Lonnie LeeRoy Yarbrough
Sept. 17, 1938   -    Dec. 7, 1984

LeeRoy Yarbrough drove for the legendary car owner Junior Johnson and had quite a productive career as a driver as one of the best super speedway drivers in NASCAR history. He joined Johnson's race team in 1967, and it was a perfect match. "Lee Roy had the most raw talent I've ever seen." said Junior. In 1969, he won the Daytona 500, the World 600, and the Southern 500, the equivalent of the Winston Million.  LeeRoy drove the #98 Mercury Cyclone II to victory in the 1969 Daytona 500 and went on to set a record for consecutive super speedway wins in a single season. His Mercury was definitely a threat to win every time it entered a race. Unfortunately, injuries he received in a crash shortened his career. Sadly, in 1984 he died at the age of 46 in an institution while battling alcoholism.

Buried at Peoria Cemetery, located in Orange Park, Clay County, FL.

Something Just Wasn�t Right After a vicious stock-car crash in 1970, Lee Roy Yarbrough�s story spun downward into one of the saddest tales ever told. �        Oct 2008       By STEVEN COLE SMITH On a Thursday evening in February 1980, Minnie Yarbrough and her son, Lee Roy, were watching television in the little house on Plymouth Road in Jacksonville, Florida, when Lee Roy said, �Mother, I hate to do this to you.� �What do you mean?� Minnie said to her son. And Lee Roy showed her what he meant. He reached around her neck, and with both hands, he began to strangle her. A nephew heard his aunt�s screams, rushed into the room, and tried to pull Lee Roy away but couldn�t. So he grabbed a full jelly jar from the kitchen and clocked Lee Roy over the head. Even so, Lee Roy had enough left in him to fight the first police officer who arrived a few minutes later. That night, Lee Roy Yarbrough, at 41, became the first and thus far only Daytona 500 winner to be charged with first-degree attempted murder for trying to kill his 65-year-old mother, plus assault on a police officer, both felonies. Many thought it was the beginning of the end for the only racer to be unanimously voted Driver of the Year, bracketed between Mark Donohue and Al Unser. But Lee Roy Yarbrough had been slipping into a dark place for nearly a decade, though few outside NASCAR knew it. In February, Daytona International Speedway held a big celebration for the 50th anniversary of the Daytona 500, with all 24 living winners of the race showing up. Very little was said about Lee Roy Yarbrough, who had positively dominated the track, and the sport, in 1969. Next February, when the anniversary of his win arrives�not only at the Daytona 500 but in the Sportsman race there the day before and later that July in the Firecracker 400�fans who remember Yarbrough shouldn�t expect much of a formal mention of him then, either. No one at NASCAR likes sad stories, and they don�t come much sadder than this one. But when he was on top, no driver was considered more fearless or more focused. �Lee Roy had just one speed�wide open,� says Richard Petty. �He didn�t figure nothin�, didn�t plan nothin�, just ran flat-out lap after lap. And if he could get by with it, he was up front. If he didn�t, he was in the pits. He put everything into that one strategy�full speed ahead.� Broad-shouldered and handsome, slicked-back hair, a dimpled chin, big sideburns, and improbably white teeth, Lee Roy was loved by the camera. No one looked better in the victory photos with the inevitable blond trophy girl beside him. Self-confident to the point of being cocky, Lee Roy was guarded and professional with the media, but outside the spotlight, he was a hard-partying friend to those he liked, including his crew. One recalls that following a NASCAR win in South Carolina, �Lee Roy bought a Lincoln Town Car�one of those huge ones, like the funeral homes have.� He piled his crew into the Lincoln, and they visited every whorehouse in town. �It�s all on me, fellas,� Yarbrough said. And he was good enough for other series to request his presence. He drove a Ford G7A in the first Can-Am race at Road Atlanta, competing against sports-car superstars Denny Hulme, Bob Bondurant, and Vic Elford. He raced in the Trans-Am Series, with drivers Mark Donohue, Peter Revson, and Parnelli Jones. Yarbrough was an unlikely presence in the pits for sports-car races. Judy Stropus, the lead scorer for Bud Moore�s Mercury Cougar Trans-Am team that Yarbrough drove for, suspects he �thought of us as prim, proper, and prissy. And I suspect we may have considered him a country bumpkin. But he certainly could drive.�   Three times he raced in the Indianapolis 500, and he was going for a fourth when during practice he crashed one of Dan Gurney�s Eagles, damaging the car too severely to continue. Gurney raced against Yarbrough several times in Indy cars and stock cars before hiring him to drive in the 1971 Indianapolis 500. �Lee Roy came to race,� Gurney says. �Back then�and I a bunch of race-car drivers in the same room, they try hard to establish a sort of unspoken pecking order. It was meant to intimidate. You wanted to give the impression that if you and I were going into the same corner side by side, that you should probably be the one to back off. �And Lee Roy was very good at that. Very good.