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One of my personal all time favorites, and one of the best.
The Silver Fox
David Pearson left NASCAR as one of the most dominating drivers the sport has ever seen, setting records for career and season winning percentage, and wins on superspeedways.
By DAVID NEWTONSenior Writer
Spartanburg
David Pearson leaned against his black 1997 pickup truck parked behind the YMCA, small beads of sweat still on his forehead from his daily workout and an early morning incident with another driver still on his mind."The damndest thing happened to me this morning," he said.Pearson then began telling how a female driver cut him off as he attempted to pull out of a greasy spoon joint a few blocks away, then blamed him for almost causing an accident.He got a glazed look in his eyes as he told how the woman rolled down her car window and shouted, "You seen me with my signals on. What's wrong with you?""I sat there and said, 'Woman, what are you talking about?' " Pearson recalled.
Pearson's voice raised an octave or two, the way it probably did in 1976 when he yelled over the radio in his No. 21 Purolator Mercury that "the (witch) hit me."
Only in 1976 he was referring to a famous last-lap run-in at the Daytona 500 with Richard Petty, the soon-to-be King of Winston Cup racing, and not a local pedestrian.
"I've never seen anything like it," said Pearson, still talking about the female driver. "She said, 'If you don't quit messing with me I'm going to call the law.'"I said, 'Lady, you've got problems.' "
From the time he was NASCAR's rookie of the year in 1960 until he retired in 1986, few messed with the man known as the "Silver Fox" when he was behind the wheel. He won more races (105) than any driver in stock car history except Petty, who won 200.He captured more poles (113) than any driver except Petty, who won 113. His career winning percentage (18.3 percent) is the best for a driver who competed in at least 240 races. His winning percentage (.611) in 1973 is the best for a season.His record on super speedways, where he amassed 54 wins and 64 pole positions, is second to none.
Of the four times he ran a full Winston Cup schedule he won the points title three times.
Pearson was so dominant that in 2000, Sports Illustrated picked him over Petty as the "Driver of the Century.""A century is a long time," Pearson said with a wry smile.
Pearson still lives in Spartanburg, where he was born and raised in a mill village called Whitney. He lives in a home on 105 acres near the outskirts of town, where he is as comfortable on one of his two tractors as he is on one of his two Harley motorcycles.He also has a home in the mountains where he often disappears for days without telling anybody.
Pearson looks unusually fit for a 67-year-old who 10 months ago had four bypasses. He has a girlfriend -- his wife passed away about 12 years ago -- and a schedule that keeps him busy from the time he wakes up at the crack of dawn until he arrives home at 9 p.m.He typically begins the day with breakfast at a local restaurant, then heads to the YMCA for a two-hour workout that includes 40 minutes on the treadmill, 10 to 15 minutes of weightlifting and stretching.
On this day he has an appointment with a judge in Greenville to help a family member who recently got a speeding ticket, a business lunch and an afternoon round of golf.At one time he ran a car business and a driving school for would-be racers for extra income. Now he relies on rental property.
He still has a suite in the Pearson Tower at Darlington Raceway, where his 10 victories make him the track's all-time winner. He typically attends races there and Charlotte, where he holds the records for most consecutive poles won (11).
Money doesn't seem to be a problem. His name is on a plaque in the YMCA, where he used to sit in the sauna to prepare for the heat in a car on race day; he made a sizable donation toward YMCA's men's health club.
Jim Hunter, who drove all over the country with Pearson when both worked for Dodge, said Pearson is the same today as he was 30 years ago."He is the most unpretentious superstar I've ever known," said Hunter, now NASCAR's vice president for communications. "He doesn't like bringing any attention to himself. He doesn't put a lot of stock in him being a celebrity."He can't understand why people think it's such a big deal. He just drove a race car."
GRADUATE OF WMU
The Whitney Yarn Mills sign still stands out among the Kudzu and weeds on a stretch of Highway 221, otherwise known as David Pearson Boulevard, leading into Spartanburg.But the factory that once dominated the landscape has been reduced to a pile of brick rubble baking in the summer heat.Pearson worked in the mill for three months taking cloth off spindles. When others talk about what college they attended he jokingly says he attended WMU -- Whitney Mills University.
"I knew I was just going to do that until somebody built me a car," Pearson said. "I always said even when I was in high school I was going to drive race cars for a living after I saw my first race."
Pearson was introduced into stock car racing at Spartanburg Fairgrounds, where he first met future car owner Cotton Owens. He was better on dirt tracks such as Greenville-Pickens Speedway than on super speedways.
