James Hylton and Son....RIP

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Have to do this in two posts.



Home Stock Cars ARCA James Hylton & Son Killed In Traffic Accident

Stock CarsARCA
James Hylton & Son Killed In Traffic Accident
Cover Photo Courtesy of NASCAR

By Jacob Seelman - April 28, 20189288 4
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FRANKLIN COUNTY, Ga. — Longtime stock car racing driver and owner James Harvey Hylton, the 1966 NASCAR Cup Series rookie of the year, was killed in a traffic accident on Saturday morning. He was 83.

Hylton and his son, James “Tweety” Hylton Jr., were en route home from Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway when the accident occurred in Franklin County, Ga., according to officials from Georgia State Patrol and reported by Greenville-Spartanburg CBS affiliate WSPA 7.

The No. 48 Hylton Motorsports Ford competed with the ARCA Racing Series at Talladega on Friday, with driver Brad Smith finishing 31st in the General Tire 200.

According to the Georgia State Patrol, the incident occurred around 6:10 a.m. Saturday morning. The tow rig ran off the road and hit an embankment.

Hylton and his son, who were passengers in the vehicle, died at the scene. The driver of the vehicle, who has not been identified, was transported to Greenville Memorial Hospital for treatment.

Born in Roanoke, Va., Hylton was a fixture in American stock car racing for six decades, getting his start in the late 1950s as a mechanic for NASCAR Hall of Famer Rex White. The team of Hylton, White and Louis Clements combined to win 26 races between 1959 and 1962, as well as the 1960 premier series championship.

White scored six wins, 25 top-five finishes and 35 top-10 efforts during his title-winning season, with Hylton turning wrenches on the No. 4 Chevrolet and Clements serving as crew chief.

In 1964, after White began to scale back his driving career, Hylton moved over to Bondy Long’s team, helping guide driver Ned Jarrett to 14 wins and a second-place finish in points. He also made his premier series debut at Old Dominion Speedway in Manassas, Va., that season, driving a second car for Long.

The next year, Hylton was part of the Long squad when Jarrett won 13 races and the premier series title, marking his second championship at NASCAR’s top level as a crew member or mechanic.


James Hylton at South Carolina’s Greenville-Pickens Speedway in 1971. (Chris Economaki photo)
But the driver’s seat still called to Hylton. He went full time in NASCAR’s top division in 1966, finishing second in points as a rookie on the strength of 20 top fives and 32 top 10s in 41 starts and also scoring his first of four-career poles that year at Starlite Speedway in Monroe, N.C.

He won his first premier series race on March 1, 1970 at Richmond (Va.) Raceway, beating Richard Petty to the line after leading 160 of 500 laps.

Hylton competed full time in the Cup Series through 1977. His second and final Cup victory came at Talladega Superspeedway in August 1972, when he drove a ’71 Mercury to victory after leading 106 of 188 laps.

Goodyear supplied teams with a special tire compound in 1972 for the superspeedways, but with a lower budget for his team, Hylton could not afford the new tires and ran on older tires. While the new tires began to shred, Hylton’s older tires held up and he drove comfortably to the finish, beating Ramo Stott by a car length.

 

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Hylton ran a partial schedule in 1978 before returning to run the entire calendar the next year, running three more full seasons before ending his full-time Cup Series career after 1981.

While Hylton never ran regularly on the Cup Series circuit after that, he continued to compete in select events for another 12 years. His final premier series start came in 1993 at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway.


James Hylton at speed during Daytona 500 practice in 2007. (NASCAR photo)
Hylton made a brief comeback in 2007 and nearly made the Daytona 500 driving the No. 58 Retirement Living TV Chevrolet for car owner J.C. Weaver.

In all, his Cup Series career consisted of two wins, 140 top-five finishes and 301 top-10 runs in 602 starts. He finished seconding the standings in ’66, ’67 and ’71.

He also made four NASCAR Xfinity Series starts and set the record for oldest driver to start a NASCAR national series event when he qualified for the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Pocono (Pa.) Raceway in 2011 at 76 years, 11 months and 12 days.

In his later years, Hylton competed with the ARCA Racing Series as an owner/driver, including running the full schedule in 2009 and each year from 2011 through ’13.

He never won an ARCA race, but competed in 175 events over a 28-year period. His final ARCA start before retiring from driving came in the season-ending race at Kansas Speedway in 2013 when he was 79.

As an owner, Hylton continued to field ARCA cars even after stepping out of the driver’s seat, always carrying his famed No. 48 on the door. He was one of the longest-tenured independent owners in the sport.

“The independent drivers in the ’60s and ’70s were the backbone of the sport,” Hylton reflected in 2006. “Most hung on until the big money came into play and one by one, they just faded away.”

He, his son and team mechanic Terry Strange survived a highway incident in July of 2017, when their truck and trailer slid off the road en route home from an ARCA race at Iowa Speedway.

The ARCA Racing Series was where Hylton felt at home, though.

“I love ARCA,” he said in 2006. “It reminds me of how NASCAR was back in the ’60s and ’70s. It is a community of competitors that are all working together.”

Arguably none worked harder at succeeding in that community than James Harvey Hylton.

Courtesy National Speed Sport News

 

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Murray..
That is so sad..James Hylton is one of the fixtures in the NASCAR and ARCA series for so many years.

Graham

 

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