� Lonnie Lee Roy Yarbrough was born in Jacksonville on September 17, 1938. One of six children, he grew up in the part of town called Westside, a blue-collar neighborhood where, on Saturday night, the sound of the local dirt track just up the road beckoned. Even before he was old enough to drive, Lee Roy began working on a 1934 Ford, dropping a Chrysler engine into it, and was soon terrorizing the local police on public roads. Finally, at 19, he entered a race at Jacksonville Speedway Park and won it. From then on, there was no doubt what Lee Roy, who had dropped out of public school years before, would do with the rest of his life. Cars were a passion. When he wasn�t hanging around Tommy Moon�s neighborhood garage, he was working on his cars in the front yard, where helpers included neighborhood kids who watched through the fence as he raced at the Jacksonville track. One of those neighbor kids intended to follow Lee Roy�s footsteps into auto racing and would tell his friends that he would someday be as famous as Yarbrough. He was correct, but it was to be in a different field: Ronnie Van Zant was the founder and lead singer for the band Lynyrd Skynyrd. He was just 29 when he and two members of the band died in a plane crash in 1977. �There was always racing around the house,� recalls Yarbrough�s younger sister, Evelyn Motel. Once Lee Roy began working his way up the racing ladder, drivers such as Richard Petty and Ned Jarrett would stop by the house for Minnie Yarbrough�s chicken dinners when they were in town racing. Yarbrough broke into NASCAR in the modified class, winning 83 races in three years before finally getting his first Grand National start�that�s what the Sprint Cup series is now�in Atlanta in October of 1960, when he was 22. He qualified 18th, but after blowing a tire and crashing, he finished 33rd, one spot ahead of Glenn �Fireball� Roberts. It wasn�t until 1964 that he began to get some competitive rides, winning his first race at Savannah, Georgia�only 11 other cars showed up�and another on a dirt track in Greenville, South Carolina. He managed to enter 34 races in 1964, but NASCAR ran 62 Grand National races that year, so even a couple of wins at smaller dirt tracks still did not raise Lee Roy�s stock. But he nonetheless finished 15th in the points, one spot behind Junior Johnson; several years later those two would pair for the best season in either man�s career. In fact, Johnson helped get Yarbrough one of his earliest competitive rides, driving for Ray Fox, who built Johnson�s Daytona 500-winning Chevrolet in 1960. �We went up to Hickory Spee (Left)dway in North Carolina,� says Olin Hopes, later a crewman for Fox on Yarbrough�s car, �and we took a car for Junior and one for Ray,� who was still driving then. Lee Roy was there, and he put on a show. �Afterwards, Junior came up to Ray and said, �Hire that boy. He�s a driver.� � Fox and Yarbrough had moderate success, but the pair is, perhaps, best known for a publicity stunt that took place in February 1965 at Daytona International Speedway. Dodge, in one of many manufacturer disputes with NASCAR, had pulled out of racing but supplied Fox with a 1965 Coronet and told him and Lee Roy to take it to Daytona and set a closed-course speed record. Fox supercharged the Hemi V-8 and added fuel injection and a bag of drag-racing tricks, including a big air scoop and a hunkered-down body. With close to 1000 horsepower, Lee Roy spun the rear tires practically all the way around the dusty track, then went on to reportedly clock 240 mph on a straightaway. They settled for an official speed of 181.81 mph, a record. They could have gone faster, but Lee Roy heard a sound he didn�t like from the front end of the car�a click-click-click�and he pitted. It was a big bolt imbedded in the tread of the right-front Firestone: The front-page photo of the Daytona Beach Evening News the next day showed the dimpled, smiling Lee Roy, pointing at the bolt still lodged in the tire. Lee Roy began to get offers to drive better and better cars, and finally the call came in late 1967: Car owner Junior Johnson, by then retired from driving, thought he could do better than his current driver, Darel Dieringer, and gave Yarbrough a shot. Things did not go particularly well that year. The team missed the important National 500 at Charlotte when, during practice, the onboard fire extinguisher went off, blinding Lee Roy, who crashed the car, totaling it. The 1968 season wasn�t much better: They ran 26 of the 49 races that season, with two victories, though Lee Roy finished second at both Daytona races. Then came 1969, and everything clicked. Lee