April 28, 1963
“Gwyn Staley 400”
Top 5 finishers.....
“Here comes the King”—no I’m not referring to the Budweiser song. Richard Petty won his third straight race at North Wilkesboro. He led 130 laps in the race. It was career win number 19 for the driver from Randleman, NC. Petty started the race from the inside of row 4, from the seventh spot. His qualifying time was 23.75 seconds/94.74mph. A pattern has started to develop. Richard Petty has won 3 straight at NWS. The three races prior to those were all won by Rex White—prior to that, the three most recent races were won by Lee Petty.
The second place finisher started the race from the pole position and led 23 laps in the race. Fred Lorenzen posted a fast lap of 23.40 seconds/96.15mph during qualifying. It was a new track record by 0.12 seconds. It was Lorenzen’s second straight pole at NWS. Lorenzen liked to go fast and he did so especially at NWS. In ten starts, he won the pole five times, started no worse than sixth and had an amazing average starting spot of 2.5 at the track—the best of any track he made more than one attempt at. Grand National/Winston Cup winners at NWS started from an average spot of 4.77 and 84.4% of the winners came from a top ten starting spot. If you’re one to take a chance, Lorenzen’s numbers almost make him a shoe-in to win at the track. Place your bets!
Finishing 3rd was the man they called “Tiny”—Dewayne Louis Lund. A qualifying time of 23.47 seconds/95.87mph put Lund’s car on the outside pole at the start of the race. He led 25 laps. Standing about 6’7” and weighing around 300 pounds, it was said by folks that when you saw “Tiny” walking, you could see dust come up from around his feet. Lund started racing at a young age. He first started racing motorcycles, and then moved to sprints and midgets. But he became too big for the cars. Modifieds came next. After serving in the Air Force, he tried his luck in the NASCAR ranks. His first race was in 1955. He was sponsored by a seat belt company. He crashed in the race and suffered a broken arm and multiple minor injuries because..........his seat belt broke when the car rolled.
Jim Paschal started from the ninth spot. His numbers were 23.94 seconds/93.98mph. Paschal had a lengthy, successful career. His first race was in the very first NASCAR race in 1949 at Charlotte. He raced until the 1972 World 600 at Charlotte. In 421 races, he posted 25 wins and finished better than half of them in the top ten—230 races.
The 1956 & 57 champion, Buck Baker, would show up in the top five at NWS once again. It was the seventh time Baker finished in the top five at the track. He started the day from the 5th position—23.65sec/95.14mph. Baker entered his first auto race in 1939, but didn't finish it because one of his tires blew off. Despite his poor start, Baker would go on to become one of NASCAR’s greatest drivers. His name is on the top 50 list of All-Time Greatest Drivers.
The race was scheduled to go 400 laps, but it was shortened to 257 laps due to rain. The race lasted 1 hour, 57 minutes, 06 seconds. It was the only rain shortened Grand National/Winston Cup race at the track. However, we will come across a race in the future that was moved to a completely different weekend due to rain and some unforeseen circumstances that were created by the rain.
Petty was the only car on the lead lap. Lorenzen and Lund finished one lap behind, while Paschal and Baker were three laps behind. 22 of the 31 cars entered in the race were running at the finish. There were four drivers that ran out front. The fourth driver was Junior Johnson. But as he did so often, he fell out of the race after completing just 98 laps—he led 79 of them. Jack Smith improved the most positions—17, from 30th to 13th. Some well known drivers making their Grand National debut at NWS included Bobby Isaac, LeeRoy Yarbrough, Earl Brooks, Roy Mayne, and Gene “Slick” Elliott.