5 days ago
Rex White, 1960 NASCAR Champion Driver, Dies at 95
Rex White, the oldest surviving NASCAR champion, who grew up in the rural Southeast where souped-up cars loaded with illegal moonshine were part of the stock-car racing circuit's origin story, died on July 18 in Taylorsville, N.C. He was 95.
His niece Kay Baron said that he died in hospice care at her home, where he had been living for a few years.
White started competing in the Grand National Series (now the NASCAR Cup Series) in 1956 and won two races in the 1958 season. The next year, he won five more.
In 1960, he had six triumphs in his No. 4 Chevrolet. In one of them, at the Old Dominion 500 at Martinsville Speedway in Virginia, he was challenged in the last 30 laps by Joe Weatherly.
'We bumped and banged around the track, exchanging so much paint I thought my car's gold color had changed,' White recalled in 'Gold Thunder: Autobiography of a NASCAR Champion' (2005, with Anne B. Jones).
White accumulated enough points throughout the season to take the 1960 Grand National Series championship. He raced strongly and efficiently: In 35 of 40 races, he finished in the top 10, including 25 times in the top five.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
