Cale Yarborough, NASCAR legend and South Carolinian, has died
Cale Yarborough, a South Carolina native and one of NASCAR’s top drivers of all time, died Sunday at the age of 84.
Yarborough had been in poor health over the last few years and was battling a rare genetic disorder, according to his family.
He won 83 races during his NASCAR career and was elected to the sport’s Hall of Fame in January 2012. His 83 wins are tied for sixth all-time with Jimmie Johnson. He was the first driver to win three Cup Series championships from 1976-1978.
Yarborough won the Daytona 500 four times (1968, 1977, 1983-1984), second only to Richard Petty’s seven. He was a member of NASCAR’s greatest 50 drivers, released in 1998 and sport’s 75 top drivers earlier this year as part of NASCAR’s 75th anniversary.
“Cale Yarborough was one of the toughest competitors NASCAR has ever seen,” NASCAR chairman and CEO Jim France said in a statement. “His combination of talent, grit and determination separated Cale from his peers, both on the track and in the record book. He was respected and admired by competitors and fans alike and was as comfortable behind the wheel of a tractor as he was behind the wheel of a stock car. On behalf of the France family and NASCAR, I offer my deepest condolences to the family and friends of Cale Yarborough.”
Tributes from likes of Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt Jr.., and Jimmie Johnson, started pouring in after the news of Yarborough’s death started to spread.
“Sad news about the passing of Cale today,” Earnhardt Jr wrote on X (formerly known as Twitter). “A legend behind the wheel for sure, but he had a personality, grit, and swagger that attracted fans around the world to him and to Nascar. He truly made the sport far better for being a part of it. My heart goes out to his family.”
Yarborough was known for his toughness not just in racing. He was two-time Golden Gloves championship boxer and played football, earning a scholarship to play football at Clemson. But he ultimately chose racing over the gridiron. There also were stories about how Yarborough wrestled alligators and bears in a 1978 Sports Illustrated story on him.
Yarborough was especially fond of Darlington Raceway and held it in reverence when talking about it and the importance of his racing career. His first race was there in the 1957 Southern 500, and he won at Darlington five times.
Yarborough grew up a few miles away from the track in the small town of Sardis, just outside of Timmonsville. He’s told the story of how he once climbed under the fence to get into a race at Darlington, and he made his stock car debut there in 1957.
In 1965 at Darlington, he went over the fence after making contact with Sam McQuagg’s car in the Southern 500. Yarborough was known for his toughness and grit during his racing career, and his car ended up in the parking lot next to a telephone pole outside of the track.
Tired of waiting for an ambulance, he proceeded to walk back up to the track.
“My car never touched the guard rail and it was destroyed,” Yarborough told The State back in 2015.. “I waited a little and didn’t know when the ambulance was going to come, so I just walked back up the hill and into the track.
“I have been under the fence, over the fence, on top of the fence and tried to knock every fence down there.”
Yarborough was also known for a caught-on-TV fight with Donnie Allison at the 1979 Daytona 500 that happened moments after the two drivers began wrecking each other with their cars on the final lap of the race.
The 1979 Daytona 500 was named in an Associated Press survey with veteran contributors as the sport’s most memorable moment and took NASCAR from a regional sport to national conversation.
“Greatest thing that ever happened for NASCAR,” Yarborough said later.
Yarborough’s last full racing season was in 1980 and won six races that season. He ran a limited schedule for the next nine years with his last race coming in 1989 at Atlanta Motor Speedway. After his driving career ended, he was a car owner until 2000.
Yarborough ventured into various business opportunities and opened Cale Yarborough Honda dealership in Florence.
Yarborough is survived by his wife, Betty Jo, and daughters Julie, Kelley and B.J.
10 Cale Yarborough racing moments to remember
Written by Bob Spear, published in The State in January 2012 when Yarborough joined the NASCAR Hall of Fame:
1. SEPT. 2, 1957: RACING AT AGE 17
NASCAR rules required drivers to be 21 to participate, but Yarborough made his debut on the big circuit at age 17 - thanks to a bit of chicanery - in the Southern 500 at Darlington. Although he had been booted out of the track after the phony birth certificate he used to get his license was discovered, he hid on the floorboard and took the wheel from Bobby Weatherly to qualify.
Officials chased him away again, but the pair changed places again in the pre-race confusion and Yarborough drove 27 laps before the ruse unraveled. He finished 42nd and earned $100.
2. AUG. 9, 1964: CALE GETS TRYOUT
With a family to raise and racing income meager, Yarborough had decided to quit racing and concentrated on the logging business. Then, Holman-Moody — the Cadillac of racing operations in those days — called and offered what amounted to a tryout.
At Asheville-Weaverville Speedway, Yarborough qualified fifth and had the lead before debris knocked a hole in his radiator. Although finishing 20th, he had shown enough to get the ride and he put his retirement plans on hold — for more than 20 years.
