Darlington’s winningest driver David Pearson

• David Pearson, a three-time Cup Series champion, achieved significant success at Darlington Raceway, securing 10 of his 105 career victories at the track.
• Pearson’s partnership with Wood Brothers Racing, particularly in 1972 and 1973, yielded remarkable results, including 19 wins in 36 starts.
• The No. 21 Cyclone, driven by Pearson for Wood Brothers Racing, was a dominant force, securing 11 victories and numerous top-three finishes.

Now in its 75th year, Darlington Raceway has always been deemed one of NASCAR’s toughest tracks to maneuver over 500 miles. One driver looked at the famed 1.366-mile oval as his all-time favorite and enjoyed great success there.

Three-time Cup Series champion David Pearson was a master at the egg-shaped track, winning 10 of his 105-career victories at Darlington from April of 1968 to April of 1980. His final win there came in April of 1980 with team owner Hoss Ellington while driving a Chevrolet. 

Pearson’s first win at Darlington came with Holman-Moody, Ford’s powerhouse operation based in Charlotte, from 1956 until 1970. After John Holman and Ralph Moody drastically cut back their racing efforts, Pearson was looking to move to a limited schedule of what was then known as the Grand National division. 

The Spartanburg, South Carolina, native got his wish when he joined Wood Brothers Racing on April 16, 1972, beginning with Darlington’s Spring event. Pearson’s talent, a well-handling car and a strong 429 cubic inch engine under its hood proved to be a seemingly unstoppable combination in the Rebel 400 that year. Pearson and Wood Brothers Racing logged 43 victories before they parted ways in April of 1979. 

Six years earlier in 1973, team owner Glen Wood and crew chief Leonard Wood entered only 18 Winston Cup races that season, winning 11 of them, and he finished seventh in points.

“David and I hit it off right from the start,” Leonard said in recent years. “Sometimes it takes six months to get on the same page. We won the first race he ran for us at Darlington in 1972 and it just clicked from then on.

“His style of driving made it so easy to set up the race car. He would just back off the throttle at the right place and let it float into the corner and once it set, pick up the throttle at the right place and blow you away on the straightaway. He was such a great race car driver.”

The numbers from 1972 and 1973 are quite impressive.

In 36 starts during those two seasons, Pearson won 19 times, or 52.8% of his starts. In 32 superspeedway events, the car won 18 times (56.25%), including what was then a record of 10 superspeedway wins in 1973. Also, in 36 starts, the car won 15 pole positions and started second 12 times. Add five second-place finishes and four thirds to the 19 victories over two seasons and the car finished in the top three 28 times at 77.8%.

Also in 1973, Pearson also won at Martinsville Speedway, a race the Wood Brothers rarely entered in that era.

“The whole time David drove for us (1972-1979), he and Leonard had a great relationship going and everything was clicking. In 1973, the pit crew was really fast. If we got a little behind on the track, a lot of time was made up in the pits.”

Sadly, two of the principal players in the story are no longer with us. Pearson passed away on Nov. 12, 2018, at age 83, as did team owner Glen Wood at the age of 93 on January 18, 2019.

Leonard, now 90 years of age, continues to offer thoughts on their union and sports a quick smile when talking about that one special race car and driver.

“If you weren’t running good with Pearson you might as well work on the car because it sure wasn’t him,” Leonard said. “If he wasn’t saying anything, we knew we were all right. He was just a cool driver. He would say he didn’t need to practice but I would tell him, ‘You may not need to, but the car does.’ He was so much fun to work with; it was unbelievable how good it worked. Any race we went to, we knew we had a strong chance to win.”

When asked years ago why the car was so good, there was only one answer, according to Pearson.

“The driver, of course,” he said with a laugh during a 1992 interview for the American Racing Classics book series. “No, it was handling, horsepower, everything. We had it all. It was the best car I ever drove. It was just the right body style, a real low car, everything.”

The competition knew they were in trouble when they saw Pearson coming up in their rearview mirrors.

“Back then, we were sort of on our own,” Glen said in 1992. “The factories weren’t paying for anything. In fact, they had quit at the end of 1970. So we had to make do with what parts and supplies they had given us over the years.”

There was a second No. 21 Cyclone used a couple of times that season that was caught up in a multi-car crash at Charlotte in October of 1973. All 11 wins came in the car the Woods never named but now affectionately call “The ’71 Mercury.”

Because of NASCAR’s three-year rule of car eligibility, the famed No. 21 Cyclone was retired from competition on January 20, 1974, after a third-place finish at the season-opening road course. From there, the Wood Brothers ran the boxier Mercury Montego through 1979 and 1980 and Ford Thunderbirds in 1981 and 1982 with Neil Bonnet as their driver.

Pearson’s son Eddie, 21 years of age in 1973, remembers how calm Pearson was inside the race car.

“You never really knew what he had left in the car,” Eddie Pearson said. “We would never show his hand until it was time, sort of like playing poker. He would never run a lap in practice as fast as what he qualified. He knew what he had but no one else did, including us. As time moved on, we started counting on that. David was a quiet guy but he talked with us when we were around the garage. When it came to the car, he didn’t say very much.”