Don Naman asked me if I could get Bud Moore to donate this car from Dale's Pocono crash with Tim Richmond to use as a display at Talladega's International Motorsports Hall of Fame. Bud said, "NO WAY."
He’d won 13 consecutive races at McCormick Field Speedway but had a 500-lap victory disqualified for his use of an oversize gas tank, losing him $961 in prize money.
Banjo Matthews, a legendary local NASCAR driver, poses with his car, “Mr. X,” which he bought from Eddie Joyner and Toy Jones. Matthews was most famous for the race-winning cars he built and fixed for other drivers, including Fireball Roberts and Junior Johnson. “Cars built by Matthews won 262 of 362 Winston Cup races from 1974 through 1985,” the racing magazine Circle Track reports. Here he’s outfitting the X with a 7-gallon tank, to get it within NASCAR regulations, in the late 1950s. He’d won 13 consecutive races at McCormick Field Speedway but had a 500-lap victory disqualified for his use of an oversize gas tank. He lost $961 in prize money that night. Matthews was also familiar with the New Asheville Speedway and had worked with transmission expert John Bell, whose Main Auto Parts shop used to be behind the Western Carolina Stockyard, on a site now occupied by New Belgium Brewing Company’s offices. Photo courtesy John Bell.
Rob Neufeld
======================================
Dennis Garrett
Richmond,Va.
