Pancho and Tiny

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HardScrabble

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An old timers story from the '60's. I remember the tale and years later the sad end it relates.

Marvin and Tiny


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By Steve Samples

One of the most underrated drivers in stock car racing history is Marvin Panch. Known as 'Pancho' by his fellow chauffeurs, Marvin piloted the Wood Brothers Ford, and assorted other vehicles to seventeen Grand National/Winston Cup victories. Unfortunately the race for which Marvin is most often remembered did not involve a stock car.

The year was 1963, and like many drivers of his era, Marvin competed not only in stock cars, but in sports cars as well. As preparation began for the 1963 Daytona 500, Panch and the Wood Brothers were riding high. The newly released 427 cubic inch Ford V-8, which delivered a street rated 425 horsepower, was designed specifically to outclass the 421 Pontiac which dominated the Grand National circuit the previous season. This high displacement package provided the Ford factory teams with a dominant power plant to build their NASCAR modified racing engines. Additionally, the fastback design of the Ford Galaxie was aerodynamically superior to anything in the GM or Chrysler camp, and the folks at FoMoCo were salivating at the chance to win the first superspeedway race of the year.

For Marvin Panch things couldn't be better. He had landed a ride in a Masarati for the preliminary sports car race prior to the 500. Though now referred to as the 24 Hours of Daytona, the race was originally a three-hour event. Panch had hoped to take home first place in his Masarati in the comparativly short sports car race, and then win the 500 in his Fastback Ford.

Unfortunately for Marvin, one of stock car racing's all time tragedies was about to unfold. While roaring down the backstretch in the high-powered sports coupe, Marvin tangled with another car. His Masarati flipped and burst into flames. Unlike modern day machines with puncture proof fuel cells and automatic fire extinguishers, the cars of Marvins day offered little protection against gas spills and their resulting infernos. Sadly this day at Daytona resulted in Marvin suffering severe burns over 67% of his body. His saving grace was a bystander named Dewayne "Tiny" Lund. Tiny was a huge man weighing well over 300 pounds, and a regular on the Grand National tour. Usually driving an independent car, with little chance to win, Tiny simply happened to be a spectator that day. His presence saved Marvin Panches life. As the Masarati rolled to a halt, Tiny reached inside the vehicle and pulled Panch to safety. He quickly helped other bystanders extinguish the flames, and Marvin was rushed to the hospital where he fought for his life for several weeks.

Through sheer mental toughness, and the ability to withstand enormous pain, Marvin recovered. Though it was expected he would never drive again, 'Pancho' fooled everyone by not only returning, but driving the Wood Brothers Ford to a photo finish at the very same track where he was critically burned just five months earlier. Although he finished third that day behind Fireball Roberts and Fred Lorenzen, Marvin had proven his point. He had gone from a bed ridden burn victim, to within a mili second of winning at the same speedway which nearly took his life. His lead foot remained, and his willingness to win at the cost of great personal pain and sacrifice was rewarded. Marvin Panch would see victory lane another nine times before finally retiring in 1966.

Despite losing their driver for the 500 in February, the Wood Brothers had a happy ending to a horrifying month. Their replacement for Panch in the famed number 21 Ford, was "Tiny" Lund, the very man who saved Marvins life, and his career. Tiny dominated the field that February day, and won the Daytona 500. When interviewed in victory circle, he was asked what he planned to do with all the money. "Pay my damn debts," Tiny responded. And no one was happier than Marvin Panch that Tiny could do just that.

For the next nine years Tiny Lund competed in 161 Grand National events. He saw victory circle another four times. By 1972 he had tired of racing and retired to his fish camp in Cross, South Carolina. But racing was in the big mans blood, and in 1972 he tried a brief comeback. Tiny raced only four events that year, and after making five starts in 1973 he decided to hang it up for good.

After staying out of the game for almost two years, Tiny once again contemplated racing and his love for speed. He shopped around and found a ride for the Talledega 500, an event held on a racetrack very similar to the one where he had seen his greatest career day. Sadly the big racetrack would take the life of Tiny Lund. It was his first and only start of the 1975 season.

America lost a folk hero that day, but if you're ever at Daytona International Speedway on a February day, be sure to look up. You might just see a big man smiling. February of 1963 provided Tiny Lund's finest moment... and it wasn't winning the Daytona 500.
 
Being from Iowa, I am interested in anything to do with Tiny Lund. Thanks for the great story HS. My dad used to tell me stories about Tiny and Ramo Stott running the local dirt tracks around here. Both were great drivers. Tiny is a hero for pulling Panch from that fire. He recieved a medal of honor for that I believe.

