 more wins and 13 poles. In the process, he was named as driver of the year. Those 37 career wins came in just 308 starts, twenty-eight of them coming over that two year period.

Bobby Isaac was a man born for speed. Following the 1970 season, he took his Dodge to Talladega Superspeedway and broke the old closed track record of Buddy Baker by nearly one mile per hour (201.104).

Isaac and his team did not try to defend their Winston Cup Championship in 1971 because of Chrysler's cutback in their budget for racing. The company had decided to have only two full-time cars run in that year under the banner of Petty Enterprises. Richard would get a Plymouth and Buddy Baker, a Dodge. The other Mopar teams, which included the Isaac operation, were given a very limited budget. As a result, the team ran only about half the schedule which included the bigger purse races.

By not running all the races, there was a lull in the schedule in the fall of 1971. The team decided to once again take Isaac and his Dodge to the Bonneville Salt Flats, where he set twenty-eight world class records. Many of those still exist today.

Isaac personally chose to cut back on his schedule after 1970. During a race at Talladega in 1973, one in which he was leading, Bobby Isaac suddenly pulled into the pits, climbed out of the car, and retired on the spot. He claimed that he had heard voices warning him to quit.

For the next three seasons, he drove non-competitively, running his final Winston Cup event on May 30, 1976 at Charlotte and finishing 38th.

In August of 1977, Isaac was doing what he loved, competing in a short track race at Hickory, North Carolina on a Saturday night. Suddenly, Bobby stopped his car with twenty-five laps remaining, climbed out, and collapsed, suffering a fatal heart attack.

Years later, the accolades would follow. In 1996, Bobby Isaac was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in Talladega. The Bobby Issac Memorial Award was named after him. This achievement goes to the individual or group that best contributes to short track and weekly racing.

In the corporate, public relations driven world of racing that we know today, Bobby Isaac would have been a liability. His shyness and lack of PR savvy would probably have prevented him from ever getting a prestigious or for that matter any type of full-time ride. You see, all Bobby Isaac wanted to do was drive, something he did extremely well.

Somehow I think that if Bobby Isaac were still alive today, you would hear the voices saying, "Please don't let me be misunderstood."
 
Bobby Isaac was my first favorite driver. As a child I used to run laps around our house making an engine noise and yelling "I'm Bobby Isaac." Of course, I still do this, but people don't seem to find it as cute. Bobby was a true talent behind a wheel, if maybe not behind a microphone. Sound familiar, Home Depot?
 
Bobby Isaac was an awsome race-car driver. Harry Hyde, in my opinion, was the greatest crew chief that ever turned a wrench in NASCAR. He was magic working on a race car. He is the reason that Rick Hendrick got into auto-racing, and helped build the foundation for the juggernaut that Hendrick Motorsports became.

Both of them are greatly missed.
 
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