Roy, then 30, had experience and maturity, and more than a year to come to an understanding with his equally mercurial, opinionated crew chief, Herb Nab. The team entered 30 of the 54 races, won seven, with 21 top-10 finishes. Lee Roy was the first driver to win NASCAR�s �Triple Crown��the Daytona 500, the Firecracker 400, and the Southern 500 at Darlington. In 1985, Bill Elliott won that year�s version of the Triple Crown and earned a record $1 million for it. Yarbrough�s total purse for 1969: $193,211. Then in 1970, the wheels started to come off the Johnson/Yarbrough juggernaut, in part because sponsorship and factory support was waning. Yarbrough ran just 19 races, with one lone win at Charlotte, and only then because most of the top cars had crashed. In 1971, Lee Roy ran only six races, none after that May practice crash at Indianapolis in Dan Gurney�s Eagle. In 1972, Lee Roy attempted a comeback, driving mostly for journeyman privateer Bill Seifert, but something was wrong. He entered 18 races and managed five top-five finishes, but four times Yarbrough needed a relief driver to complete the race. He was periodically late for races, or just didn�t show up at all. At the Nashville 400 in Tennessee on August 27, he qualified 13th, then on the pace lap fell to the back, pulled into pit lane, drove to the garage, and walked away. He finished 28th of 28 cars, completed zero laps, and the official reason for retiring from the race: �Quit.� By then, no one bothered to ask why�it was just Lee Roy. A month later, Lee Roy qualified 16th in Seifert�s Ford at the Old Dominion 500 at Martinsville, Virginia, and crashed on lap 108. It was his last race. Four races remained in the season, and Seifert used four different drivers. Lee Roy showed up at Daytona for Speed Week in 1973, a ghost. No one would take a chance on him. It was, as far as anyone knows, the last time Lee Roy Yarbrough was at a NASCAR track. At 34, his career was over. Exactly what went wrong is a matter of substantial speculation. Undeniably, his problems started in April 1970, when he crashed hard during a tire test at the old Texas World Speedway. When close friend and fellow driver Cale Yarborough visited Lee Roy in the hospital, he could tell something wasn�t right. Several weeks later, Cale, a pilot like Yarbrough�who was one of the first NASCAR drivers to pilot his own plane�offered to fly Lee Roy to the race in Rockingham because he knew Yarbrough had no business in any cockpit. While Lee Roy looked fine, he was different: distant, unresponsive, and on the racetrack, less aggressive. The following week, Lee Roy could not remember flying home. Those close to Lee Roy knew something was wrong, but he denied it and continued trying to find rides. Then came the hard crash at Indianapolis, and things just got worse. Jim Hunter, director of public relations for NASCAR, knew Yarbrough since the beginning. During one of Lee Roy�s last trips to Daytona, Hunter volunteered to pick him up at the airport curb. Hunter circled the lot three times before he even recognized his old friend: The black hair had turned gray; his always trim physique had gone to seed. And then Yarbrough failed to recognize Hunter. Toward the end, �He didn�t know where he was,� Hunter said. �I felt so sorry for him.� Junior Johnson, who considers Lee Roy probably the best driver he ever had, was determined to find out what was wrong. �He could remember everything from 1970 back, nothing forward,� Johnson says. �And it seemed like it just happened all at once. You�d go to dinner with him, and they�d put a plate of food in front of him, and he�d just sit and look at it until you said, �Lee Roy, eat.� Then he�d pick up his knife and fork.� There was no question Lee Roy was drinking more than he should, but Evelyn, his sister, insists that �I never saw him drunk. Not once.� There were painkillers, and maybe they contributed to Lee Roy�s gradually increasing dementia. There was also the question of the tick bite. During a camping trip in 1971, Yarbrough was reportedly bitten by a tick and developed Rocky Mountain spotted fever. That�s the story that many NASCAR old-timers have chosen to believe, though Johnson is not convinced. �He claimed he got bit by a spider or a tick. I don�t know. All I know, he wasn�t never the same again.� James Hylton, at 73, one of a handful of still-active drivers who raced against Lee Roy, blames �that doggone tick. The Rocky Mountain spotted fever�if it goes untreated, it�s a mental thing, and it�ll drive you insane. They gave Lee Roy so much medication when they finally did treat it that it eventually caused his death. He just deteriorated to the point where he was unmanageable. The man did not deserve that. Lee Roy was one of the good ones.� Ray Fox, one of Lee Roy�s first car owners, is 92. And he thinks he knows what happened to him. �Racing happened to Lee Roy. Just too many crashes. And they sent him off the deep end.�

