Billy Wade
Born: February 28, 1930      Died: January 5, 1965
Home: Houston, TX

Billy Wade (a.k.a Wade Lavender)  had a brief yet successful stint in NASCAR. He was the 1963 NASCAR Rookie of the Year for car owner Cotton Owens. He finished the season with 14 Top 10 finishes in 31 races.

He won four consecutive races the following year for Bud Moore Engineering between July 10 and July 19, 1964. He also accumulated 5 poles and 25 Top 10 finishes in his 35 starts.

He died during a tire test at Daytona International Raceway in 1965.

 

Billy Wade By Allen Madding      -      December 27, 2007 Born Feb 28, 1930, Houston, Texas native Billy Wade began competing on the Texas short tracks. Ten years of competition netted him three Texas Modified Championships driving his No. 53 open wheel modified. He stepped up to compete in the late model division and won two late model championships. With his success on the local short tracks it was just a matter of time before Billy Wade would move to NASCAR competition. Wade’s first NASCAR Grand National Division event came in the 1962 Daytona 500 driving Luther Costales’ No. 01 Ford starting 45th and finishing 18th. He returned to the series at North Wilkesboro driving James Turner’s No. 24 Pontiac finishing tenth. An eighth place finish followed at Martinsville and a 19th place finish at Winston-Salem. Car owner Cotton Owens signed Wade to drive his No. 5 Dodge for 1963 as a teammate to David Pearson. Wade quickly began to showcase his driving talent accumulating top-ten finishes. In the Atlanta 500, he started 40th and drove his way to a 13th place finish. Wade scored his first top-five finish in NASCAR when he finished fourth in the Richmond 250. When the series returned to Atlanta for the Dixie 400, Wade started 18th, charged to the front and waged war with Junior Johnson, leading 17 laps before worn tired dropped him back into the pack to eventually finish eighth. A second place finish came in the Nashville 400. All told, Wade recorded four top-fives and 14 top-tens and garnered the coveted 1963 NASCAR Rookie of the Year title. Wade picked up where he left off when the 1964 season began. He recorded a third place finish at the Augusta International Raceway. But after a tenth place finish at Speedway Park in Jacksonville, Florida, Wade and Owens parted company. Bud Moore picked up the hot shoe and put him behind the wheel of his No. 1 Mercury. The combination seemed to click right off. Wade recorded third place finishes at Richmond, Weaverville, and Birmingham. Then Wade struck pay dirt in the Fireball Roberts 200 at Old Bridge Stadium, Old Bridge, New Jersey qualifying on the pole and winning the race. In the following event at Bridgehampton, New York, Wade qualified third and won again. The series then went to Islip, New York and again Wade qualified on the pole and won. Wade made it four wins in a row at Watkins Glen, New York by setting on the pole and charging to the win. He captured his fifth pole of the season at Harris Speedway in North Carolina. Competing in only 36 of the years 62 events, Wade had recorded four wins, five poles, 12 top-fives, and 25 top-tens finishing fourth in the championship points. Wade’s NASCAR racing career seemed to be blossoming when he was tragically killed during a tire test at Daytona International Speedway on January 5, 1965. He was 34 years old. Career Acomplishments: ·  Three Texas Modified Championships ·  Two Late Model Championships ·  71 NASCAR Grand National Division starts, 5 poles, 4 wins, 16 top-fives, & 41 top-tens ·  1963 NASCAR Grand National Division Rookie of the Year Discuss this and other racing matters in the Prodigys@Speed Forum You can contact Allen Madding at .. Insider Racing News

Testing, Testing...  by Tom Higgins "Scuffs"

 Off-season testing among NASCAR's Cup Series teams will begin with furious intensity during January, mainly at Daytona International Speedway in Florida.

 It's tedious--and often boring--work for both the drivers and their crews. Also dangerous.

One of NASCAR's most promising drivers lost his life while testing at Daytona on Jan. 5, 1965.

That was Texan Billy Wade, the 1963 rookie of the year with 14 top 10 finishes in 31 races.

Driving for legendary South Carolina team owner Bud Moore, Wade had won four races--all consecutively--during the 1964 season.  In 34 starts he posted seven other top five finishes and wound up in the top 10 a whopping 19 times overall.  He took five poles.

Some rated the 35-year-old driver a solid threat for the '65 championship in what NASCAR then called its Grand National Division.

But it wasn't to be. Wade didn't survive a hard crash at the 2.5-mile Daytona track, leaving a wife and two young daughters.

