Race Card #84-Two In a Row.

L

LUKE'57

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Race Card #84-Two In a Row.

Ralph Moody had to be one of the smartest men in stock car racing and best coach too. After he got the shop end of Holman Moody to match the business end his partner John Holman put together he went on to build drivers.

That THINK WHM! on the dash of Fred Lorenzen's Fords came from Ralph as a reminder that when things weren't going so good to "Think, What the %ell's the Matter".

After Lorenzen retired Ralph picked up a good ol' boy from the cotton mill area of Whitney, just outside of Spartanburg. David Pearson wasn't a green rookie though. He had won three superspeedway races his sophmore year after winning Rookie of the Year honors the season before.

He won his first championship with Cotton Ownens in '66 but left and joined the Ford team in '67 to run the full season. The first year was a learning experience but he came loaded for bear in '68 beating his old Chrysler team mates to win his second championship.

With the "aerowars" in full swing Pearson took advantage of the great handling of a Ralph Moody chassis and Ford's new 429 and his growing reputation as a "thinking man's race driver" to snatch another championship out from under the long nose of the Dodge Daytona.

I'm not sure but I think that Pearson only ran for the championship in four or five seasons preferring to concentrate on the superspeedway "money" races. He won three championships which is probably why his name shows up in the short lists of the greatest stock car drivers every time such a list is mentioned.

Here's my brother's rendition of the "droop snoot" Ford of his '69 championship season.


VVVV84FORD_17.jpg
 
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