Part I

I freely admit to a certain - no, make that a large amount of ambivalence when it comes to championships. I often think of champions and championships as artificial constructs which detract from perhaps the essential point of racing - giving it your best every time out, each event an end unto itself. Then again, on the other hand, I freely admit that from time to time there is something about a battle for a championship title that forces me to abandon my usual view and actually get, well, involved.

Part of my view is that championships do not necessarily reward those who are "the best." Curtis Turner or Fireball Roberts never won a Grand National championship, yet they were respected in their time as the benchmarks by which you measured yourself. And, needless to say, Stirling Moss proved that the World Championship was not necessarily the badge marking one as The Best. Nor did being champion necessarily make one admirable.

And yet at times, I admit, there emerges a certain, ah, "something" from a closely contested or difficult championship season which creates - or reinforces - your ideas about someone. I have to admit that there are certain seasons where perhaps the contest for the title does add that indefinable "something" which adds to the essence of the sport.

In Grand Prix - or Formula 1 in the current parlance - racing, I have always thought that several seasons were enhanced by the struggle for the crown - 1958, 1961, 1964, 1968 and 1982 being the ones that spring immediately to mind. The amazing 1999 CART (Championship Auto Racing Teams) season which saw Dario Franchitti and Juan Pablo Montoya end the season tied in points, with Montoya getting the nod due to more victories. Or the 1992 battle for the NASCAR (National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing) Winston Cup title which saw six drivers enter the last race of the season with a chance of becoming champion - and the driver emerging as the victor, Alan Kulwicki, did so literally his way, becoming the last driver-owner to win the championship. He was also third in the championship when the race began.

There are champions who succeeded in spite of the odds stacked against them and persevered to emerge at the top of the standings at season's end. I have already mentioned one of greatest of those, Alan Kulwicki. The story of Alan Kulwicki and that 1992 season is one for another day, however. There was another story of perseverance, persistence, and dogged determination three decades before that of Alan Kulwicki's and just as remarkable.

Joseph Herbert Weatherly, Junior, was born on 29 May 1922, in Oak Grove, Virginia, a small hamlet just outside Norfolk. An active, fun-loving, and hard-working type, "Little Joe" as he was known, came into stock car racing through the two-wheeled route. After returning from World War II, where he served with an aviation engineer battalion in North Africa and Italy (and being wounded in action), Weatherly became interested in motorcycles and then motorcycle racing. He made his debut at the Piney Grove track in Washington, D.C. in June of 1946. Before he quit the circuit in 1950, Weatherly was to be a three-time AMA (American Motorcyclist Association) champion riding on Harley-Davidson bikes.

In 1950, Weatherly turned to stock cars for the first time, driving at the Chinese Corner Raceway in Norfolk in his first event. The next year Weatherly became a regular competitor in the modified ranks in the Tidewater area. During the 1952 season, Little Joe won 49 modified events and jumped into the NASCAR modified ranks for the 1953 season. In his first season in NASCAR, Weatherly won 52 races and was the season champion.

During this time, Weatherly was also dabbling heavily into the promoter business. Two local Norfolk area tracks, Princess Anne Speedway and Virginia Beach Speedway, the Wilson County Fairgrounds Speedway in North Carolina and the Atlantic Rural Fairgrounds Track in Richmond were the tracks at which Weatherly invested his time and effort in promoting events. He renamed the Virginia Beach Speedway the "Joe Weatherly Speedway," but his own success there as a driver hurt his opportunities as a promoter.

In 1955, Ford began to explore the notion of entering stock car racing and dispatched a crew to test the waters in the Grand National Division. The first driver hired was Weatherly. In turn, Little Joe got Ford to hire Curtis Turner - or as Little Joe and soon everyone else called him, "Pops." While the initial foray of Ford into the world of Grand National racing was marked by mixed results, Pops and Little Joe never lost a party. When offered a contract by Ford for the coming season, Weatherly accepted. He sold his interests in the tracks at which he had been promoting events and became a true full-time professional racing driver.

