"Lee Roy was one of the best racers I ever ran against," said former NASCAR driver Sam McQuagg. "There are lots of good drivers, but he had natural driving talent that most of them don't have. If you were ahead of him, you better watch out. If you blinked too many times he would pass you. And one of the best things about him, is he was not a dirty driver."

Lee Roy Yarbrough was born in Jacksonville, Fla., in 1938. His rise to fame was like a moth flying around a candle. He remained in the limelight only a few years before his NASCAR career burned out. His first NASCAR race was in 1960. That year he only ran a single event. The following year he ran 12 races and finished 36th in points. In 1963, he ran 14 events with no wins.

His big opportunity came in 1967. Junior Johnson, who had retired from racing by this time, was not having much success with Darel Dieringer. When 1969 rolled around Lee Roy and Junior were ready. With a year to adjust, the team entered 30 of the 54 races and won seven. His record included 21 top-10 finishes, and was the first driver to win NASCAR's version of the Triple Crown - the Daytona 500, the Firecracker 400 and the Southern 500.

His best season came in 1969, and even though he only had 30 starts that year, he won seven times and finished in the top 10, 21 times. "It was a great year," recalled Johnson. "We won half the races we ran. I'm not taking anything away from my car, but you just have to give it to him (Yarbrough). He was beyond any other driver there was at that particular time with taking chances and just going beyond what anybody thought anybody would do. He just out-nerved most of the drivers that he ran against that year. It was unbelievable to see the chances he'd take. Lee Roy had no, you might say, respect for fear at all. He just didn't. Nothing out-nerved him and that's basically the way he won some of them races we were in. He'd just keep going deeper and deeper. Whatever it took to beat somebody, that's what he did." Lee Roy drove for Junior Johnson from late 1967 through 1970. During his tenure with Johnson, he won 10 races, including the 1969 Daytona 500.

He was a supremely confident driver throughout his stock car racing career. In his early years, he was as cocky as they came, often bragging that he could do things with a fast car that others couldn't. And much of the time, he was correct.
But his problems began in 1970, after winning only one race. His life was problematic and filled with mysteries, but he also had many demons inside. He was a brawler, who got the reputation as the only man tough enough to take on the gigantic Tiny Lund. The two drivers weren't exactly enemies, just friends who didn't see eye to eye, and wouldn't take time to talk things out. "Lee Roy and Tiny started fighting before the race," said car owner Bud Moore, "And they fought some more after the race. Then we took off. We got up in the air and Lee Roy and Tiny started fighting all over again. I thought they were going to tear the sides out of the thing. It's a wonder we didn't crash with them two boys fighting like that."

He was one of the first to lavish praise on his crew members during post-race interviews, and he was often heard thanking the Lord for his driving talents. And then as suddenly as he rose upwards, the downward spiral set in.

He was gone in a short time. Friends remembered bizarre violence. One afternoon after returning from the track to his motel room, he was raging mad. He snatched his wife up by the hair of the head and dragged her out of the room, kicking her as he dragged her along the hallway. He had a bad crash during a test session while driving for Junior in April 1970. After that he started drinking pretty bad, and using painkillers. He spent days sitting, or out on a lake in a boat, drinking. "I don't really know what happened to him, but I know he started drinking pretty bad," continued McQuagg. "Some folks thought it might have been caused by Rocky Mountain spot