Herman 'The Turtle'
Beam may hold unbeatable NASCAR record
By
Jeff Bobo
Some sports
records may never be broken. Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game
hitting streak. Wilt Chamberlain’s 23,924 NBA
rebounds. Richard
Petty’s 200 NASCAR wins.
But the
sports records least likely ever to be broken may
belong to a NASCAR driver/ owner better known for
his nickname and lack of speed.
Herman “The Turtle” Beam
was a chemical engineering graduate from the
University of North Carolina. His contemporaries
would say that with his horn-rimmed glasses and
stoic demeanor he looked and acted more like a
college professor than a race car driver. Beam did,
however, have a scientific, methodical approach to
his career in the NASCAR Grand National series (now
known as Nextel Cup). His method was based on the
simple principle that the less he abused his
equipment and the less money he spent making
repairs, the more money he earned.
“He knew
the distance to each racetrack, how many gallons of
gas it took to get there, what you had to do to
qualify for the race, how much money the race paid
for each position, and where he thought he could
finish,” said Kingsport racer Gene Glover, who was
one of Beam’s contemporaries. “He built his own car
and towed his own car, and didn’t have much help and
didn’t really have a lot of overhead. He was really
a genius at stretching a dollar and stretching his
equipment longer than anybody.
“They
called him Herman the Turtle because he had good
equipment but he just didn’t want to drive fast, so
he just got down on the apron and stayed out of the
way. A lot of times he’d end up with good finishes.”
In an era
when it was normal for at least half of a Cup field
to fall out of a race, Beam ran a race for survival
rather than a race for victory. As other cars
crashed out or suffered mechanical problems, Beam
gained positions in the finishing order.
His driving
career spanned 194 races from 1957-63, and during
that time he finished in the top 10 57 times. Twice
he finished a race as high as fourth, albeit 10 laps
down at Hillsboro, N.C., in 1960; and 12 laps down
at Spartanburg, S.C., in 1961.
“Everybody
respected Herman and his mechanical abilities,”
Johnson City racer Paul Lewis
said. “He was very intelligent and very articulate,
and he always had good equipment. He just didn’t
like to drive fast.”
Lewis
recalled, “I remember one time at Richmond
qualifying got rained out — they drew for starting
position, and he drew the pole. When the race
started he just dropped down to the bottom of the
track and let the rest of them go on. He was happy
to run around at the bottom by himself.” As a result
of that conservative driving style, Beam finished 84
consecutive races in a streak that lasted most of
three seasons — a NASCAR Cup record that will
probably never be broken.
On April
23, 1961, at Atlantic Rural Fairgrounds he blew an
engine and failed to finish a 200-lap race, although
he still ended up seventh. Beam didn’t fall out of
another race until the Atlanta 500 on March 17,
1963, at Atlanta International Raceway when he lost
the clutch and finished 30th.
Beam also
holds a number of other distinctions. In 1959 he
finished fourth in the Grand National point
standings ahead of legendary drivers including
Buck Baker,
Rex White,
Jack Smith,
Junior Johnson,
Fireball
Roberts, and the young second-year driver
Richard Petty.
He was also
the first driver ever to be black flagged at Daytona
International Speedway. It occurred in 1960 during
one of the two Daytona 500 40-lap qualifying races
when he somehow forgot to put on his helmet before
the race.
Beam ran
eight laps before officials noticed he didn’t have
on a helmet and threw the black flag.
And unlike
most independent racers of that era, Beam earned a
coveted factory deal from Ford, but only after he
quit driving halfway through the 1963 season. “Ford
Motor Company was real high on
Cale Yarborough, and they gave Herman two
cars and a lot of parts to help Cale mature as a
driver,” Lewis said. “I guess Herman was getting
tired of driving, and this Ford deal was too good to
refuse. It was really Cale’s first big break in
racing, and they put together some strong runs
together.” Driving a Herman Beam-prepared Ford, the
24-year-old Yarborough earned seven top 10s and
three top fives in 14 starts in 1963. In 1964
Yarborough drove 17 races for Beam, earning six top
10s and two top fives.