Although a nice person, Tiny was a man to be feared when you got him angry. He once punched a guy who wrecked him so hard that he had to be revived at a local hospital heh. I doubt that his 6' 6" 280lb frame could even fit inside today's stock cars.

RIP Tiny Lund.
 
It would be interesting to see Tiny trying to fit through the window of one of today's car. :)

Don't know if you remember the details of the "punch". If not this is the story.

During the Grand National season's Northern Tour of 1966, one of the races was held at the Fonda Speedway, a half mile dirt track in New York. Built along the edges of the Erie Canal, Fonda was notorious for having drivers lose control and end up sailing out of the ballpark. On the first lap of that race JT Putney lost control coming out of turn two and went sailing off the track in the direction of the Erie Canal. Putney was able to regain control, and went roaring off down a dirt road that ran between the canal and the race track. When he got to the third turn, he tried to reenter the race track, but wound up directly in the path of Tiny Lund. Lund hit Putney broadside and they were both out of the race. Infuriated Tiny, who was anything but, found Putney in the infield and hit him again…with his fist. Putney went out like a light. He had to be revived at a nearby hospital. NASCAR only fined Tiny Lund 100 dollars, deciding he had been "provoked" by Putney's ill considered move.
 
Heres an article written when Tiny was inducted into the Iowa Sports Hall of Fame back in 1990.

The deal with the roller skates on top of Lorenzen's car is great!:)

Daytona drama fueled Lund's career
By JANE BURNS
Register Staff Writer
07/15/1990

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It didn't seem as if DeWayne "Tiny" Lund would win a race coasting. He was an aggressive driver, a vivacious personality, the kind of guy you'd figure would roar across the finish line the way he roared through life.

But there he was in the winner's circle of the 1963 Daytona 500, howling with joy and saying his Ford ran out of gas on the final turn and he had to float across the finish line with an empty tank.

Because of that victory and a successful career as a NASCAR driver, Lund of Harlan, Ia., enters the Des Moines Sunday Register's Iowa Sports Hall of Fame.

To hear Lund tell it back then was to hear a dramatic story. One driver, then another fell off to make pit stops, leaving Lund alone at the finish, cruising on fumes to the biggest victory of his career.

It was a great story, said Glen Wood, the owner of Lund's 1963 Gord. It's just too bad it wasn't true.

"He just imagined it, I guess," Wood said. "He had taken the checkered flag and went around the track. Then we loaded the car onto the truck and it still had fuel in it. It could have sputtered on the final turn and maybe he thought he was out of gas. But it hadn't sputtered all day."

The car may have had fuel, but it didn't have much. After a caution flag after the 36th lap, the other racers made five pit stops that day, including Fred Lorenzen and Ned Jarrett. Those two led most of the way.

Lund made just four pit stops.

"He made a gamble," Lorenzen said of Lund. "He made it, I didn't. I just got outsmarted on the gas. It wasn't calculated right. It wasn't often that I was outsmarted, but I was that day."

It was a gamble, Wood said. Just simple arithmetic.

The equation began with that first caution flag. Lund got his refill of 20 gallons of fuel at the 36th lap, rather than on the 40th lap as planned. That gave the crew four laps to play with, and that's just what they did, Wood said.

Not only did Wood own the car, but he called the signals from the pit. Wood and his brothers made up the premier pit crew of the 1960s. Wood's strategy and his crew were the keys to the 1963 Daytona. When Lund made his second stop after another 40 laps without any problem, Wood told him to try 42 laps the next time. If that would work twice, Lund would have the victory in the 200-lap race.

"At the end, we only had 40 laps to go," Wood said. "Nobody else did that. They all came in near the end."

All except Tiny Lund, the stocky stock car racer who came to Daytona Beach, Fla., expecting to work on a pit crew, not take the checkered flag.

Even without Lund's embellishments, his victory was still a good story.

A week before the Daytona 500, Marvin Panch was the driver for the Woods. But Panch flipped a MAserati-Ford in a test run at Daytona Speedway. Lund, at 6 feet 4 inches and 250 pounds, led rescuers through waist-high flames to free Panch from his overturned car. The accident left Panch in the hospital recovering from burns and the Woods without a driver. It earned Lund the Carnegie Medal for Heroism.

Most of the other drivers the Woods had in their entourage had raced primarily on dirt tracks. What Glen Wood needed for this race was an experienced NASCAR driver who could race the paved track of Daytona.