In 1956, Ford paid Weatherly an salary of $15,000 and 60% of any purse money he won. This was a very good financial arrangement and allowed Weatherly a degree of security he had heretofore not experienced. For the 1956 season, Ford got serious about stock car racing. Former National Champion Peter DePaolo ran the factory effort and soon Ford was appearing with great regularity in the winner's circle. Chevrolet and Ford were both previously not thought of as serious competitors in this form of racing - while the Flathead V-8 had long been the favorite of hot-rodders, Ford had done little lately to build on that niche, whereas the new Chevrolet "Turbo-Fire" or "Blue-Flame" V-8 was rapidly becoming the new engine of choice among the hot rod set.

For some reason, DePaolo assigned Turner and Weatherly not to the NASCAR Grand National Division, but to the newly-formed Convertible Division. Weatherly and Turner dominated the series in 1956 and into 1957. In mid-season, Ford pulled the plug on racing as did General Motors and Chrysler.

The assets of DePaolo Engineering were bought by John Holman and Ralph Moody. Although lacking the resources of Ford behind them, the Holman-Moody team continued to compete and run the major Ford effort. In 1958 and 1959, the successes of the first seasons in the Convertible series were a thing of the past. Weatherly ran 111 events in the series and won 13 of them, but in 1959, after finishing seventh in the series, Weatherly moved on to the Grand National series. He had been second, third, and fourth in the previous three seasons.

Running a partial schedule with Holman-Moody in 1960, Weatherly won three races, including the Rebel 300 at Darlington, a combined Grand National/Convertible race. The uniform of white work pants, a patterned sport shirt, saddle shoes, and the gloves with the fingers cut off soon became familiar to more fans as Little Joe raced in the Grand National Division.

In 1961, Weatherly got the break he had been waiting for in racing. Bud Moore, from his shop in Spartanburg, South Carolina, was fielding one of the Pontiacs to receive factory assistance for the 1961 season. He selected Weatherly as his driver. Driving the dark number 8 for Moore, Weatherly won nine races and was fourth in the final points standings despite running only 25 of the 48 races held that season. In the annual "Most Popular Driver" contest, it was Little Joe Weatherly who was an easy winner.

In 1962, for the first time Weatherly drove the entire Grand National schedule, a total of 52 races, and finished the season at the top of the standings ahead of Richard Petty and 1961 champion Ned Jarrett. Once again Weatherly notched up nine wins during the season, but also added 12 second place and 10 third place finishes. His winnings for the season were $70,742.10 - the highest yet.

Then the bombshell hit. In 1962, Ford had openly rejoined racing and was just as openly supporting teams it selected with not only parts and advice, but financial assistance as well. Since perhaps 1959, Pontiac had been lending backdoor "assistance" in the form of parts and advice to teams racing its products. The leadership at General Motors had turned a blind eye to this circumventing of the agreement not to use racing as a means to promote the product. However, in 1955 the Pontiac was best thought of as a salesman's car - in 1961, it was the make that had the hottest performance image in Detroit.

In the Winter of 1962/1963, General Motors began gearing up for a campaign against Ford. The Chevrolet folks were given the green light to brew up some special "stuff" for the stock car circuit, the big item being the "Mystery Motor," a development of the Chevrolet small-block engine with a big wad of horsepower packed into it. Pontiac was plotting and scheming along similar lines. The 1963 season promised to be a really big knock-down, drag-out fight since Chrysler was also in the hunt, its Plymouth entries benefiting from some serious work as well.

Then it all unraveled for those teams that had lined up behind General Motors. At first, Pontiac announced a reduction in its support plan, pending further developments. The General Motors programs would really kick off after Daytona was the word. Then, not long after the appearance of Junior Johnson and Johnny Rutherford in the Daytona winner's circle after winning the qualifying races in Chevrolet Impala SS 427s prepared by Ray Fox and Smokey Yunick, General Motors was gone. By the Atlanta race in March, only the Ray Fox-prepared Chevrolet of Junior Johnson was receiving any assistance - in the form of parts only - from General Motors.