"Back when I first started, I won a bunch in Greenville," Pearson said. "In '59 I won 39 out of 42 races. That's when I went to Winston Cup, or Grand National racing as they called it then."
Pearson said he won the first time he raced on asphalt. He recalled how short track star Banjo Matthews was brought to a race once "just to beat me.""I just about lapped him," Pearson said.
Pearson broke into Winston Cup racing in 1960 and won the rookie of the year award."When I first started, I bought my own car from Jack Smith," he said. "I went to Daytona knowing I didn't have enough money to buy tires when I left here. I decided when I got there I was going to call my dad and get him to send money. I knew if I asked him before I left he'd have said, 'No, stay home.' "
Pearson won three points championships (1966, '68 and '69), one for Owens and two for Holman-Moody."When I was with Cotton, I worked up there practically every day," Pearson said. "I did all the welding on the cars."
Hunter said Pearson had a better knowledge of a car than anybody he knew."He wasn't just a guy they bolted into a car and said turn left," he said. "He was a thinking driver, and also mechanical. He was a lot like Jeff Gordon is today. He could tell what the car was doing and tell somebody what changes to make."His car would always get better as the race went on."
Hunter said Pearson is the best all-around driver he has seen. Petty agreed, saying: "Pearson could beat you on a dirt track, he could beat you on a paved track, he could beat you on a road course, he could beat you on a superspeedway, he could beat you on a short track."I never felt as bad about losing to Pearson as I did some of the others because I knew how good he was."
Amazingly, Pearson never won a points title with the Wood Brothers because Purolator didn't provide enough sponsorship money for him to run a full circuit.But the races they ran, which were mostly on the superspeedways, they dominated. Pearson never was more dominant than in '73, when he won 11 of 18 races, including a record 10 superspeedway wins in a row.
"When he got with the Wood Brothers, that was an unbeatable combination," Hunter said.It was during those years that Pearson earned the nickname "Silver Fox" because of his silver hair and his uncanny ability to outfox the competition."Pearson knew you had to finish to win," Hunter said. "When he was young, he was a real hard charger. As he matured, he would hang back and all of a sudden that last 100 miles, people would be saying, 'Where'd he come from?' "That earned Pearson another nickname: "Sandbagger."
"There were a lot of times I didn't run hard all the time because I didn't have to," Pearson said. "But if you go back and look at a place like Charlotte where they paid lap money, I led those laps."
Pearson said more times than not the car truly ran better at the end."That's how smart the Wood Brothers were," he said. "We were changing that car all along and nobody ever knew it. They would measure tires and change the wedge and change the tire pressure and things like that; we were doing at least a year or two before anyone else started doing it."
Pearson, who also was one of the first to fly his own airplane and helicopter, said there's no telling how many titles he would have won had he run a full schedule for the Wood Brothers."With the Wood Brothers," Pearson said, "every time I got on the track I felt I had a chance to win."
THE SILVER PRANKSTER
Hunter was sitting at a red light in a small Midwest town, driving Pearson to a race as he often did, when Pearson began insisting the driver of the car in the other lane wanted to race.Without much prodding, Hunter began revving the engine, preparing to get a fast jump when the light turned green.Yellow.Green.Hunter hit the gas. Pearson hit the gearshift to reverse, sending the car careening into a truck behind them."It was funny," Hunter said. "He was always pulling pranks like that."Although he was a quiet, shy man in many respects, Pearson loved to pull pranks. He pulled many on Hunter .
Hunter recalled how Pearson once reached over and slammed the accelerator to the floor, sending the car above 100 mph r. When the police officer who pulled them over came to the window, Pearson began shouting: "He's a lunatic. I told him to slow down. Take his (butt) to jail."
Once, at a Holiday Inn in Griffin, Ga., Pearson was having breakfast with friends when Leonard Wood arrived. Pearson told Wood that the waitress had trouble hearing, and he needed to talk loudly.Pearson and others, knowing the waitress could hear fine, broke into laughter when Wood shouted his order.
One of Hunter's favorite Pearson pranks was pulled on driver Bobby Isaac, who also was one of Pearson's closest friends."They was always betting each other you can't do this or that," Hunter said. "One day Pearson got a bunch of his friends to stand outside a hotel room window in Talladega. He then bet Isaac he couldn't turn a flip on the bed and land on his feet."Well, Bobby started jumping on the bed and Pearson told him he could probably do that better with his shoes off. He finally got Isaac to his shorts. While he was bouncing, Pearson pulled the blind that about 30 people were hiding behind and said, 'Look at that fool.' "
Pearson recalled how once he pretended to have a flat tire while driving another driver back to the hotel in Darlington."He got out to look and I left him," Pearson said with a laugh. "He walked a pretty good ways before I picked him up. I was always doing stuff like that."
