Tribute car to enigmatic NASCAR star LeeRoy Yarbrough to sell
Like so many stories throughout NASCAR's long history, the true saga of 1969 Daytona 500 winner LeeRoy Yarbrough is far stranger than anything a novelist could ever concoct.
Yarbrough -- not to be confused with Cale Yarborough -- was briefly a NASCAR star in the late 1960s before a series of hard crashes, medical issues and mental breakdowns cost him first his career and then his life.
In 198 starts in NASCAR's premier division, Yarbrough won 14 races and 10 poles, posting 65 top-five and 92 top-10 finishes, an impressive record to be sure.
At his peak, Yarbrough was a consummate wheelman. Driving for Junior Johnson in 1969, he won the Daytona 500 and Firecracker 400, both at Daytona International Speedway, and the Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway. It was the first time one driver had captured what was then NASCAR's Triple Crown in a single season.
But repeated accidents, most notably at the old Texas Motor Speedway in April 1970, left him badly injured and robbed him of much of his memory.
The Jacksonville, Florida, native was committed to a mental institution in 1980 after attempting to strangle his mother. Yarbrough was charged with first-degree murder and assaulting a police officer who responded to a call from family members. The former driver was ruled mentally unfit for trial. Yarborough was still hospitalized in 1984, when he died at the age of 46 following a seizure and a fall.
In a 2008 story for Car & Driver, journalist Steven Cole Smith interviewed Johnson, who said Yarbrough deteriorated quickly following the Texas crash, the last in a series of bad accidents.
"He could remember everything from 1970 back, nothing forward," Johnson told Smith, adding that Yarbrough was the best driver he ever had. "And it seemed like it just happened all at once. You'd go to dinner with him, and they'd put a plate of food in front of him, and he'd just sit and look at it until you said, 'LeeRoy, eat.' Then he'd pick up his knife and fork."
Yarbrough's name doesn't come up that often in NASCAR circles anymore, but a tribute car similar to one he drove in his high-water season of 1969 will go on sale next week at the Barrett-Jackson Collector-Car Auction in Palm Beach, Florida.
The car, Lot 501, began life as a 1969 Ford Torino Talladega, the Ford model of choice that year in NASCAR. This car comes with one of the famed Boss 429 engines that were raced briefly in NASCAR, as well as a full roll cage and extreme attention to detail inside and out.
What will it go for? Well, the answer to that is the same as the answer to the question, "Who will win this weekend's race?" And the correct answer is, nobody knows for sure. But the new owner will certainly have a fine tribute to one of NASCAR's most enigmatic stars.
This car, similar to one driven by LeeRoy Yarbrough, began life as a 1969 Ford Torino Talladega.