Bud Moore, like several others, was left high and dry when Pontiac withdrew. He had enough parts and funding to run perhaps a partial schedule, but certainly not the type of schedule that he and his driver, Weatherly, had planned. This meant that if Weatherly wanted to defend his championship it would mean either shifting to another team - not a real option at this point, or scramble to find rides at those tracks where Moore would not be running. Like it or not, Weatherly was stuck with the latter. The only compensation was that as the defending Grand National champion he did receive a small appearance fee, $200, whenever he appeared, something that could sweeten the disposition of car owners.

Worse yet, Weatherly was not even in the points lead when the action turned from Daytona and back to the grind of the Grand National circuit of that day - literally dozens of events, often days apart, on the small half-mile and even smaller dirt tracks of the American Southeast. The 1963 Grand National season had actually opened in November of 1962 with Jim Paschal, driving a Petty Engineering Plymouth, winning the 100-miler on the half-mile dirt track of Birmingham Speedway.

At the next event, a week later on 11 November, Petty Engineering scored its second consecutive one-two finish on the 0.3-mile Golden Gate Speedway dirt track in Tampa, Richard Petty taking the win. Paschal gave Petty Engineering its third straight victory by winning the "Turkey Day 200" at Tar Heel Speedway in Randleman, North Carolina - which just happened to be literally a hop and skip from the Petty shops in Level Cross.

Weatherly had finishes of eighth, third, and second and was staying close to points leader Paschal. The long trek to California and the inaugural "Motor Trend 500" at the Riverside International Raceway in California resulted in Weatherly finishing 24th after suffering problems with the oil pan of his new 1963 Pontiac. The points leader after Riverside was Jim Pardue who finished in eighth in the Cliff Stewart 1962 Pontiac. This came about when Petty finished 41st when the transmission packed up early on, and Paschal 36th when his brakes failed and the Plymouth crashed, flipping several times, although Paschal was unhurt.

In 1963, the qualifying races for the Daytona 500 were 100-mile events and counted towards the points championship. Little Joe was 13th in the second qualifying race, ahead of Paschal in 23rd. The points leader, Pardue, was 28th when his engine blew on only the third lap. Petty had run in the earlier event and finished 12th. Weatherly was still hanging in there as far as the championship was concerned.

In the Daytona 500, Tiny Lund won after replacing Marvin Panch in the Wood Brothers #21 1963 Ford Galaxie 500 - whom Tiny had help rescue when his Maserati crashed and caught fire. Weatherly finished eighth, but third-place finisher Ned Jarrett took the points lead, trailed by Bobby Johns.

After Daytona, Moore was not even entered in the 100-miler at the Piedmont Interstate Fairgrounds track located at the Moore home base of Spartanburg, South Carolina. Weatherly managed to negotiate a two race deal with Fred Harb to drive his #17 1962 Pontiac at Spartanburg on 2 March and the following night, 3 March, at Weaverville. Richard Petty won both events with Weatherly finishing fourth in both races. At the 0.9-mile dirt Orange Speedway at Hillsboro, North Carolina, Weatherly finished a lowly 15th after starting on the pole in a Bud Moore entry when he lost fuel pressure at about two-thirds distance in the 150-miler. Jarrett continued to lead in the points standings with Petty and Weatherly trailing.

In the "Atlanta 500," Weatherly and Moore combined for a good finish, fourth, which closed the gap to Jarrett and Petty, even if only slightly. After Atlanta, Weatherly was back on his own and managed to hook up with Pete Stewart to drive the #57 1963 Ford. The "Hickory 250" on the always challenging 0.4-mile Hickory Speedway saw Weatherly finish a very disappointing 19th when the oil cooler failed, while Petty and Jarrett were second and third to Junior Johnson. At the "Southeastern 500" at the Bristol International Speedway, Fireball Roberts won on his debut as a member of the Holman-Moody team, the Weatherly/Moore Pontiac combination getting 10th, but Petty's fourth place finish was offset by points leader Jarrett finishing 15th.