RICHARD WHO?
A young man stopped in the YMCA parking lot to watch Pearson pose for pictures. Unaware of Pearson's accomplishments, he was told Pearson might be recognized as the best driver in NASCAR history were it not for Petty."Who is that?" Pearson said when he heard Petty's name.
There haven't been many better rivalries in sports than Petty and Pearson. They are perhaps best remembered for the last-lap crash at the 1976 Daytona 500, when Petty drifted high making a pass for the lead and sent both drivers into the wall.As Petty's Dodge sat stalled about 100 yards short of the finish line, Pearson nursed his car around, working the starter over and over, to capture his only win in NASCAR's Super Bowl event."The race I'll be remembered most for -- and the one I'll remember most -- is the one I lost," Petty once said.
Pearson spent most of his career in the shadow of the seven-time Winston Cup champion. Had he run more full schedules and been more outgoing, Pearson said things would have been different."I'd have made more money," he said.
But it wasn't Pearson's personality to be outgoing. There were times when he left the track after a win without doing interviews."I remember at Dover, I won a race one time, took my shower, changed my clothes and went home and nobody knew it," he said.
Pearson recalled how he once saw Petty ask a reporter if he wanted an interview."I never would have done nothing like that," he said. "It hurt me in the long run. I wasn't really educated good. I didn't know what to say. I was afraid I'd say the wrong thing. I would actually would hide from newspaper reporters.
"I'd do my talking on the race track."Pearson said one of his favorite ploys was to let Petty walk out into the infield first after a race."The crowd would go with him," he said. "When they did that, I'd go the other way."
But Pearson never believed he was second best to anybody."I always felt like I was better than anybody," he said. "If you feel like somebody is better than you are, they're going to beat you every time."
Hunter is convinced Pearson still could do well against today's top drivers. He didn't rule out a comeback, reminding that Pearson never announced his retirement after making a brief comeback in '88.
"Yeah, I'm retired," said Pearson, saying he'd have a difficult time racing today with all of NASCAR's rules and regulations. "I've got enough around here to keep me busy."
Such as women who want to tell him how to drive."That was the damndest thing I ever saw," Pearson said. "I just told her, 'Lady, you've got problems,' and drove away."
The Silver Fox
David Pearson left NASCAR as one of the most dominating drivers the sport has ever seen, setting records for career and season winning percentage, and wins on superspeedways.
By DAVID NEWTONSenior Writer
Spartanburg
David Pearson leaned against his black 1997 pickup truck parked behind the YMCA, small beads of sweat still on his forehead from his daily workout and an early morning incident with another driver still on his mind."The damndest thing happened to me this morning," he said.Pearson then began telling how a female driver cut him off as he attempted to pull out of a greasy spoon joint a few blocks away, then blamed him for almost causing an accident.He got a glazed look in his eyes as he told how the woman rolled down her car window and shouted, "You seen me with my signals on. What's wrong with you?""I sat there and said, 'Woman, what are you talking about?' " Pearson recalled.
Pearson's voice raised an octave or two, the way it probably did in 1976 when he yelled over the radio in his No. 21 Purolator Mercury that "the (witch) hit me."
Only in 1976 he was referring to a famous last-lap run-in at the Daytona 500 with Richard Petty, the soon-to-be King of Winston Cup racing, and not a local pedestrian.
"I've never seen anything like it," said Pearson, still talking about the female driver. "She said, 'If you don't quit messing with me I'm going to call the law.'"I said, 'Lady, you've got problems.' "
From the time he was NASCAR's rookie of the year in 1960 until he retired in 1986, few messed with the man known as the "Silver Fox" when he was behind the wheel. He won more races (105) than any driver in stock car history except Petty, who won 200.He captured more poles (113) than any driver except Petty, who won 113. His career winning percentage (18.3 percent) is the best for a driver who competed in at least 240 races. His winning percentage (.611) in 1973 is the best for a season.His record on super speedways, where he amassed 54 wins and 64 pole positions, is second to none.
Of the four times he ran a full Winston Cup schedule he won the points title three times.
Pearson was so dominant that in 2000, Sports Illustrated picked him over Petty as the "Driver of the Century.""A century is a long time," Pearson said with a wry smile.
Pearson still lives in Spartanburg, where he was born and raised in a mill village called Whitney. He lives in a home on 105 acres near the outskirts of town, where he is as comfortable on one of his two tractors as he is on one of his two Harley motorcycles.He also has a home in the mountains where he often disappears for days without telling anybody.
