Wednesday, November 5, 2014

Racers




                                                                        The Intimidator                                           
Dale Earnhardt was born April 29th, 1951 in Kannapolis North Carolina. He is the son of driver Ralph Earnhardt.  He started racing on local tracks when he was just 15. He dropped out of school in the ninth grade to race all the time and work as a mechanic.
In 1973 his father Ralph died while working on his car at the racetrack.
 Two years later dale had his stock car debut. He finished 22nd in the world 600 at charlotte motor speedway.  In 1978 he caught the attention of a racing sponsor named Rod Osterlund from California.  In 79 was his only sponsored driver.
            After five years with Osterlund. He joined Richard Childress’ Chevy team his career took off beginning with five wins and his second Winston championship in 85.      




Tiny Lund
            Dewayne “Tiny” Lund was born in Harlan, Iowa on November 14, 1929.  He was given the nickname tiny because of his large size he was 6-6 and 300 pounds. He stared racing motorcycles at the age of fifteen. Then as he grew older he stared racing midgets and sprint cars.
            In his first NASCAR race he crashed and rolled his car breaking both his arm and seatbelt. Ironically Rupert Safety Belt Company sponsored him at the time. He saved a fellow driver Narvib Panch from a burning car with the help of three other men. He then drove for that driver in the Daytona 500, which he won by gas mileage in the year of 1963. The driver drove for the wood brothers. Which earned him and three others the Carnegie Medal of Heroism.
            He is a member of Iowa’s motorsports hall of fame.  Some of his other hobbies include fishing. He caught a striped bass that weighed 55 pounds which was also his racecar number for most of his racing career. He drove a lot of different types of cars including Chevy, Ford, and Dodge, which is what he drove when he crashed at Talladega.

 His different numbers include 21, 55, and 26.  In 1975 on Aug 17 from fatal injuries that he got in a crash in his final race the Talladega 500.

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