November 14, 1929 -
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Jeannie Barnes
Artist
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Tiny Lund: Larger than life By: Tom Gillispie Published: September 22, 2011
DeWayne “Tiny” Lund, the last winner of a Cup race at Hickory Motor Speedway, was
most definitely not a tiny man. At 6-
And he came up huge in the 1963 Daytona 500.
Ten days before the 500, Marvin Panch crashed a Maserati during sports-
He also joined the list of drivers – Derrike Cope, Mario Andretti and Sterling Marlin
are among them– to get their first Cup victories in stock-
Lund loved fast cars, fishing, good times and children, as he often gave a racing trophy to a child after winning that day’s featured race.
Only one month before his big Daytona 500 win, Lund caught a world-
Lund was a four-
Along with his back-
He wound up winning 5 of 303 Grand National (now called Sprint Cup) races.
His last race, one he entered while doing a favor for a friend, was on Aug. 17, 1975. After a crash eight laps into the Talladega 500 at Alabama International Motor Speedway (now Talladega Superspeedway), he died of massive chest injuries at 45 years of age.
Lund, who was born Nov. 14, 1929, in Harlan, Iowa, considered both Cross, S.C., and
Harlan home. And he has been well remembered in both areas. Now-
There’s also a Tiny Lund Grandstand at Daytona International Speedway.
Lund was also one of the most colorful drivers of his era. There’s the time he fought
the entire Petty family to a standstill, only to be pummeled by a woman with her
purse. There’s the time Buddy Baker, another colorful character, was swimming, and
Lund snuck up on him, alligator-
The winner of the 1975 Talladega 500, by the way, was Baker, another member of Hickory Motor Speedway’s Wall of Fame. When Baker went to the press box for the winner’s interview, he learned of Lund’s death and fell to his knees in a near swoon.
Years later, Baker always has a Tiny Lund story. He once talked about a post-
“I looked up and said, ‘Oh, Lord,' ” Baker said with a laugh. “Tiny was racing me, and I was racing to win. I tried to get around him four or five times, so I just moved him. It kinda made him mad.”
Naturally. Baker said he noticed part of an axle about the length of a ball bat.
“My first thought,” he has said, “was to take the axle and whop him across the head. Then it occurred to me, ‘What if I miss?’ ”
So how did Baker handle the aroused and not-
“I was a good salesman, and I had a boost of adrenaline,” Baker said, laughing. “I said, ‘You, of all people, are upset at me? You hit me four or five times in one corner!’ He turned around laughing and walked off. I thought, ‘Are you kidding me?’ ”
Baker, who was also 6-
Absolutely. Especially a Tiny bear. from HickoryRecord.com (drawing by Bill Rankin.)
Tiny Lund's first NASCAR race was on October 9, 1955 in Lehi, Arkansas. He started
in 23rd position in his 1955 Chevrolet, sponsored by Ruppert Safety Belt Company.
When his car flipped repeatedly on lap 65, he suffered a broken arm and multiple
bruises when his seat belt broke during his series of flips. He was credited with
finishing in 25th place.
Forward to February 1963 and Lund would receive the Carnegie Medal of Honor for heroism when he pulled fellow driver and friend Marvin Panch from a burning sports car at Daytona. Since he was not able to compete, Panch convinced the Woods brothers to let Tiny drive his Ford in the Daytona 500. Lund won the race at an average speed of 151.566 mph on a single set of tires! Later that year, he would win another premier race...the 500 mile Modified Sportsman race in Atlanta.
Lund would go on to win two other NASCAR Grand National events: on April 28th, 1965,
he won the rain-
On June 15, 1966, he outlasted the Factory drivers to win at Beltsville, MD. He
started 7th, and took the lead on lap 71 when Richard Petty blew his engine. Lund
led the balance of the race.
During his long and varied racing career, Tiny would
win races in USAC, ARCA and the Pacific Coast Racing Association, as well as the
Grand American Series. He won the Grand American Championship three times (1968,
1970 and 1971). And, he won the Grand National East Championship in 1973.
Tiny also won the Most Popular Driver title in the Grand National American Series a total of four consecutive years: (1969, 1970, 1971 and 1972).