Bluff City
racer John A. Utsman
recalled, however, that during the Yarborough period
Beam’s trademark frugality actually ended up costing
him. “Cale Yarborough was driving his car, and a
wheel bearing went out of it one day, and Herman
asked Cale what he was doing running the car so
hard,” Utsman said. “Well, Ford Motor Company wasn’t
happy, and they asked Herman why the wheel bearing
went out. They said, ‘Didn’t we give you some new
wheel bearings?’ and he said ‘Yeah, but that old
bearing looked good and I put it back.’ “Ford didn’t
like that, and they pulled their support. And I’ll
tell you what, that was like losing the goose that
laid the golden eggs.”
Tony Morton, son of the
late Church Hill Cup racer
Bill Morton, stopped at Beam’s garage with
his dad on their way home from a race one night
around the time Yarborough and Beam parted ways. “I
remember Daddy walked into the garage, and Herman’s
car was tore all to pieces,” Morton recalled. “Cale
wrecked two or three in a row, and the third one was
pretty bad. I remember Herman looking up at Daddy,
and he said, ‘Bill, I had to fire Cale.’ Daddy said,
‘How come?’ “He said, ‘Well, just between me and
you, Cale Yarborough will never make a race car
driver.’
“Daddy
always aggravated Herman about that. He’d tell
Herman that three national championships later and
four Daytona 500 wins later he’s right — Cale
Yarborough is never going to make it as a race car
driver.”
After
Yarborough parted with Beam, he hired
Larry Thomas of
Thomasville, N.C., to finish out
the 1964 season. That partnership produced the best
results of Beam’s career as a car owner. In 10 races
together at the end of 1964 Thomas earned nine top
10 finishes and five top five finishes for Beam
including a second-place finish at Hickory Motor
Speedway behind David Pearson. Following that
streak, Thomas was hired by a Chrysler factory team
to replace driver
Jimmy
Pardue, who’d been killed in a racing accident that
September. On his way to join the team, Thomas was
killed in a traffic accident in January 1965.
J.T. Putney earned a
seventh-place finish in the Cup point standings in
1965 driving for Beam. But as the price of operating
a Cup team escalated, Beam ended his car owner
career in 1966 after fielding a car in only two
events.
Throughout
his NASCAR career, Herman Beam never tasted victory
as a Cup series driver or car owner, but he did
taste victory one time as a Cup crew chief in 1966.
“I can say that one of the proudest achievements of
my career was that I gave Herman Beam and
Jess Potter their only
NASCAR win,” Lewis said. “Herman was the crew chief
on my Plymouth in 1966, and he got the car ready for
me to race every week. Herman and Jess both helped
me. We got on a real hot streak. We finished second
at Bristol and then won the race over at Smokey
Mountain Speedway. “Jess was never one to show much
emotion, and Herman was even worse. He’d just stand
there with that sheepish smile. But it was a joyous
occasion because it was the only Cup win that any of
us had been a part of.”
Beam
continued to operate a garage in Johnson City until
his death in 1980 at the age of 50. He also
continued to work with area drivers and was
instrumental in the early career of NASCAR veteran
Brad Teague.
Beam may
never make the NASCAR Hall of Fame, but his name is
likely to forever be etched in the NASCAR record
books. “With restrictor plates and such close
competition, I just don’t see any driver finishing
84 consecutive races in this day and age,” Lewis
said. “These days that would be almost three
consecutive seasons without falling out of a race.
For somebody to pull that off, they’d really have to
defy the odds.”
Beam's
84-race streak took place over the span of 22
months 10 days, and was being threatened by
Clint Bowyer, who
if he finished the first ten races of the 2009
season could have tied the record. However, he
crashed at the 2009 Southern 500 at Darlington
to end his streak at 83 finished races. Bowyer's
teammate Kevin Harvick fell three short when his
engine failed in the 2009 Auto Club 500 ending
his streak at 81 races without a DNF.