3. JUNE 27, 1965: HIS FIRST VICTORY
After racing — and winning — on the bullrings in the Pee Dee, Yarborough earned his first victory at stock-car racing’s highest level with a triumph in the 100-mile race over a one-half mile track in Valdosta, Georgia. Driving a 1964 Ford, he prevailed by three laps over a field that included a pair of two-time champions, Buck Baker and Hall-of-Famer Ned Jarrett.
4. SEPT. 6, 1965: CAR TAKES FLIGHT
Instead of Victory Lane, Yarborough finished this Southern 500 in the parking lot. Literally.
In those days, the retaining wall consisted of highway-type guard rails and provided little protection. In challenging Sam McQuagg for the lead, Yarborough’s Ford somehow took flight, soared over the hood of McQuagg’s racer and flew over the wall. The car landed several stories below the high-banked turn in the parking lot and Yarborough unbelievably walked away.
“I felt like an astronaut,” he said afterward.
5. SEPT. 2, 1968: FIRST SOUTHERN 500 WIN
Yarborough earned what he has always called his favorite victory, outdueling old rival David Pearson to capture the first of his five Southern 500s.
“I wouldn’t trade that one for any of the others,” he often said.
He savored that win for three reasons.
First, Darlington always had been his “home” track and he got hooked on racing after sneaking under the fence to watch the 1951 Southern 500 at age 11. Second, the Southern 500 represented “the” race to him.
Third, officials reworked the track after that race to improve the racing and, Yarborough said, “I wanted to win on the (original) track.”
6. MARCH 7, 1973: DOMINATING THE FIELD
Yarborough dominated a race like a few drivers ever have, leading every lap of the Southeastern 500 at Bristol Raceway. He lapped the field in the first 100 laps and never let up.
At the end, he owned a two-lap advantage over Richard Petty and a five-lap cushion over third-place finisher Bobby Allison.
7. OCT. 22, 1978: THIRD SEASON CHAMPIONSHIP
Starting from the pole position, Yarborough clinched his third straight championship by leading 376 of 492 laps in winning the American 500 at Rockingham. The triumph gave him an amazing 28th victories in a stretch of 90 starts.
Car owner Junior Johnson had a simple reason for the domination: “Cale Yarborough is the best driver the sport has ever seen. When you strap Cale into the car, it’s like adding 20 horsepower.”
8. FEB. 18, 1979: RACING AND BRAWLING
In the first race with televised flag-to-flag coverage, NASCAR hoped for a great Daytona 500. Officials received that and more. First, a snow storm blanketed the Southeast and kept people indoors — and watching television. Then, Donnie Allison and Yarborough headed into the final lap battling for the checkered flag.
Yarborough, trailing, prepared for an aerodynamic “slingshot” move and Allison would be helpless to counter. But he did, swerving to block the maneuver and wrecking both cars, and Richard Petty coasted to an unexpected win. But there’s more. The drivers got out of their cars, then Bobby Allison joined them — and a free-for-all ensued.
Cameras caught all the action, and the wreck and brawl no doubt helped stamp racing into the nation’s sports consciousness.
“Greatest thing that ever happened for NASCAR,” Yarborough said later.
9. MAY 6, 1984: HIS WILDEST RACE
Yarborough’s “wildest race,” the 1984 Winston 500 at Talladega, featured eight drivers who qualified faster than 200 mph in those pre-restrictor plate days and Cale earned the pole at 202.662. The field averaged more than 193 mph for the first 39 laps and even with four cautions, Yarborough won with an average speed of 172.988.
Yarborough slowed in the late stages to conserve gas, then on the last lap, he pulled off the 75th lead change of the day, charging past Harry Gant on the backstretch and getting to the finish line 0.33 seconds in front.
10. SEPT. 1, 1985: ALMOST WINNING $1 MILLION
At Darlington again for the Southern 500, this time the spotlight belonged to Bill Elliott, who would be racing for the “Winston Million” — a promotion that would pay $1 million to a driver who won three of NASCAR’s “Big Four” events. The cash represented an unheard-of sum in those days.
Elliott came to Darlington with wins at Daytona and Talladega and late in the race only Cale Yarborough stood in his way. Yarborough muscled his way into the lead on lap 323, then saw a puff of smoke emerge from his racer a lap later. Elliott would be home free, right? Wrong. The smoke represented the loss of power steering, and Yarborough returned to the track.
“Like steering a freight train,” Yarborough said afterward, but he challenged Elliott over the final 20 laps and closing to with a few car lengths only to fall short by six-tenths of a second.
This story was originally published December 31, 2023 at 10:32 AM with the headline "Cale Yarborough, NASCAR legend and South Carolinian, has died."
