A quick glance up State Road 403, just past the old country store, the gas station and all those grease shops where racing dreams were manufactured at the end of a wrench, Cale Yarborough could clearly see his destination.
Darlington Raceway wasn't more than a hop, skip and jump from his hometown of Sardis, S.C., a dusty town formed at the crossroads of Creek Road, Dogwood Road and State Road 403.
Some days the old track seemed so close he could taste the rubber bits scattered about its paved surface. Other days it seemed like he might never make it there.
When you grew up in South Carolina in the 1950s, you did one of two things: grew tobacco or raced to get away from growing tobacco.
Yarborough, a National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) legend, and still the only man to win his sport's championship three years in a row, took the fast lane.
That old track down the road deserves some thanks.
From Yarborough's days as a 10-year-old peering through the fence at Darlington's 1.4-mile slick, tricky asphalt surface, to his afternoons winning five Southern 500s as a stock car driver, Yarborough was a man bent on speed. He had the mettle to pound the pedal.
Bobby Allison, left, stands over Cale Yarborough after a collision between Yarborough and Bobbie's brother, Donnie, on the last lap of the Daytona 500 February 18, 1979. Donnie was leading the race until the collision with Yarborough.
"Cale Yarborough is the best driver the sport has ever seen," NASCAR legend Junior Johnson once said. "When you strap Cale into a car, it's like adding 200 horsepower."
Born March 27, 1939, Yarborough used to say it was in his blood. But it was even better than that.
His four wins at NASCAR's famed Daytona 500 track in Daytona Beach, Fla., are backed up by his 83 overall wins and his 70 starts from the pole position. For 40 years his career was a colourful one, on and off the track.
Yarborough was a daredevil. From his first solo flight at 13 to his more than 200 skydiving attempts to the night he wrestled a bear, Yarborough loved a challenge.
"There is nothing I won't try," Yarborough said in his 1986 autobiography "The Hazardous Life and Times of America's Greatest Stock Car Driver," a title that was certainly appropriate.
But more than anything over the years, William Caleb "Cale" Yarborough was a throwback, a guy who drove with determination and by the seat of his pants.
He earned his first ride in a race car at age 18, but only after being tossed out of the garage at Darlington numerous times.
He won his first race, in what we know today as the Nextel Cup, at Valdosta, Ga., in 1965. He won his last in 1985. In between, he was hell on wheels, taking the checkered flag at virtually every major track in the country, covering 12 states.
His biggest claim: no one raced harder to qualify in the Number One position. It's the reason he still ranks in the top-five all-time for starts from the pole, even though he retired 16 years ago.
"Running for the pole was like running for a win," Yarborough once said. "I always tried to win. Because no one remembers who finished second."
He was remembered.
From the afternoon in 1984 when he became the first driver to qualify for the Daytona 500 with a speed of more than 200 mph (320 km-h), to his five consecutive victories in 1976 (still a record), his name is synonymous with racing.
But what did he care about most?
"I never had a relief driver during my 30 years of racing," he once said.
No other driver with at least 500 starts can say the same.
But then, few others were like Cale.
Today, Yarborough is working on building a business empire with his family in that same small South Carolina town.
"When I speak to groups," he once said, "I try to get people to understand that they can do something to change situations they don't like. You can make a difference in your life."
He's proof. Head back to Sardis today, head north on State Road 403 and Cale Yarborough Highway juts out to the left. A lonely little strip of road just begging to be driven fast.
Jason Stein is a feature writer with Wheelbase Communications. You can drop him a note on the Web at www.wheelbase.ws/mailbag.html. Wheelbase Communications supplies automotive news and features to newspapers across North America.
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