Remembering Art Malone

Longtime Drag Racer and the first man to run over 180mph at Daytona,Art Malone,passsed away this morning.On August 27TH,1961 he drove the Mad Dog IV to an average speed of 181.561mph.at Daytona.Another great racer has left us.He will truly be missed.His family will be in our thoughts and prayers

Oh no. Truly hate to hear this. Art also ran a single race for Petty Enterprises a few weeks after breaking the 180 MPH barrier at Daytona. He raced a #42 Petty Plymouth to an 8th place finish at Martinsville in the Old Dominion 500 on September 24, 1961. The race was his first of only two Grand National races in his career.

Selfishly, I'm kicking myself. I was able to get Mr. Malone's phone number from a source close to him. Early this spring when things settled down a bit for me from a busy winter and spring, I'd planned to call him to ask if he had any memories of the race with the Petty team and perhaps request an autograph. I wish now I'd made time to make that call. Lesson to me: carpe diem.

Big picture though - that's trivial. Meanwhile, the racing community has lost another great one.

From Laverne's gallery: http://stockcar.racersreunion.com/photo/mad-dog-iv

Sorry to hear this news.

A shared STP connection with Petty family.

Perhaps I'm forcing 'two degrees of separation' on Richard Petty and Art Malone, but I find a couple of trivia nuggets interesting.

• A few weeks after Art's 180 MPH run at Daytona in 1961, he was hired to run a Petty Plymouth at Martinsville as a teammate to Richard.
• In May 1963, Richard wiped out his Plymouth in a practice session for the Rebel 300 at Darlington while trying to avoid a wreck started by a rookie. On the same day, Art Malone passed his rookie test at Indy and made his first Indy 500 start later that month. (Click here to read --> Daytona Beach Morning Journal articles.)
• When Art made his Indy debut, his car owner was none other than Mr. STP himself: Andy Granatelli. The one and same who linked up with Petty less than 10 years later.

Source: http://www.indy500autographs.com/id252.html

R.I.P. Art Malone. Our thoughts and prayers are with your family and friends.

Art had suffered frominjuries in an Airboat accident a few years ago and passed because of the injuries. R.I.P ole friend.

He and I did tip the can together a few times.

My prayers go out to his wife Sandra and family.

The Mad Dog was based in Charlotte on Moorehead St. across from WBTV. It was owned by Bob Osiecki. The late Jim Burrell, a Gaston County neighbor and mentor of mine ,was one of the body creators who also was largely responsible for the STP turbine Indy car body anddid extensive hand forming of the body on Dean Jeffries Manta Ray. Jim came from the golden era in California and worked for Valley Custom and did projects for George Barris.He used to hand out photos of the Mad Dog and said Art Malone was the best of the best.Frank Spittle is a world of information about the Mad Dog and Art Malone and explains it well on the H.A.M.B. message board website. Charlie Craig

my prayer are to his family at this time. RIP