Yarborough fondly recalls early days of stellar career

Cale Yarborough's earliest success behind the wheel was gravity-assisted, but he quickly learned to handle cars with engines, and showed tremendous potential right from the beginning of his career.

The South Carolina native was always hard to beat, especially at his hometown track, Darlington Raceway. Like his three consecutive NASCAR championships, Yarborough's determination and desire was unmatched.

Driving for the likes of the Wood Brothers and Junior Johnson, he amassed 83 wins -- and was equally adept on Daytona's high-banks as he was at Bristol's bullring. Yarborough even competed full-time on the Indy-car circuit at one point during his career, showing amazing versatility.

Hall of Fame bio

As competitive as the sport has always been, NASCAR has had very few dynasties. Yarborough's reign in the late 1970s, though, was one of them. His string of three consecutive Cup Series championships from 1976-78 was unprecedented -- and unmatched until 2008, when Jimmie Johnson was crowned champion for the third consecutive year.

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Q: How did you get your start in racing?

Yarborough: I got started when I was 10 years old, in soap box derby. That was before go-karts, and I won a couple of soap box derby races. So I figured if I wanted to keep going in racing, I needed to find something with a little more horsepower.

I built my first race car when I was 15 years old, starting off at the dirt tracks. That was in Sumter, S.C., a little quarter-mile dirt track.

Q: How did you wind up in Grand National?

Yarborough: Well, I went through the short tracks. In 1957, when I was 17 years old, I was doing real well in short tracks. I had some friends and neighbors, and they said, 'Let's build a car and take it to Darlington.' So it was kind of a community effort, we put the car together and took it to Darlington.

I broke a spindle after about 30 laps and that put us out of the race, but I just kept going to the racetracks and finally started picking up some rides and the rest is history. I kept climbing the ladder.

Q: That wasn't your first visit to Darlington, correct?

Yarborough: Oh, yeah. I went to the second race they had there in 1951. I had to sneak in because I didn't have any money to get in. I made up my mind right then that I was going to be a racecar driver. It was awesome.

Q: How did your first full-time ride come about?

Yarborough: My first full-time ride came with Herman Beam. He gave me my first full-time ride. He had good cars and he got tired of driving himself, so he had been watching me and we got together and went from there.

Q: Didn't you end up with the Wood Brothers shortly thereafter?

Yarborough: I drove for them for five years. The first real good ride I had was a year-old car when I went to work for Holman and Moody. They put me in a year-old car and we ran the whole circuit with it.

The next year, they put me in Bobby Johns' car for Banjo Mathews. He wanted to go to Indianapolis, so they let me run his car while he was at Indianapolis, and then they put me in it permanently after that. That's Ford Motor Company I'm talking about. And then they put me in the Wood Brothers car after that.

Q: You were one of the first stock-car drivers to go to Indianapolis and run full-time in open-wheel cars. Why did you decide to go that route?

Yarborough: Well, when I driving for the Wood Brothers, Ford Motor Company decided they were going to pull out of racing, and I needed something to do and there were no rides available. I had run twice at Indianapolis while I was still racing stock cars. I signed up with Gene White out of Atlanta and drove for him two years on the Indy-car circuit.

I enjoyed driving Indy-cars, but never had real good equipment. My best finish at Indianapolis was 10th. By then, I decided I wanted to come back to NASCAR, and Junior Johnson was looking for a driver and I was looking for a ride, so we hooked up and made a good team.

October unveiling

A Voting Panel will meet in Charlotte, N.C., to select the five for enshrinement with the inaugural Hall of Fame class to be announced October 14.

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About the Hall

The Hall of Fame will bring NASCAR's history to life and preserves that history in the appropriate environments. The facility will allow fans to have the opportunity to relive the sport's greatest moments.

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Q: With Junior's team, you had a stretch in the mid-'70s that was unparalleled. Why do you think you were so dominant?

Yarborough: Junior had good cars and I was hungry to get back into NASCAR racing. We had a good team and it just worked out well. I drove for Junior for eight years, and I decided my family needed me home a little bit more, so I cut back on my schedule.

Of course, Junior was looking to run the full circuit. There's no telling how many championships we might have won had I stayed there.

Q: Who do you say was your biggest rival?

Yarborough: All of them. I wanted to beat them all. I didn't have one particular rival. Darrell Waltrip and I got into a word rivalry one time, but it didn't amount to nothing. We were having more fun with it than everybody else.

Q: With all of your wins and championships, is there one moment in your career that stands out?

Yarborough: The one race that stands out in my mind was winning the 1968 Southern 500 at Darlington. That was my home track and it was on the old race track, before they worked on it and made it different.

Winning that race was the best race, as far as I'm concerned, that I ever won. And of course, winning my first championship is something I'll never forget, either.

Q: How do you look at your three consecutive championships, and how unique that was in NASCAR history?

Yarborough: I'm proud of it. It lasted for 30 years, so you've got to be proud of it.

Q: What has been the biggest change in the sport since you started in it?

Yarborough: The biggest change is the amount of money that you can make. Of course, the cars, they've made a lot of changes, a lot of things have changed. But I wouldn't take nothing for having been a part of the early days of it.

Q: If you could vote for the inaugural Hall of Fame class, who would you choose?

Yarborough: I haven't even thought of that. I'm sure that a lot of the founders and other people are going in, but I'd look hard at five drivers going in the first time. The rest of them can come later, but five drivers ought to go in the first time.

Q: What do you think will be your legacy in this sport?

Yarborough: I would just like people to say he gave it his best, he ran the last lap just as hard as he ran the first lap, and never gave up.

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