Lund, an eight-year NASCAR veteran, came to the rescue again.

"It came down to that Tiny would be the most likely to win the race," Wood said. "He was an aggressive-type driver and a good driver."

Started 12th

Wood wasn't dismayed by Lund's size. "In recent years, weight is more important," Wood said, but not in 1963. "He weighed down the left side of the car and that's where you needed the extra weight."

Lund started the race 12th and stayed close in the field, which included A.J. Foyt, Richard Petty and rookie Johnny Rutherford. A drenching rain and 50-mph winds delayed the start by an hour and a half. When the race did begin, it was slow, with the first 10 laps run at 97 mph under a caution flag to dry the track.

When the track dried and the 40 racers were off, Lund patiently stayed among the leaders. Car after car broke down, leaving Lorenzen and Jerrett at the front, with Lund just behind.

Lorenzen and Jarrett stuck together, saving fuel by drafting with each other. In a draft, the trailing car is carried by a vacuum created by the lead car. Lund got in on the drafting trio by taking the lead at the 395th mile. Lorenzen and Jarrett made pit stops with 44 laps left. Lund came in with 40 laps left.

"I thought I could make it," Jarrett said. He tried to save as much gas as possible, and the drafting helped. But when Lorenzen went in to fill up with seven laps left, Jarrett knew he was in trouble.

"That slowed me down because I didn't have anyone to draft with," Jarrett said.

Getting a Lift

Lund had his own way of saving gas. He bummed a ride off Jarrett by slowing down in front of him enough to get a push around the track. "I was just returning the favor," Jarrett said of the push he gave Lund. "He taught me to do that. Tiny would always do that. It took a lot of guts and made other drivers real nervous."

It turned out Jarrett was the one who needed the push, and he came in for more gas with two laps left.

"Then it was all coming down to us," Wood said. "When were we going to stop? Everyone in the stands was standing and the announcer was shouting 'Can he make it?' Every lap he would count how many he had left. It became real suspenseful."

Lund made it, and made $24,600 for doing so. His time was 3 hours 17 minutes 50 seconds -- an average of 151.566 mph.

Lorenzen was second, 24 seconds behind, followed by Jarrett.

"A Good Guy"

Losing to Lund wasn't too painful, Lorenzen said. "It went to a good person," he said. "Tiny was a good guy, one of the best down there."

Lorenzen said Lund took him under his wing when Lorenzen first hit the circuit from Illinois in the late 1950s. "He took me under because I was a Yankee from the North," Lorenzen said. Lund also had relocated to the South, living in Lake Moultrie, S.C.

When Lorenzen was 19 and racing on dirt tracks, he rolled his car before a race in North Carolina. "Tiny said 'Come on, we'll fix it,'" Lorenzen said. "I said I didn't have any money, but he said his guys would take care of it."

After days of working and nights of only a few hours' sleep, the car was finished -- with one difference.

"We walked in and there were roller skates on top of the car," Lorenzen said. "Tiny said, 'If you roll over again, you can just keep going.'"

Those were the old, fun days of racing. It's changed, Lorenzen said.

"There's more money in it and the cars are shinier," he said. "But overall, it's four tires and a brain. And young squirts blowing the old guys off the track. Tiny never hit that stuff."

Fatal Accident

At the Talladega 500 in 1975, Lund was killed when his car was hit on the driver's side by Terry Link. The night before, he had been racing at Jarrett's dirt track in Hickory, N.C.

Lorenzen is now selling real estate in Oak Brook, Ill., a suburb of Chicago. Jarrett is part of the racing broadcast teams for ESPN, CBS and the Nashville Network.

Wood is now in his 41st year of racing. His driver this year was Neil Bonnett, but he was injured and replaced with Jarrett's son, Dale. It has been a long career and Wood has seen a lot of racers. But he still remembers Tiny Lund fondly.

"Tiny's picture hangs with all the great ones that raced for us," he said.
 
Thanks HardScrabble,
I was six that year and my dad had taken my two older brothers to Daytona for their first Winston Cup race. When they returned I learned about the sport and these fascinating names that sounded larger than life. The Wood brothers, "Tiny" Lund, Petty, the names intrigued me. A. J. Foyt, Fred Lorenzen and my favorite just because of his name, "Fireball" Roberts, they SOUNDED like race car drivers. I'been watching ever since.
 
No problem Saluda..

But most all - - - Welcome to the board!!!:D

Have fun; dig around, and join in.

Hope to see ya in print soon.:)
 
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