 

The First With Four Straight  by David Green         The first driver to win four straight had to be a bit of a surprise. To that point, he had never won. Not that Billy Wade was an unknown quantity; the 1963 rookie of the year stepped into Bud Moore's Mercury as the replacement for two-time defending Grand National champion Joe Weatherly after Weatherly's fatal accident in January 1964 at Riverside, Calif. Fred Lorenzen won five straight starts earlier in the year, but not in consecutive races. Such prestigious rides don't go to just anybody, and Moore's eye for talent had locked onto Wade as a prospect. Wade put Moore's #1 1964 Mercury into victory lane for the first time on July 10 at Old Bridge, N.J., in a 100-mile race on a half-mile paved oval. Then, as the GN circus continued on what was then referred to as the Northern Tour, Wade won again on the Bridgehampton, N.Y., road course July 12. The second victory in his streak came when David Pearson, Wade's teammate in 1963 in a part-time two-car team fielded by Cotton Owens, dropped out while leading. Wade captured another short-oval event, a scramble on the 1/5-mile Islip (N.Y.) Speedway, on July 15, prevailing in a fender-banging battle with Ned Jarrett, to equal the three-victory streak first established by Thomas. Then, on July 19, Wade roared into NASCAR history at Watkins Glen International, where he won his fourth straight victory. He went on to finish fourth in driver points that year, behind Petty, Jarrett and Pearson. The races were the only ones Wade would win. He was killed in January 1965 -- the second tragedy for the Moore team in a 12-month period (Joe Weatherly was killed at Riverside a year before) -- when he crashed during a tire-testing session at Daytona International Speedway. Since then, several drivers have come close to the magical fifth straight victory, most recently Jeff Gordon in 1998.

 

Billy Wade wheels his Mercury to his fourth straight win in the 150-miler at Watkins Glen. Wade, the 1963 Rookie of the Year, is the first driver to win four consecutive NASCAR Grand National races. Fred Lorenzen won five straight starts earlier in the year, but not in consecutive races. Sophomore driver Billy Wade, driving Bud Moore's #1 Mercury, runs just ahead of #25 Paul Goldsmith and #43 Richard Petty in the March 22 Southeastern 500 at Bristol International Speed­way. While the Fords were spanked on the wind-whipped banks of Daytona, they rebounded nicely on the short 1/2-mile tracks.­ Fred Lorenzen won in a Ford, as Ford products took six of the top 10 places. Wade finished 10th, Goldsmith came in third, and Petty was eighth.

Billy Wade and the Modern Seatbelts of Today

In 1964, Mario Rossi went to work for Bud Moore Engineering in Spartanburg as a chief mechanic and engine builder. Fielding cars for drivers Carl Balmer and Darel Dieringer, Rossi's reputation as an innovator and engine wizard grew.

"Mario was a gifted and talented human being who at the age of nine could take a tractor apart and put it together in running condition," his sister said proudly. "His automotive skills were partly self-taught and partly taught by the best of the best."

One of Bud Moore's drivers at the time was 1963 Rookie of the Year Billy Wade. A close friend of Rossi, Wade won four consecutive races for Moore between July 10 and July 19, 1964, and notched five poles along with 25 top-10 finishes in 35 starts.

Sadly, Wade died after crashing during a tire test at the Daytona International Speedway in early January 1965.

Wade's crash came close on the heels of another race-related death for a Bud Moore driver. Joe Weatherly, who won two successive championships for Moore in 1962 and 1963, was killed in a crash at Riverside International Raceway in California a year before Wade's demise.

Mario took both deaths hard, but was especially haunted by that of his buddy Wade, and he made it his mission to improve driver safety. "Billy Wade died because of his seatbelt," Rossi said in a 1965 interview. At that time, doctors concluded that the lap belt compressed Wade's intestines and caused them to rupture -- the only fatal injury he suffered. "Under the impact, the belt became a lethal weapon," noted Rossi back then. "Maybe it was a freak [accident], but I don't want that to happen again to anyone."

Determined to find a better solution, Rossi investigated other high-speed collision data, including the results of U.S. Army rocket sled testing. He eventually developed an improved driver restraint system for stock cars, which included the first use of a driver headrest, along with the addition of a third belt to the existing shoulder harness/seat belt configuration.

The extra belt pulled down on the lap belt and fastened to the floor, preventing the horizontal belt from riding up and compressing the diaphragm or intestines during a hard crash in the same manner that killed Wade.

While fulfilling a personal conviction to his departed friend, Rossi's efforts also earned him a prestigious safety award, and led to the installation of a bust in his likeness at the Joe Weatherly Stock Car Museum located on the grounds of historic Darlington Raceway.

From CottonOwens.com

 

Posted in NASCAR, Racers Past by Alan Porter on January 5th, 2007 Houston, Texas born Billy Wade made an early name for himself around the various tracks of The Lone Star State. In 10 years of competition he won several state championships as well as trying his hand in both open wheel and sports cars. He made his NASCAR debut in 1962 driving in just three “Grand National” races. In 1963 he landed a full time NASCAR drive as the second driver in the Cotton Owens team. He easily won the “Rookie Of The Year” award with 14, top 10 finishes. The following year he drove for Bud Moore winning 4 consecutive races in the July of that year. His season ending tally included an additional 25 top 10 finishes and 5 pole awards. Billy Wade was killed tire testing at Daytona International Speedway on the 5th January, 1965. He was testing the, then new, inner liner race tires, that are still used in NASCAR today.

First Race: 1962 Daytona 500 (Daytona) Last Race: 1964 Jaycee 300 (Augusta Speedway) First Win: 1964 Fireball Roberts 200 (Old Bridge Stadium) Last Win: 1964 The Glen 151.8 (Watkins Glen) Wins Top Tens Poles 4 41 5

Billy Wade in the # 53 Modified

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Billy Wade Grand National DRIVER Statistics

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