Bill Davis, a longtime team owner who won in all three NASCAR national series including triumphs in the Daytona 500 and Southern 500, has died. He was 74.
Bill Davis Racing fielded cars for multiple NASCAR Hall of Famers, including Mark Martin, Bobby Labonte and Jeff Gordon. All five of his Cup Series victories came with Ward Burton driving the team’s flagship No. 22 entry, including the Southern 500 at Darlington in 2001 and the “Great American Race” the next season.
Davis’ teams also won 11 races in what’s now called the Xfinity Series and 24 times in the Craftsman Truck Series, a tenure that included the 2008 championship with driver Johnny Benson Jr.
NASCAR Statement on the Passing of Bill Davis:
A championship-winning leader and owner, Bill Davis made a lasting mark on our sport through his passion and unwavering belief in the people around him. His teams celebrated some of NASCAR‘s most prestigious victories, including the…
— NASCAR Communications (@NASCAR_Comms) September 7, 2025
William A. Davis III was born January 18, 1951 in Fayetteville, Arkansas. He followed his father’s path into the trucking industry, starting his career as a Peterbilt salesman before forming his own company in 1975 in Batesville. Along the way, Davis competed in motocross events at a local and eventually national level.
Through his trucking connections, Davis crossed paths with Julian Martin and his son Mark, then an aspiring racer with shared Arkansas roots. Davis supported the young Martin’s exploits in the American Speed Association (ASA) through the early 1980s and fielded cars for him in Xfinity competition once Martin partnered with Jack Roush in the Cup Series in 1988. Davis’ jump to NASCAR would last another 30 years, bringing him and his wife, Gail, to North Carolina in 1990.
Davis later gave Gordon — then a little-known but highly regarded sprint-car driver — his first shot at a NASCAR career in the Xfinity Series. Gordon won that circuit’s Rookie of the Year award driving the Bill Davis Racing No. 1 Ford in 1991, then pairing with Davis for their first NASCAR wins the next season.
Davis had planned to go to the Cup Series level with Gordon in 1993, with the team close to reaching a deal for sponsorship from Target. After a promising meeting the preceding May with Target executives, Gordon told Davis that he had signed a contract with Rick Hendrick and Chevrolet on the elevator ride out of the company’s Minneapolis headquarters.
That set Gordon — then a 20-year-old prodigy — on a career-long journey with Hendrick Motorsports, where he scored 93 wins, four Cup championships and is now vice chairman. Davis instead signed Labonte, giving another future Hall of Famer his start in the rookie class of ’93. Davis later downplayed the bitterness he carried over Gordon’s departure, saying the exposure from their successes together helped him to establish his stock-car ownership roots.
Davis first paired with Burton in 1995, forming a long-running union that produced the first Cup Series win for both that fall at Rockingham Speedway. Burton stayed with Davis as the team eventually expanded to two cars and switched manufacturers from Pontiac to Dodge, and two crown-jewel wins followed — including the team’s most prestigious at Daytona.
“This just adds so much credibility,” Davis told the Associated Press in 2002. “It doesn’t get any bigger than winning the Daytona 500. Hopefully, it earns us the respect we think we’ve lacked down through the years.”
Davis sold his NASCAR operations after the 2008 season, eventually moving back to Batesville to focus on his trucking company and expand into the cattle industry. He was inducted to the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame in 2016.
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