ROAR - NPP20160203

During his 30- year Cup Series career, Yarborough earned 69 pole positions and won 83 races, including three Daytona 500s and five Southern 500s at Darlington (S.C.)

Raceway.

Yarborough’s first ride was quite a bit slower than the ones he routinely drove to victory on Sunday afternoons.

It was a matter of convenience, but also a matter of necessity.

“The first car I ever
had was a 1929 Model
A Ford,” Yarborough
said. “Back in 1955,
I was working in a
tobacco warehouse in
Timmonsville, S.C. I re-
ally needed transporta-
tion to get to work and
didn’t want to walk. So I
started looking around
for something to drive.

“I just happened to go by a dealership one day and there was that Model A sitting there. All they wanted for it was $50 dollars. That was it. I said to myself, ‘I can make that payment!’ I got them to hold it for me so I could go and get it.

The car was at a Chrysler
dealership there in
Timmonsville that’s not
there anymore.”
Yarborough held
onto the car for many
years and even made
some pretty heavy
modifications to it as
time went by. For de-
cades, Yarborough has
owned car dealerships
of his own and has
seen countless cars
come and go. However,
that original Model A
will always be in his
mind’s eye, especially
since he still has a
reminder of that first
car close at hand.

“That ole’ car ran good and I got good service out of it for a long time,” Yarborough said. “I ended up making a hot rod out of it. It finally just wore completely out, but I got a lot of good out of that car. I wish I still had it.