NASCAR Career
Weatherly began racing cars in 1950. "Little Joe" won the first modified event that he entered. He won 49 of the 83 car races that he entered that season. In 1952 he won the NASCAR Modified National crown, and he again won 49 of 83 car races that he entered. Weatherly won 52 more races in 1953, and won the Modified National crown again.
Weatherly had partial interest in what would later be called Richmond International Raceway from 1955 to 1956.
In 1956 he moved into the NASCAR Grand National series (now Sprint Cup.) He drove a factory-sponsored Ford car for Pete DePaolo Engineering.
In 1957 and 1958 he drove for Holman-Moody.
In 1959, Weatherly would score six finishes in the "top five" and ten finishes in the top ten. He would narrowly lose the 1959 Hickory 250 to Junior Johnson; being outlapped twice before the race was concluded.
Weatherly won NASCAR's Most Popular Driver Award in 1961.
He won two consecutive championships in 1962 and 1963 for Bud Moore Engineering. Moore did not have enough resources to run the full season, so Weatherly frequently "bummed a ride".
Read more about this topic: Joe Weatherly
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“It is a great many years since at the outset of my career I had to think seriously what life had to offer that was worth having. I came to the conclusion that the chief good for me was freedom to learn, think, and say what I pleased, when I pleased. I have acted on that conviction... and though strongly, and perhaps wisely, warned that I should probably come to grief, I am entirely satisfied with the results of the line of action I have adopted.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)