The Shelby County Speedway was Dewayne "Tiny" Lund's home track when he first started
racing. One of the most colorful drivers of his era, with a heart as big as his stature,
Tiny was a very generous man who loved fast cars, fishing, good times and children.
It was more than once when Tiny was seen giving his trophy to a child after winning
that day's main event. Tiny is also a member of Iowa's Motorsports Sports Hall of
Fame.
Credit: Fletcher Williams Jeannie Barnes Painting*
OBITUARY for WANDA RUSSELL EARLY LUND
December 10, 1948 -
50 years ago: A 'Tiny' miracle at Daytona International Speedway by Ken Willis
Sports Columnist – Daytona Beach News Journal - February 11, 2013
As the Maserati careened out of control, slid upside down through Turn 4, and finally
caught fire, consider the odds you could've gotten on the following possibilities:
* The driver of that flaming sports car would be here 50 years later to tell the story.
* One of the men helping with the rescue – a struggling racer with no big races on his upcoming calendar – would go from February unemployment to NASCAR's “man of the hour” just 10 days later.
Even on ovals and tri-
Panch, two years removed from his Daytona 500 win and set to run the '63 500 for
the Wood Brothers, was turning practice laps in a Ford-
“I remember quite a bit of it,” said Panch, now 86 and a Daytona Beach-
Safety protocol wasn't as advanced as it would become in later years, so it took
a few fellow drivers and two others to save Panch's life. Firestone engineer Steve
Petrasek and mechanic Jerry Raborn were joined at the fiery scene by drivers Bill
Wimble, Ernie Gahan and a part-
“The car was upside-
The blast knocked the men back, and things went from bleak to bleaker for Panch. But Petrasek looked into the flames and saw that Panch was still trying to escape.
“I could actually hear Steve – he yelled, ‘He's still kicking,' ” Panch said. “So they came back and lifted it again, and Tiny grabbed me by the leg and pulled me out. It's pretty obvious that if it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be talking to you now.”
Eventually, the five men who rescued Panch would receive the Carnegie Medal for Heroism, but for the hulking Iowan – the racer without a race – the best prize was more immediate. With Panch hustled to Halifax Hospital for a lengthy recovery from burns, the Wood Brothers needed someone to drive their No. 21 Ford.
Tiny Lund was the natural choice. While no star, Lund had run 131 big-
“A really good guy,” Panch said of Lund. “But you didn't want to get him mad at you. He was built like a bull. If he hit you, the lights went out.”
Panch saw this firsthand once at a nightclub in Darlington, S.C., where a rowdy local was picking trouble with one of the visiting NASCAR racers. “We walked into the place with Tiny and I said, ‘Tiny, why don't you take care of this for the fella,' ” Panch recalled.
“He took care of the guy, but then his buddies came. Once he hit 'em, they were done. One of the guys could fight and was sparring with him pretty good, but once Tiny got a punch in, it was done.”
The stories of Tiny Lund's feats of strength are legendary, but the story of his driving career basically focuses on a Sunday afternoon in 1963 at Daytona International Speedway. Lund took Panch's ride and, with the Wood Brothers putting together a winning game plan, he won NASCAR's biggest race – he'd win four more times in his career before he was killed in a crash at Talladega in 1975.
While it'd be nice to recall that the massive Tiny Lund manhandled the 1963 Daytona 500, he actually won it on fuel mileage. The Wood Brothers gambled that they could run the 200 laps on one less stop than the competition, and they were right, but not without some help. Over much of the final 10 laps, Lund was able to feather the throttle and accept pushing from Ned Jarrett on his rear bumper.
Panch had hoped to defy doctor's orders and watch the events of that afternoon at Daytona, but he ended up listening to them on the radio back at Halifax.
“I wasn't supposed to go to the track that day, but I think they did it just to please me,” Panch said. “They hauled me out there in an ambulance because I wanted to go. They said they'd take me if I promised not to get out when I got there. When I got there, of course, I got out. I walked around a little bit and talked to the guys, but they grabbed me and put me back in the ambulance and took me back to the hospital.”
Before he was boarded back into the ambulance and taken back to his hospital bed,
Panch had a short chat with his race-
“He told me to just use good judgement and stand on it,” Lund said.