Leeroy Yarbrough was one of NASCAR’s brightest stars in the latter 1960s. In 1969, the best year of his career he dominated the sport, winning seven races, among them the Daytona 500, Coke 600, the Winston 500 and the Mountain Dew Southern 500. His smashing success in that era was followed by a tragic and ugly fall from grace brought on by a combination of factors that no one has really event discerned. Yarbrough was involved in a couple of very bad crashes and some believe that he suffered head injuries that forever altered his life, while others believe it was mental illness that sent Yarbrough’s life into a spiral that ultimately ended with him being instituationalized in 1980 after trying to strangle his mother.
In this video, shot at Daytona in 1964, we see Yarbrough racing a modified Studebaker in a sportsman race. He suffers a crash and the car comes to rest on the infield. Licks of flame can be seen around the car as it is still sliding. Once the car somes to a stop, the fire picks up and officials come to Yarbrough’s aid. With flames beginning to engulf the car, a fellow racer jumps in, pushed everyone out of the way and drags Yarbrough out of the car mere seconds before fire totally takes over and the tires begin exploding. That fellow racer is NASCAR legend Fred Lorenzen and he completes one of the coolest and most brave acts of racetrack heroism ever caught on film. This is truly amazing tape.
This is extraordinary footage of a NASCAR legend being saved from certain death. Wild stuff!
Close call. To bad they the advance safety as in todays races
Never knew he drove a 53 Studebaker
This was 1964. In ’62 and ’63, Yarbrough and this ’53 Stude won the Mod/ Sportsman 250, the race ran on Sat. Before the Daytona 500.