Unfortunately for Weatherly, the points leader won the very next race, the shortened 100-miler on the New Augusta Speedway, and Petty was second. Weatherly brokered a ride in the #88 1961 Chrysler of Major Melton and finished a distant 11th. When the race was called at 112 of the scheduled 200 laps due to heavy dust, which refused to clear, Weatherly was already 14 laps down to the leaders.

However, three days later on 7 April, Weatherly was back into the cockpit of the #8 Bud Moore 1963 Pontiac and at a track he knew and liked - the 125-miler at the Atlantic Rural Fairgrounds in Richmond, one of the tracks Weatherly had promoted races at several years earlier. Weatherly started third, but during a pit stop, a nut got cross-threaded, and Weatherly went a lap down. Little Joe stormed through the field and took the lead and held off a strong challenge from Junior Johnson in the white #3 Ray Fox Chevrolet Impala SS. Jarrett finished second and Petty sixth, so any progress was marginal, but it was a lift to gain a victory.

Then came three races back-to-back at the Greenville-Pickens Speedway, the South Boston Speedway, and at the Bowman-Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem. The 100-miler at Greenville saw a 1963 Pontiac in victory circle, but it was the #87 of Buck Baker. Jarrett was second, Petty fourth and Weatherly 24th and last in the #2 1962 Pontiac of Cliff Stewart.

At South Boston, the 400 laps on the 0.375-mile track witnessed the fourth victory of the year for Richard Petty, ahead of teammate Paschal, with Jarrett third. Once again Weatherly was in last place, 16th, this time in the #83 Worth McMillion 1962 Pontiac, dropping out when the rear-end gears stripped. Back in the #2 Pontiac of Cliff Stewart, Weatherly was 10th at the 50-miler on the quarter-mile track laid out inside the Bowman-Gray Stadium. Paschal gave Petty Engineering another victory, Jarrett was fifth, and Petty 11th. Basically, the relative positions of the three drivers did not change.

The "Virginia 500" at the half-mile paved Martinsville Speedway saw Richard Petty beat Tiny Lund in the Wood Brothers #21 Ford by a lap, but only after Fred Lorenzen had his rear axle break while in the lead. Ned Jarrett managed to finish fourth and Weatherly was sixth in the #8 Pontiac of Bud Moore.

A week later and another 250-miler, the "Gwyn Staley 400" at the 0.625-mile North Wilkesboro Speedway, and it was Petty once again winning the race, with rain ending the race with about 150 laps left. Jarrett finally had a poor finish, winding up 25th when his engine blew at quarter distance. Weatherly, however, could not convert his excellent starting position into a good finish, the #8 Pontiac retiring when the rear end gears failed leaving him in 23rd place. Any hopes that Weatherly had for becoming a repeat champion were perhaps beginning to fade in the eyes of others, but Little Joe was still confident and figured that it would all start to break his way.

At the Columbia Speedway, Richard Petty won his third race in a row, with Ned Jarrett in third, while Weatherly was a distant 19th when he crashed in the #2 Cliff Stewart Pontiac. The victory narrowed the gap between Jarrett and Petty to a relative handful of points. Weatherly was a distant third. Petty Engineering got a fourth consecutive victory on the quarter-mile dirt Tar Heel Speedway in Randleman, but it was Jim Paschal in the #43 Plymouth winning and not Richard Petty. Weatherly managed to finish second in the same #2 Cliff Stewart Pontiac he had crashed just three days earlier in Columbia. Jarrett was third and Petty 13th after having to deal with fuel pump problems after only one lap.