Pearson looks unusually fit for a 67-year-old who 10 months ago had four bypasses. He has a girlfriend -- his wife passed away about 12 years ago -- and a schedule that keeps him busy from the time he wakes up at the crack of dawn until he arrives home at 9 p.m.He typically begins the day with breakfast at a local restaurant, then heads to the YMCA for a two-hour workout that includes 40 minutes on the treadmill, 10 to 15 minutes of weightlifting and stretching.
On this day he has an appointment with a judge in Greenville to help a family member who recently got a speeding ticket, a business lunch and an afternoon round of golf.At one time he ran a car business and a driving school for would-be racers for extra income. Now he relies on rental property.
He still has a suite in the Pearson Tower at Darlington Raceway, where his 10 victories make him the track's all-time winner. He typically attends races there and Charlotte, where he holds the records for most consecutive poles won (11).
Money doesn't seem to be a problem. His name is on a plaque in the YMCA, where he used to sit in the sauna to prepare for the heat in a car on race day; he made a sizable donation toward YMCA's men's health club.
Jim Hunter, who drove all over the country with Pearson when both worked for Dodge, said Pearson is the same today as he was 30 years ago."He is the most unpretentious superstar I've ever known," said Hunter, now NASCAR's vice president for communications. "He doesn't like bringing any attention to himself. He doesn't put a lot of stock in him being a celebrity."He can't understand why people think it's such a big deal. He just drove a race car."
GRADUATE OF WMU
The Whitney Yarn Mills sign still stands out among the Kudzu and weeds on a stretch of Highway 221, otherwise known as David Pearson Boulevard, leading into Spartanburg.But the factory that once dominated the landscape has been reduced to a pile of brick rubble baking in the summer heat.Pearson worked in the mill for three months taking cloth off spindles. When others talk about what college they attended he jokingly says he attended WMU -- Whitney Mills University.
"I knew I was just going to do that until somebody built me a car," Pearson said. "I always said even when I was in high school I was going to drive race cars for a living after I saw my first race."
Pearson was introduced into stock car racing at Spartanburg Fairgrounds, where he first met future car owner Cotton Owens. He was better on dirt tracks such as Greenville-Pickens Speedway than on super speedways.
"Back when I first started, I won a bunch in Greenville," Pearson said. "In '59 I won 39 out of 42 races. That's when I went to Winston Cup, or Grand National racing as they called it then."
Pearson said he won the first time he raced on asphalt. He recalled how short track star Banjo Matthews was brought to a race once "just to beat me.""I just about lapped him," Pearson said.
Pearson broke into Winston Cup racing in 1960 and won the rookie of the year award."When I first started, I bought my own car from Jack Smith," he said. "I went to Daytona knowing I didn't have enough money to buy tires when I left here. I decided when I got there I was going to call my dad and get him to send money. I knew if I asked him before I left he'd have said, 'No, stay home.' "
Pearson won three points championships (1966, '68 and '69), one for Owens and two for Holman-Moody."When I was with Cotton, I worked up there practically every day," Pearson said. "I did all the welding on the cars."
Hunter said Pearson had a better knowledge of a car than anybody he knew."He wasn't just a guy they bolted into a car and said turn left," he said. "He was a thinking driver, and also mechanical. He was a lot like Jeff Gordon is today. He could tell what the car was doing and tell somebody what changes to make."His car would always get better as the race went on."
Hunter said Pearson is the best all-around driver he has seen. Petty agreed, saying: "Pearson could beat you on a dirt track, he could beat you on a paved track, he could beat you on a road course, he could beat you on a superspeedway, he could beat you on a short track."I never felt as bad about losing to Pearson as I did some of the others because I knew how good he was."
Amazingly, Pearson never won a points title with the Wood Brothers because Purolator didn't provide enough sponsorship money for him to run a full circuit.But the races they ran, which were mostly on the superspeedways, they dominated. Pearson never was more dominant than in '73, when he won 11 of 18 races, including a record 10 superspeedway wins in a row.
"When he got with the Wood Brothers, that was an unbeatable combination," Hunter said.It was during those years that Pearson earned the nickname "Silver Fox" because of his silver hair and his uncanny ability to outfox the competition."Pearson knew you had to finish to win," Hunter said. "When he was young, he was a real hard charger. As he matured, he would hang back and all of a sudden that last 100 miles, people would be saying, 'Where'd he come from?' "That earned Pearson another nickname: "Sandbagger."
"There were a lot of times I didn't run hard all the time because I didn't have to," Pearson said. "But if you go back and look at a place like Charlotte where they paid lap money, I led those laps."
