{"id":17804,"date":"2015-01-30T05:14:43","date_gmt":"2015-01-30T10:14:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/?p=17804"},"modified":"2015-01-30T05:14:43","modified_gmt":"2015-01-30T10:14:43","slug":"rex-white-small-stature-giant-legend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/2015\/01\/rex-white-small-stature-giant-legend\/","title":{"rendered":"Rex White: Small Stature, Giant Legend"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"uvnvg\"<\/a>DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (January 28, 2015) \u2013 Over the years, NASCAR premier series champions have come in all shapes and sizes \u2013 tall, short, muscular and lean. The single constant? It\u2019s impossible to judge a book by its cover.<\/p>\n

Based upon first impressions, Rex White \u2013 at 5 feet 4 inches, weighing just 135 pounds and with his right leg withered by childhood polio \u2013 might have seemed the unlikeliest championship contender of all.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

White, however, was tough as nails fearing neither competitor nor track conditions. He won the 1960 premier series title and posted 28 victories over five seasons, finishing among the top five in nearly half of his 233 starts.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe looked more like a jockey than a race car driver,\u201d fellow competitor Buddy Baker told the Gaston Gazette, \u201cbut he lived large once they started the race. On short tracks, he was very aggressive. He didn\u2019t mind going in the turn with (NASCAR Hall of Famer and three-time premier series champion) Lee Petty and saying, \u2018I\u2019m inside and if you come down we\u2019re not going to agree on stuff.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cHe raced hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

NASCAR Hall of Famer Bobby Allison, the 1983 premier series champion, said, \u201cI admired Rex as a race driver because he was a little guy. I started out small. Seeing him winning encouraged me to chase my dream.\u201d<\/p>\n

What might have been a handicap to many only served as motivation to White, born Aug. 17, 1929 in Taylorsville, N.C.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of the lessons I have learned (from childhood illness) have stayed with me all my life,\u201d said White in his autobiography \u201cGold Thunder,\u201d written with Dr. Anne B. Jones. \u201cThe biggest one was how to conquer fear.\u201d<\/p>\n

White learned to drive at age six, driving a neighbor\u2019s truck in surrounding fields. Two years later he was working on his family\u2019s Ford Model T. \u201cI was unaware the car on which I labored represented hope to people around me (and) frustration to those trying to stop illegal moonshine,\u201d said White. \u201cI saw automobiles as transportation, not the symbol of an upcoming billion-dollar sport.\u201d<\/p>\n

White dropped out of school, moving to the Washington D.C., area where he found employment as a cook and, after marriage, a service station job. A poster advertising stock car races took White to Lanham (Maryland) Speedway where he caught on as an unpaid crew member for 1952 NASCAR Modified champion Frankie Schneider.<\/p>\n

A year later, White returned to the track with a 1937 Ford purchased for $600 lettered \u201cX.\u201d He won his heat race, the semi-main and the feature. \u201cI\u2019d never won a trophy at anything,\u201d said White.<\/p>\n

White made his premier series debut in 1956 on Daytona\u2019s beach\/road course. In 1958, he teamed with crew chief Louis Clements in an \u201coff the books\u201d program by GM\u2019s Chevrolet Division. They won twice in 1958 and five times the following year. The 1959 season also saw the debut of White\u2019s iconic No. 4 gold and white Chevrolet.<\/p>\n

The 1960 season was the first in which White ran a full schedule, going to the post only after he and Clement built a car for a competitor, the sale of which netted $2,000 for their own Chevrolet.<\/p>\n

White won six times finishing 35 of 40 races among the top 10. White\u2019s ninth-place finish at Birmingham, Alabama on Aug. 3 was his worst performance in the year\u2019s final 15 races. The championship was a runaway, White beating NASCAR Hall of Famer Richard Petty by nearly 4,000 points.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing about Rex is he thinks,\u201d said Clements in a 1960 interview with Sports Illustrated. \u201cWhen he\u2019s out on the track, he\u2019s planning and figuring out which cars he has to race to stay ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n

Car owner and engine builder Smokey Yunick, quoted in the same article, said, \u201cRex is not a cautious driver but he know when to use caution.\u201d<\/p>\n

White didn\u2019t disagree. \u201cI couldn\u2019t run quite as fast as some of those other guys,\u201d he said. \u201cSo long as I was smart and kept running; if any of those other guys had trouble, I had a chance.\u201d<\/p>\n

White nearly defended his title in 1961 winning seven times but finished second to NASCAR Hall of Famer Ned Jarrett. He added two more top-10 championship finishes before retiring at the conclusion of the 1964 season. Between 1959 and the 1963 seasons, White won more races than any other driver. He won 36 premier series poles \u2013 at least one in eight consecutive seasons \u2013 and finished second in NASCAR\u2019s Short Track late model championship in 1959.<\/p>\n

In retirement, White has owned an automobile dealership and for 25 years a trucking company, both in the Atlanta area where at age 85 he continues to reside. Named one of NASCAR\u2019s 50 Greatest Drivers in 1998, White holds membership in the International Motorsports Hall of Fame, National Motorsports Press Association Hall of Fame and the Georgia Racing Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (January 28, 2015) \u2013 Over the years, NASCAR premier series champions have come in all shapes and sizes \u2013 tall, short, muscular and lean. The single constant? It\u2019s impossible to judge a book by its cover. Based upon first impressions, Rex White \u2013 at 5 feet 4 inches, weighing just 135 pounds […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[15645],"class_list":["post-17804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nascar","tag-daytona-beach"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17804"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17804\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17806,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17804\/revisions\/17806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}