Yarbrough: No Respect For Fear        By Gerald Hodges THE RACING REPORTER � Fulton County News "Lee Roy was one of the best racers I ever ran against," said former NASCAR driver Sam McQuagg. "There are lots of good drivers, but he had natural driving talent that most of them don't have. If you were ahead of him, you better watch out. If you blinked too many times he would pass you. And one of the best things about him, is he was not a dirty driver." Lee Roy Yarbrough was born in Jacksonville, Fla., in 1938. His rise to fame was like a moth flying around a candle. He remained in the limelight only a few years before his NASCAR career burned out. His first NASCAR race was in 1960. That year he only ran a single event. The following year he ran 12 races and finished 36th in points. In 1963, he ran 14 events with no wins. His big opportunity came in 1967. Junior Johnson, who had retired from racing by this time, was not having much success with Darel Dieringer. When 1969 rolled around Lee Roy and Junior were ready. With a year to adjust, the team entered 30 of the 54 races and won seven. His record included 21 top-10 finishes, and was the first driver to win NASCAR's version of the Triple Crown - the Daytona 500, the Firecracker 400 and the Southern 500. His best season came in 1969, and even though he only had 30 starts that year, he won seven times and finished in the top 10, 21 times. "It was a great year," recalled Johnson. "We won half the races we ran. I'm not taking anything away from my car, but you just have to give it to him (Yarbrough). He was beyond any other driver there was at that particular time with taking chances and just going beyond what anybody thought anybody would do. He just out-nerved most of the drivers that he ran against that year. It was unbelievable to see the chances he'd take. Lee Roy had no, you might say, respect for fear at all. He just didn't. Nothing out-nerved him and that's basically the way he won some of them races we were in. He'd just keep going deeper and deeper. Whatever it took to beat somebody, that's what he did." Lee Roy drove for Junior Johnson from late 1967 through 1970. During his tenure with Johnson, he won 10 races, including the 1969 Daytona 500. He was a supremely confident driver throughout his stock car racing career. In his early years, he was as cocky as they came, often bragging that he could do things with a fast car that others couldn't. And much of the time, he was correct. But his problems began in 1970, after winning only one race. His life was problematic and filled with mysteries, but he also had many demons inside. He was a brawler, who got the reputation as the only man tough enough to take on the gigantic Tiny Lund. The two drivers weren't exactly enemies, just friends who didn't see eye to eye, and wouldn't take time to talk things out.  "Lee Roy and Tiny started fighting before the race," said car owner Bud Moore, "And they fought some more after the race. Then we took off. We got up in the air and Lee Roy and Tiny started fighting all over again. I thought they were going to tear the sides out of the thing. It's a wonder we didn't crash with them two boys fighting like that." He was one of the first to lavish praise on his crew members during post-race interviews, and he was often heard thanking the Lord for his driving talents. And then as suddenly as he rose upwards, the downward spiral set in. He was gone in a short time. Friends remembered bizarre violence. One afternoon after returning from the track to his motel room, he was raging mad. He snatched his wife up by the hair of the head and dragged her out of the room, kicking her as he dragged her along the hallway. He had a bad crash during a test session while driving for Junior in April 1970. After that he started drinking pretty bad, and using painkillers. He spent days sitting, or out on a lake in a boat, drinking.  "I don't really know what happened to him, but I know he started drinking pretty bad," continued McQuagg. "Some folks thought it might have been caused by Rocky Mountain spotted fever, but I don't think he was ever the same after that hard crash." In 1972, he drove in 18 NASCAR races with nine top-10 finishes. That was his last year of competition. His racing career ended at the age of 33. Over the next few years, he was picked up several times by Jacksonville police. Sometimes it was for fighting, at other times it might be drunkenness. He wandered the streets aimlessly. On the morning of February 13, 1980, he was at his mother's house in Jacksonville. It was the day of the twin 125-mile qualifying races at Daytona. Lee Roy was destitute and his mind was playing tricks on him. He put his hands around his mother's neck and said, "Mama, I hate to do this, but I've got to kill you." One of his nephews that was in the house heard the commotion and came in. Looking around, he grabbed a quart jar of preserves off the kitchen table and busted it on Lee Roy's head. The police came and took him to a psychiatric ward. Eventually he was judged incompetent to stand trial. It was at that time doctors discovered the lesions in his brain. "Lee Roy was capable of winning any race," said Johnson. "A lot of people have an opportunity to win four or five times a year, but he was one driver that I know that had the capability of winning every race he went to. He was just a great race driver. I enjoyed working with him, and I was sorry his career was cut short."

