Three-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Cale Yarborough has died. He was 84 years old.
Yarborough won his three Cup Series titles in consecutive years from 1978 through 1978. Only Jimmie Johnson, who won five straight titles from 2006 to 2010 has won more titles in a row.
In addition to the championships, Yarborough won 83 Cup Series races, including four Daytona 500s and five Southern 500s.
“Cale Yarborough was one of the toughest competitors NASCAR has ever seen,” said NASCAR Chairman Jim France 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.”
William Caleb “Cale” Yarborough never shied away from challenges, often defying the odds with every adventure.
Nothing was seemingly off limits. He once wrestled an alligator, flew and occasionally crashed airplanes, was struck by lightning twice, survived intense battles as a Golden Gloves boxer and performed miraculous runs for touchdowns as a high school and semi-pro football player. Yarborough was a gifted athlete who was ultra-successful at anything he tried. A strong faith in God and an unwavering toughness, determination and an obsession for hard work best defined his life and his NASCAR racing career.
Personal tests helped build his character. The high school standout was given a chance to play college football in the mid-1950s and despite interest by the NFL’s Washington Redskins, Yarborough chose stock car racing.
“I had a scholarship to Clemson, a football scholarship, playing under Frank Howard. I was racing during the summer,” Yarborough said in a 2012 article for FOXSports.com. “I was just about to win the track championship. I went to coach Howard and told him I needed to go home to race one more race that I’d be through with it. He said, ‘If you go back, pack your clothes, don’t come back. You either go and race or play football. So I packed my clothes and left.’
“Of course, he kept calling. I told him, I said, ‘You told me to pack my clothes and that’s what I did. I’m going to make racing my career.’ He said: ‘Son, you’ll starve to death.’ I said, ‘Well, I may.’”
Yarborough was born on March 27, 1939, the oldest of three boys born to Julian and Annie Yarborough in Sardis, S.C., a small community just outside of Timmonsville. His family made their living by farming tobacco and cotton and owned a small local store. He felt a much greater responsibility to work hard after his father was killed in a private airplane crash during the late 1940s.
Yarborough’s first official foray as a race driver came in a soap box derby car in Darlington, S.C., at age 10. In September of 1951, the year Yarborough turned 14, the second annual Southern 500 was being held. Friends from school had tickets to the race, but Yarborough managed to slip under a fence to gain entrance.
It wasn’t until five years later in 1956 that he tried his hand at driving the treacherous egg-shaped 1.366-mile track. When it was discovered that he lied about his age, NASCAR officials forced him to park his car.
During the 1957 Southern 500, Yarborough finally made his NASCAR debut in Bob Weatherly’s Pontiac and finished 42nd with a broken hub. Over the next six years he ran limited schedules for numerous team owners. In 1964, he joined John Holman and Ralph Moody as a floor sweeper before being given a factory Ford to drive in select short-track events.
In 1965, Yarborough scored his first of 83 career wins at Valdosta (Ga.) Speedway for team owner Kenny Myler. That same year, Yarborough added to his indestructible lore after sailing over the turn-two wall at Darlington while battling Sam McQuagg for the lead in the Southern 500.
Select events followed in 1966 and in 1967 when Yarborough joined Wood Brothers Racing and won his first superspeedway race at Atlanta Int’l Raceway. Yarborough won 13 major events over four seasons, but was released after Ford withdrew factory support for NASCAR teams in 1970. He entered only four Cup races in 1971 and five in 1972, but logged one top-five and five top-10 results.
With no good rides available, Yarborough ran a limited schedule of Indy car races for team owner Gene White. He finished 16th and 10th, respectively, in two Indianapolis 500 starts in 1971 and ’72.
In January of 1973, Yarborough received the phone call he had been praying for. Team owner Richard Howard offered him the full 29-race Cup season with NASCAR legend Junior Johnson calling the shots as team manager with crew chief Herb Nab. That year, Yarborough won four races, including his second Southern 500, the National 500 at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway and the Southeastern 500 at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway where he remarkably led all 500 laps. The team finished second in points.
Yarborough won 55 Cup races under Johnson’s direct from 1973 through 1980. Johnson bought the team from Howard in 1974 and the duo won three straight championships and in 1976, ’77 and ’78.
Citing the need to spend more time with family, Yarborough left Johnson’s team to join team owner M.C. Anderson in 1981. He never ran the full Cup Series schedule again.
“I had decided that I was going to cut back on my schedule and spend more time with my family,” Yarborough said. “That’s what I did and have never regretted it. I would have loved to have won that fourth one, but I felt like I needed to spend more time with my family. That was more important than a fourth championship.”
Yarborough won twice in 18 starts in 1981 and the following year he won his sixth Southern 500.
From 1983 through 1986, Yarborough drove Harry Ranier’s Chevrolets to nine Cup Series victories, including the Daytona 500 in 1983 and ’84. In 1985, the team switched to Fords with Yarborough winning at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway and at Charlotte — his final Cup victory.
In 1987, Yarborough purchased the team owned by Jack Beebe and shared driving duties with Dale Jarrett before retiring in November of 1988. He fielded the team in 371 starts through 1999 with John Andretti scoring the team’s only victory at Daytona in July of 1997.
Yarborough considered his time in NASCAR his greatest venture.
“I’m going to remember this as being one of the best days of my life,” Yarborough said after being inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2012. “I’m so proud to be a part of (NASCAR) and so blessed to climb that long ladder and from the bottom step to the top step. I can’t go any higher but no one can push me off, either.”