This is a very special week at Daytona, because it marks the 50th anniversary of Glenn "Fireball" Roberts sweeping every event in all of speedweeks 1962 at Daytona International Speedway. He won the short race of Champions, which compares to the Bud Shootout, won the Pole, won the 100 mile race, then takes the "Daytona 500" with a very fast Smokey Yunick built andowned 1962 Pontiac #22.
The record still stands as the only driver to sweep all events. To honor this ocasion the 1962 Pontiac clone built by Jimmy Kellett has been all over Daytona all week. Wayne Haynes, carried the car down on his rollback and showed this beautiful car off everywhere, and even went to "Fireballs"home place yesterday and unloaded the car to take photos with it in the driveway and also took a tour through the home which Doris Roberts sold to these people in 1967. How awesome is that ?
Wayne has been sending photos to Facebook until they get back next week. I would be there too but, dad had surgery the other day and I will have procedure on the 28th. I miss being there, but Wayne, and Jimmy will represent "Fireball" to the highest level.
The replica will be on display at the Fan Zone inside the speedway for the rest of the week if anyone goes and wants to see it. Thanks and have a great day. You can find us on Facebook too at fireballrobertsfan@groups.facebook.com , and this is a closed group so please ask to join and I will confirm your request.
I will try to post more photos on here as soon as I can. We need him in the 2013 NHOF class.
Richard, My Dad told me the story of how his uncle moved from N.C. to Daytona Beach in 1962 (I think that is the right year, close anyway). He had two young sons and the oldest Delbert Jr. was a fan of Fireball Roberts. Uncle Delbert found out where Fireball lived and stopped by one day so Jr. could meet him. They just drove up unannounced and knocked on the door. Fireball came out, was very nice and took time to talk to Jr. but he was so shook up at being right beside his hero he could not talk. The family picked on Jr. for years after that. He was buried in the same cemetery as Glenn "Fireball" Roberts.