The Fallen Star, LeeRoy Yarbrough From: Dick Ralstin's Racing Home Page Life is a mountain that every man tries to climb, some reach the peak with little trouble and enjoy the fruits of success. For others the climb is an almost endless struggle with the enjoyment of success lost in the blink of eye. Lee Roy Yarbrough was a Jacksonville, Fla., high school dropout who built his first race car, a '33 Ford street roadster, at the age of 16. His first time out in the roadster he won a feature at Jacksonville (Fla.) Speedway. Julian Klein, Jacksonville race promoter, took the cocky, brash and quick to anger youngster in tow and during the next few years Lee Roy won more than a 100 Sportsman and Modified features. Klein finally grew tired of Yarbrough's temper and attitude and the pair parted company. Lee Roy knocked around for a few years and then surfaced at Daytona International Speedway in 1962 and won his first "big" race on the famed high banks, the Modified-Sportsman 250 run every year as a prelim to the Daytona 500. He went on to win 37 NASCAR Late Model Sportsman races in '62. He joined the Grand National ranks driving for Ray Fox with mediocre success, two short track wins in '64. Finally the sky brightened in 1966 when he teamed with car owner Jon Thorne to win the National 500 at Charlotte, NC Lee Roy tried the Indianapolis 500 in 1967 but the trip was less than successful. Driving the Jim Robbins car, he tangled with Cale Yarborough and Lloyd Ruby on the 87th lap and crashed hard into the outer wall and finished 27th. However the sun continued to shine for our boy in NASCAR land and in Oct. of '67 the legendary Junior Johnson hired him to drive for Johnson's factory Ford team with Herb Nab as crew chief. The next year, '68, was a learning year as Johnson and Nab learned to communicate and understand some of the strange quirks of Lee Roy's personality. Then came the unbelievable successes of 1969, a victory in the Daytona 500 was followed by wins in the Rebel 400 at Darlington, Firecracker 400 at Daytona, Dixie 500 at Atlanta, and the Southern 500 for a clean sweep at Darlington. There was one more chance for still more glory, in 1970, the inaugural California 500 at the spanking new Ontario Motor Speedway. It was a dandy race from the git go with Lloyd Ruby, Al Unser, Dan Gurney, Peter Revson swapping the lead with regularity and Lee Roy running close to the leaders all the time. Finally with 14 laps to go Al Unser had taken the lead and looked to have things well in hand. Then, bingo, transmission trouble forced Al into the pits and out of nowhere came Lee Roy to claim the lead. But fortune frowned on Yarbrough and with victory in sight, nine laps to go, Lee Roy's Brabham-Offy blew its engine and Lee Roy coasted to an eighth place finish. Art Pollard and Jim McElreath dueled the remaining few laps for the lead, with Jimmy pulling into Victory Lane to be greeted, and receive the handshake, from California Governor Ronald Reagen. Lee Roy had reached the pinnacle of his mountain. A hard crash, while testing tires at Texas World Speedway later in 1970 rattled Lee Roy's cage pretty badly and left him disoriented. In fact he couldn't remember fellow driver Cale Yarborough picking him up in Texas a few days later and flying him home. The he couldn't remember flying on to Martinsville, or running in the race at Martinsville. Three more trips to Indianapolis, 1969, '70 and '71, ended without success and the '71 trip was a total disaster. On May 8, 1971 Yarbrough was driving a Dan Gurney Eagle when he spun and crashed hard in turn one. Lee Roy spent the next few months, June thru November, in and out of the hospital with many different ailments and memory lapses Some said it was Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, some said he had a serious drinking problem, some said it was the memory of too many concrete walls. Lee Roy tried a comeback in 1972 but on Sept. 24, at Marinsville, Va. he drove a race car for the last time, he crashed on the 109th lap. Lee Roy's trip down from his mountain top had taken less than three years. He pretty much dropped out of sight for the next few years, but every once in a while there would be a brief mention about Lee Roy being back in the hospital for treatment of memory lapse and violent behavior again. Feb. 13, 1980 it happened. Something snapped and Lee Roy savagely attacked his Mother, nearly choking her to death. On March 7, 1980 Lee Roy was judged incompetent to stand trial for attempted murder and was committed to a Florida mental hospital. Then on Dec.6,1984 Yarbrough had a violent seizure and fell striking his head. He was rushed to Jacksonville's University Hospital where he died the morning of Dec.7,1984. The doctors said he died of internal bleeding in the brain, those who knew him said he died because he was tired of living at the bottom of his mountain. Lee Roy Yarbrough had enjoyed a brief time at the peak of his mountain, but it wasn't until 1990 that his peers recognized his exceptional talent when it came to driving a race car. The Southern Motorsports Writers elected Lee Roy Yarbrough into the National Motorsports Press Association's Hall of Fame At Darlington, SC Raceway in 1990. Thanks to Don Hunter for the second photograph and Dick Wallen for the third and fourth.

