Full Throttle

Sam McQuagg, the 1965 NASCAR Rookie of the Year, died Saturday, his son McQuagg Jr. said. He was 73. McQuagg died at St. Francis Hospital, Sam McQuagg Jr. told the Associated Press. Preliminary medical reports show McQuagg died from cancer.

His son remembered his father’s racing career as something that seemed normal to McQuagg Jr. and his brother.

“We both grew up around racing,” McQuagg Jr. said. “It was how Daddy supported us when we were kids.” He was just a really great down-to-Earth, very loyal guy and I’ve got to say, we’re all going to miss him immensely.”

McQuagg began racing in the 1950s and entered his first NASCAR race in 1962.

A small slice of McQuagg’s career was immortalized as part of the opening sequence of ABC’s Wide World of Sports as an example of the “agony of defeat.”

During the 1965 Southern 500 at Darlington Cale Yarborough (driving thered #27 Banjo Matthews Ford) tangled with then race leader McQuagg (driving the yellow #24 Betty Lilly Ford) in the first turn. Yarborough spun, then vaulted over the guard rail rolling 6 times down the 40-foot embankment landing in the parking lot. When the car landed, Cale got out, climbed the bank back to the track and waved his arms to let the 50,000 fans at the race know he was fine.

Ironically, NASCAR issued new rules for the 1965 NASCAR Grand National campaign designed to curb speeds and increase the focus on safety. The 22-gallon fuel cell was now mandatory, along with four bars on the driver side of the car and one on the passenger side. Also mandatory are new helmet, seatbelt, and shoulder harness rules. In addition, the teams were allowed more freedom to reinforce the frame of the cars.

The engine displacement remained unchanged, but special limited edition engines were banned, including the Chrysler Hemi.

Chrysler packed up and pulled out of NASCAR in protest. Richard Petty would not defend his championship, and top contenders David Pearson, Paul Goldsmith, Bobby Isaac, Jim Paschal, and LeeRoy Yarbrough were on the sidelines. It was a season marked by protest and controversy.

The following year McQuagg claimed his only series victory at Daytona having been signed to drive the #98 Nichels Engineering Dodge Charger.

Driving a Dodge Charger, Sam won the Firecracker 400 at Daytona earning $21,000 for the victory. “I remember getting to climb all over that car in victory lane,” McQuagg Jr. said. “I was all over it and through it. And my brother, Mark, was up on the hood.”

The real bonus came when he returned to home, McQuagg Jr. said. “We went down to Daytona that year in ‘65 Chevrolet station wagon,” McQuagg Jr. remembers. “We drove it back to Columbus and went to Chuck Hutton Dodge. He and mother drove off that lot that day with two new 1966 Dodge Chargers.”

It looked like that win was going to land McQuagg in the seat of an established team. He got an offer in 1967 to drive for the Wood Brothers.“But there was a hitch,” McQuagg Jr. said. “They told him he would have to use Firestone tires. My dad was a very loyal man. He said he would only run Goodyears.”

The reason? When McQuagg started racing and was running short on cash, Goodyear gave him tires. “He just said he couldn’t do it,” McQuagg Jr. said.

NASCAR legend Cale Yarborough ended up with the ride.

McQuagg was also part of a number of NASCAR firsts. He was the first driver to use a spoiler during his Firecracker 400 victory.

In the early part of the 1966 season, Dodge drivers found that their aerodynamic fastback Chargers were very slippery but tended to “lift” at high speeds. “You would spin the tires at 180 mph going down the backstretch,” said McQuagg at the time. The solution was a small strip of metal along the trunk lid.

“We tested spoilers at Daytona for about 30 days in June,” said McQuagg. “When I won the race at Daytona in July, that was the first race that was ever run in NASCAR with a spoiler on the car. It was a little spoiler that was probably about an inch-and-a-half high and it was contoured, you know, to give it a little sweeping effect. It really worked, too. It made a lot of difference in that car; it kept the car from flying. That little spoiler disturbed the air enough that it kept it down.”

Today’s Sprint Cup drivers can thank McQuagg for a couple other firsts that have made their life more luxourious. McQuagg was the first driver to bring a motorhome into the Daytona garage area and he was the first - and maybe only - driver to retire from racing and make a living as a commercial pilot.

In 8 years of competing in the NASCAR Winston Cup ranks, McQuagg garnered 62 starts, with 1 win, 9 top-5s, and 21 top-10s with a total cash earnings of 65,634 dollars.