So sad. Another one gone. So glad I got to meet him in October 2014 at Memory Lane Museum.
http://www.news-journalonline.com/article/20151231/SPORTS/151239929/101001?Title=Local-NASCAR-racing-legend-Marvin-Panch-dies-at-age-89
Local NASCAR racing legend Marvin Panch dies at age 89
By Godwin Kelly
godwin.kelly@news-jrnl.com
Published: Thursday, December 31, 2015 at 12:10 p.m.
Marvin Panch, who gained fame by winning the 1961 Daytona 500 while driving Smokey Yunick's backup stock car, died Thursday.
Panch, 89, was born in Oakland, California, but spent a good part of his life in Port Orange, with his wife Bettie. They raised two children, Richie and Marvette.
Richie died in an airplane crash in 1985. Bettie passed away in 2006.
Panch was found unresponsive in his car Thursday morning and pronounced dead of natural causes a short while later.
He raced NASCAR in the 1950s and '60s and made 216 Sprint Cup Series starts and won 17 races, including that 500.
Panch had a near-death experience at Daytona International Speedway in 1963, when he flipped a sports car, which caught on fire, during a practice run over the track's road course.
Several people near the crash site, including NASCAR Grand American driver Tiny Lund, came to his rescue.
Panch suffered excessive burns and was unable to start the 1963 Daytona 500 for Wood Brothers Racing.
The injured driver asked Wood Brothers to put Lund in his place. The team agreed and Lund went on to score the 1963 Daytona 500 victory.
Panch's last NASCAR start was in 1966.
He worked in the automobile and racing business until he retired about two decades ago.
After retirement, he did extensive traveling. He was heavily involved with the local club, Living Legends of Auto Racing.
Panch wasn't supposed to win the 1961 Daytona 500. Pontiac, under the direction of new general manager Bunkie Knudsen, flooded the Daytona field with brand new 1961 Pontiacs. One of them, the black and gold No. 22, was prepared by Yunick, the legendary local mechanic in Yunick's Best Damn Garage in Town." That car was driven by Fireball Roberts, Yunick's fellow Daytonan and a NASCAR star of the day.
Pontiac was making a big marketing push with its new car, and the Daytona 500 was designed as a coming-out party.
Panch got a hand-me-down from the Yunick shop, a 1960 Pontiac Catalina (No. 20) that Roberts ran the previous year. The 1961 Daytona 500 belonged to Roberts until the closing laps, when his engine blew up. Panch, among those unsuccessfully chasing after Roberts, was given the go sign from Yunick and, in a bittersweet day for the Pontiac marketing team, Panch outran all of the new Pontiacs -- and everyone else -- in his year-old Catalina.
Panch took his half of that day's winnings (roughly $10,000) and used it to buy a piece of property on the south side of town, which today sits just west of I-95 of Taylor Road in Port Orange. He called the acreage Pancho's Rancho, and though in retirement he hit the road for months at a time in his RV, it remained his home for the rest of his life.
Ken Willis contributed to this report.
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Schaefer: It's not just for racing anymore.
updated by @tmc-chase: 08/07/18 08:23:02AM