Obituaries LeeRoy Yarbrough, 46, Dies;Leading Racing Driver in '69 Published: December 9, 1984 JACKSONVILLE, Fla., Dec. 8� LeeRoy Yarbrough, stock car racing's top driver in 1969, died Friday at University Hospital from internal bleeding in the brain. He was 46 years old. He had been taken to the hospital Thursday night from Macclenny Hospital, a mental institution at which he was under treatment for what had been diagnosed as ''chronic brain syndrome.'' His brother-in-law, Bob Motel of Jacksonville, said that Mr. Yarbrough injured his head at Macclenny Thursday when he fell after suffering a seizure. Mr. Yarbrough won $188,609, then a record, on the Grand National stock car racing circuit in 1969, but he spent most of the last four years of his life in mental institutions after being charged with attempted first-degree murder. He was accused of trying to strangle his 65-year-old mother on the evening of Feb. 13, 1980. 'Part of New Breed' ''He was quite a competitor and he had a lot of talent,'' a leading driver, Cale Yarborough, said from his Timmonsville, S.C., home. ''He and I were part of what was known back then as the 'new breed.' We were kind of the second generation of Nascar, so to speak.'' Nascar is the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing. During his career, Mr. Yarbrough won the Daytona 500 and the Firecracker 400 at Daytona, the World 600 at Charlotte, the Southern 500 at Darlington, S.C., and the Dixie 500 at Atlanta. His total winnings were more than $450,000. He was involved in severe crashes at the Texas International Speedway in 1970 and at the Indianapolis Speedway in 1971, and he also nearly died from a case of Rocky Mountain spotted fever. 'Returned to Racing' He made a comeback in 1972, finishing in the top 10 in nearly every race he entered, but he left the circuit in 1973 to work for a construction company in Jacksonville owned by relatives. Mr. Yarbrough was committed to the Florida State Hospital at Chattahoochee by Judge Hudson Oliff of Jacksonville on March 7, 1980, after he was tried for attempted first-degree murder of his mother and battery to a law-enforcement officer. His mother, Minnie Yarbrough, testified that he had walked up to her and started strangling her for no reason. Judge Oliff ruled that Mr. Yarbrough was not guilty of attempted murder because he was unable to distinguish right from wrong at the time of the incident. In addition to his former wife, Gloria Sapp, Mr. Yarbrough is survived by two children, LeeRoy Glenn and Nicole, four sisters and a brother. His mother died last year of causes unrelated to the strangling incident.

