David Pearson

Pro team(s)

Holman-Moody, Cotton Owens Racing, Wood Brothers Racing

Hall of Fame

⭐ NASCAR Hall of Fame

David Gene Pearson was born on December 22, 1934, in Whitney, South Carolina — a small textile mill community in Spartanburg County — and grew up in the racing culture of the Carolina Piedmont, where dirt tracks and stock cars were woven into the fabric of working-class life. Known throughout his career as "The Silver Fox" for his calculating race strategy and silver hair, Pearson was regarded by many of his contemporaries — including Richard Petty himself — as the greatest pure race driver in the history of NASCAR. He won 105 Cup Series races, second only to Petty's 200, but did so while running partial schedules for much of his career; his win percentage of 18.3% is the highest of any driver in the modern era. He won three NASCAR Cup Series championships (1966, 1968, 1969) with three different car owners. Pearson and Petty formed NASCAR's greatest rivalry, meeting in 550 races between 1960 and 1986, but perhaps no moment defined their rivalry more completely than the 1976 Daytona 500, when both cars crashed on the final lap and Pearson — who had kept his engine running — limped across the finish line at about 20 miles per hour to take the victory. He was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2011. Born in Whitney, Spartanburg County, South Carolina.