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Five questions with: NASCAR legend Cale Yarborough
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Jimmie Johnson is currently 183 points in front of the point standings and well on his way to a third consecutive championship. Should he accomplish the feat, Johnson will be only the second driver in NASCAR history to score three consecutive championships. The first and to date only driver to pull off three consecutive titles was Cale Yarborough in 1976, ’77 and ’78.
The 69-year-old Yarborough currently lives on a 4,000-acre ranch in South Carolina and says he's ‘living in heaven’.
  TOP: Cale Yarborough holds his helmet in his right hand while fighting off Bobby Allison with his left leg and Bobby's brother Donnie at the end of the 1979 Daytona 500.(Photo Credit: RacingOne/Getty Images) LOWER: Cale Yarborough meets the media during Speedweeks 2008 to celebrate the 50th running of the Daytona 500, a race Yarborough won four times.(Photo Credit: Jason Smith/Getty Images for NASCAR) FAST FACTS |
In addition to his record three championships, Yarborough is legendary for being involved in one of the most famous and what many say pivotal, moments in NASCAR history.
The 1979 Daytona 500 was broadcast live from start to finish for the first time in history. Because of a snowstorm in the Northeast, millions of people were homebound and tuned in to the CBS broadcast. Most had never seen a NASCAR race before.
On the final lap Donnie Allison was leading with Yarborough close behind. As the pair shot down the backstretch for the final time, Yarborough went beneath Allison, the pair touched, then wrecked coming to rest in the infield near turn three. Richard Petty went on to a surprise victory, and seconds after he crossed the finish line the cameras focused on three drivers, Donnie Allison, his brother Bobby and Yarborough fighting near the scene of the accident.
Many say that that 1979 fight and the millions of viewers, who saw it, helped ingrain NASCAR into the National consciousness and started the growth of a once southern sport into a permanent American sports fixture.
You had this record for a long, long time. Did you ever think it would be equaled?
CALE YARBOROUGH: Well, it's an awful difficult thing to do. I think it may have been harder to win 'em back then than it is today because you had to compete against everybody back then.
As far as it lasting 30 years, I just wonder how come it took so long for somebody to win three in a row. That was a long streak. 30 years is a long time, but I was happy to hold it.
There are some people who say if Jimmie wins three straight, his accomplishment can't be compared to yours because of the differences in the points system. Do you believe that?
CALE YARBOROUGH: You know, even though the points system has changed, to be the champion you still got to do better than anybody else has done. That's the bottom line.
The 1979 fight at Daytona is a legendry moment in NASCAR history, can you pretty much take us through what led up to that, how that famous moment in broadcasting occurred.
CALE YARBOROUGH: I've told that story several million times. I'll do it again.
I had the fastest car and had it set up to where I could slingshot him on the last lap. That may have been a mistake on my part. I should maybe have gone on and passed him, go on and won the race handily. I was trying to make a show out of it. Unfortunately it really came out to be a show. It was one of the best things ever happened in NASCAR.
Here again, it was a very unfair fight. One Yarborough against two Allison’s, that wasn't even fair. But that's the way it ended up. We were friends the next day and we've been friends ever since. In fact, Bobby came by and spent the afternoon with me not too long ago.
-30 years later we all know who won that race, but who won the fight?
CALE YARBOROUGH: I did (laughter).
We're coming up on the 30th anniversary of the 1979 Daytona 500. You won three championships going into that. Did what happened in 1979 at the Daytona 500 derail your efforts to go for a fourth championship?
CALE YARBOROUGH: No. I had decided that I was going to cut back on my schedule and spend more time with my family. 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.
You went off to college on a football scholarship. Can you recount that moment in your life when you picked racing over football?
CALE YARBOROUGH: I had a scholarship to Clemson, a football scholarship, playing under Frank Howard. I was racing during the summer. 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 says, Son, you'll starve to death. I said, Well, I may.
In the end, Frank Howard is one of my biggest fans. He used to love to go to races and stand in my pits. I'll never forget that he was at Talladega when I won a race there. He was in the winner's circle. He walked up to me and put his hands on my shoulder and he always called me boy. He said, Boy, I ain't never been wrong many times in my life, but I want you to know I was wrong this time.
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