During his career he won 14 Winston Cup Races including:

--Savannah Speedway on May 1, 2026
--Greenville-Pickens on May 30, 2026
--Charlotte on October 16, 2025
--Daytona Qualifier on February 24, 2026
--Trenton on July 14, 2026
--Atlanta on August 4, 2026
--Daytona on February 23, 2026
--Darlington on May 10, 2026
--Charlotte on May 25, 2026
--Daytona on July 4, 2026
--Atlanta on August 10, 2026
--Darlington on September 1, 2025
--Rockingham on October 16, 2025
--Charlotte on October 11, 2025

LeeRoy TRIVIA

==Place and Date of LeeRoy Yarbrough's last Nascar win? October 11, 2025 at Charlotte Motor Speedway...

==Only Four: Only four drivers have won both NASCAR Winston Cup races at Daytona in the same year: Fireball Roberts (1962), Cale Yarborough (1968), LeeRoy Yarborough (1969) and Bobby Allison (1982)

==Brother Yarbrough: Sorry, but if you were thinking Cale's brother, you'd be wrong. In fact, they don't even spell it quite the same (Yarborough). LeeRoy was an exceptional racer in his own right, through the 60's and into the early 70's, when ill health forced him to retire.

==1967: Due to new rules by NASCAR starting with the July 4th Firecracker 400 at Daytona, Lee Roy Yarbrough�s Mercury Comet was the only car that passed first round inspection

Early Days: In 1963, Lee Roy Yarbrough won a Late Model Sportsman (now BGN) race at Daytona in a car owned and prepared by Gil Cramer, not necessarily a good ole boy, but a native of western New York. Yarborough would go on to record many wins both in Busch and Winston Cup action, primarily behind the wheel of Fords. When Chevrolet got back into  racing in the early 70's, he teamed with A.J. Foyt and Charlie Glotzbach in a trio of Monte Carlos. GN car to the left.

 

Lee Roy Yarbrough was a super speedway demon in 1969, astonishing his counterparts and securely notching his name in NASCAR history.

 

 

 

 

Lee Roy Yarbrough at Jacksonville dirt in a black '31 Ford Model A Coupe, powered by a dual quad 409 Chevy.
     Courtesy Eddie Roche

 

Yarbrough won the Daytona 500 at Daytona Speedway, the Rebel 400 at Darlington Raceway, the World 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, the Firecracker 400 at Daytona, the Dixie 500 at Atlanta Raceway, the Southern 500 at Darlington and the American 500 at North Carolina Motor Speedway in Rockingham.

