“I never went into any race I didn’t think I could win.” – David Pearson
“Pearson could beat you on a short track, he could beat you on a superspeedway, he could beat you on a road course, he could beat you on a dirt track. It didn’t hurt as bad to lose to Pearson as it did to some of the others, because I knew how good he was.” – Richard Petty
South Carolina native and NASCAR legend David Pearson died yesterday. He was 83 years old.
When it came to racing skill, David Pearson is as fine a practitioner as has ever lived, and I believe he was the greatest NASCAR driver of all-time. His 105 victories put him second on the all-time list behind Richard Petty’s 200. But—but!—David Pearson rarely ran a full season. For example, Pearson won 105 Grand National/Cup Series races, but he only started 574 of them total. He won 18.3% of the races he ran. He finished in the top ten in a staggering 63.8% of them. In 1973, Pearson ran in 18 of the 28 races. He won 11 of them, finished second twice, and finished third once.
Strong.
Pearson and Petty finished 1-2 63 times, with Pearson having the slight edge in victories. Pearson was the polar opposite of Richard Petty off the track, however. Petty was/is a ham, drinking in the adulation as he made sure everyone who wanted his famously intricate autograph got it and flashing his thousand-watt smile for the cameras. Pearson was polite and always nice to the fans, but he didn’t have much personal use for anything but driving the race car. (He did often have an operational cigarette lighter in his stock car, though. If you were driving against Pearson and saw him smoking a cigarette during the race, he was feeling pretty good about things, and you were probably cooked.)
My single favorite Pearson-Petty moment is the end of the 1974 Firecracker 400. Pearson was leading Petty, then pretended he had a blown engine to let him by so Pearson could slingshot-pass him back right at the end:
Thanks for the memories, sir. God be with your friends and family. RIP.
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