Pearson said more times than not the car truly ran better at the end."That's how smart the Wood Brothers were," he said. "We were changing that car all along and nobody ever knew it. They would measure tires and change the wedge and change the tire pressure and things like that; we were doing at least a year or two before anyone else started doing it."
Pearson, who also was one of the first to fly his own airplane and helicopter, said there's no telling how many titles he would have won had he run a full schedule for the Wood Brothers."With the Wood Brothers," Pearson said, "every time I got on the track I felt I had a chance to win."
THE SILVER PRANKSTER
Hunter was sitting at a red light in a small Midwest town, driving Pearson to a race as he often did, when Pearson began insisting the driver of the car in the other lane wanted to race.Without much prodding, Hunter began revving the engine, preparing to get a fast jump when the light turned green.Yellow.Green.Hunter hit the gas. Pearson hit the gearshift to reverse, sending the car careening into a truck behind them."It was funny," Hunter said. "He was always pulling pranks like that."Although he was a quiet, shy man in many respects, Pearson loved to pull pranks. He pulled many on Hunter .
Hunter recalled how Pearson once reached over and slammed the accelerator to the floor, sending the car above 100 mph r. When the police officer who pulled them over came to the window, Pearson began shouting: "He's a lunatic. I told him to slow down. Take his (butt) to jail."
Once, at a Holiday Inn in Griffin, Ga., Pearson was having breakfast with friends when Leonard Wood arrived. Pearson told Wood that the waitress had trouble hearing, and he needed to talk loudly.Pearson and others, knowing the waitress could hear fine, broke into laughter when Wood shouted his order.
One of Hunter's favorite Pearson pranks was pulled on driver Bobby Isaac, who also was one of Pearson's closest friends."They was always betting each other you can't do this or that," Hunter said. "One day Pearson got a bunch of his friends to stand outside a hotel room window in Talladega. He then bet Isaac he couldn't turn a flip on the bed and land on his feet."Well, Bobby started jumping on the bed and Pearson told him he could probably do that better with his shoes off. He finally got Isaac to his shorts. While he was bouncing, Pearson pulled the blind that about 30 people were hiding behind and said, 'Look at that fool.' "
Pearson recalled how once he pretended to have a flat tire while driving another driver back to the hotel in Darlington."He got out to look and I left him," Pearson said with a laugh. "He walked a pretty good ways before I picked him up. I was always doing stuff like that."
RICHARD WHO?
A young man stopped in the YMCA parking lot to watch Pearson pose for pictures. Unaware of Pearson's accomplishments, he was told Pearson might be recognized as the best driver in NASCAR history were it not for Petty."Who is that?" Pearson said when he heard Petty's name.
There haven't been many better rivalries in sports than Petty and Pearson. They are perhaps best remembered for the last-lap crash at the 1976 Daytona 500, when Petty drifted high making a pass for the lead and sent both drivers into the wall.As Petty's Dodge sat stalled about 100 yards short of the finish line, Pearson nursed his car around, working the starter over and over, to capture his only win in NASCAR's Super Bowl event."The race I'll be remembered most for -- and the one I'll remember most -- is the one I lost," Petty once said.
Pearson spent most of his career in the shadow of the seven-time Winston Cup champion. Had he run more full schedules and been more outgoing, Pearson said things would have been different."I'd have made more money," he said.
But it wasn't Pearson's personality to be outgoing. There were times when he left the track after a win without doing interviews."I remember at Dover, I won a race one time, took my shower, changed my clothes and went home and nobody knew it," he said.
Pearson recalled how he once saw Petty ask a reporter if he wanted an interview."I never would have done nothing like that," he said. "It hurt me in the long run. I wasn't really educated good. I didn't know what to say. I was afraid I'd say the wrong thing. I would actually would hide from newspaper reporters.
"I'd do my talking on the race track."Pearson said one of his favorite ploys was to let Petty walk out into the infield first after a race."The crowd would go with him," he said. "When they did that, I'd go the other way."
But Pearson never believed he was second best to anybody."I always felt like I was better than anybody," he said. "If you feel like somebody is better than you are, they're going to beat you every time."
Hunter is convinced Pearson still could do well against today's top drivers. He didn't rule out a comeback, reminding that Pearson never announced his retirement after making a brief comeback in '88.
"Yeah, I'm retired," said Pearson, saying he'd have a difficult time racing today with all of NASCAR's rules and regulations. "I've got enough around here to keep me busy."
Such as women who want to tell him how to drive."That was the damndest thing I ever saw," Pearson said. "I just told her, 'Lady, you've got problems,' and drove away."