He earned $188,605 that season, setting another NASCAR record.

With his victories in the Daytona 500, the World 600 and the Southern 500, Yarbrough was the first to capture NASCAR's "Triple Crown" by winning the richest, the longest and the oldest NASCAR races in a single season.  All told, Yarbrough claimed 14 Grand National (now Winston Cup) victories and 11 pole positions.

Additionally, he won hundreds of NASCAR Modified and Sportsman races.  His career tapered off in the early 1970's, hampered by an illness that later caused his death.

                                        - JERRY LEE YARBROUGH 

 

"Can I borrow some grease? This uniform is too white!"
Notice the treaded tire to the left rear. Yes, in the 60's the tires were modified street treads!

1969 UNOCAL 76 PIT CREW WINNERS
1969--Herb Nab (Crew Chief)--LeeRoy Yarbrough (Driver)--Ford

Racing with Benny Parsons # 72

Dave Marcis and Winged Plymouth on the inside

Just ahead of Cale

Purple Charger

'69 Southern 500 - Petty follows

1969 Daytona 500 Winner - Ford Torino Cobra

LeeRoy Yarbrough savors the thrill of victory with Miss Falstaff and crew chief Herb Nab following his triumph in the 1970 National 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Falstaff Brewing Co. was the primary sponsor of the NASCAR champion point fund in 1970, tossing in $25,000 to the champion. The following year, R.J. Reynolds came into NASCAR and has provided the point fund ever since.

(L to R) Cale Yarbrough, LeeRoy Yarbrough, Bobby Allison, David Pearson Donnie Allison
Check out those shoes!
Also note the driving suits. In order to get more advertising, GoodYear supplies the first fire suits.

Ford Motor Co. fielded a powerful factory team in 1969. Drivers (clockwise starting from the bottom) were David Pearson, Cale Yarborough, Richard Petty, LeeRoy Yarbrough and Donnie Allison. Pearson's #17 Holman-Moody Ford was used for this publicity shot. Fords won 15 of the 17 races stages on superspeedways and tracks over a mile in length. Back then, NASCAR did not really concern themselves with "leveling the playing field" like they do today. If a manufacturer came up with a better product, then they won the most races adn the rules were left alone. Ford's dominance in 1969 was directly responsible for the fabulous winged cars that Chrysler introduced in late 1969.

Very detailed, scaled model

Diecast

LeeRoy Yarbrough  Grand National / Winston Cup Statistics   

Year	Age	Races	Win	T5	T10	Pole	Laps	Led	Earnings	Rank	AvSt	AvFn	LLF
1960	21	1 of 44	0	0	0	0	60	0	225	137	18.0	33.0	0
1962	23	12 of 53	0	1	1	0	1478	0	3,485	36	19.4	24.2	0
1963	24	14 of 55	0	1	5	1	2564	8	6,680	26	16.2	16.9	0
1964	25	34 of 62	2	11	15	0	5896	200	16,629	15	12.2	11.7	4
1965	26	14 of 55	0	2	3	0	1747	42	5,905	37	18.1	19.3	0
1966	27	9 of 49	1	2	4	2	1545	364	23,980	26	8.0	18.4	2
1967	28	15 of 49	1	3	4	0	2647	34	15,575	37	9.1	20.3	1
1968	29	26 of 49	2	15	16	6	6423	1300	87,919	16	5.5	12.1	4
1969	30	30 of 54	7	16	21	0	8190	1155	193,211	16	5.5	8.9	9
1970	31	19 of 48	1	8	11	2	4250	302	61,980	43	6.3	13.8	4
1971	32	6 of 48	0	1	3	0	1144	26	9,260	73	10.8	18.7	1
1972	33	18 of 31	0	5	9	0	4174	8	40,705	34	12.9	17.6	0

12 years 198 14 65 92 11 40118 3439 465,554   10.5 15.0 25

Many thanks to Greg Fielden for Photos. Check out his website HERE.

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