David Pearson, American race car driver
David Gene Pearson (December 22, 1934 – November 12, 2018) was an American stock car driver, who raced from 1960 to 1986 in the former NASCAR Grand National and Winston Cup Series (now called the NASCAR Cup Series), most notably driving the No. 21 Mercury for Wood Brothers Racing. Pearson won the 1960 NASCAR Rookie of the Year award and three Cup Series championships (1966, 1968, and 1969). He never missed a race in the years he was active. NASCAR described his 1974 season as an indication of his "consistent greatness", finishing third in the season points having competed in only 19 of 30 races. Pearson's career paralleled Richard Petty's, the driver who has won the most races in NASCAR history. They accounted for 63 first/second-place finishes, with the edge going to Pearson. Petty had 200 wins in 1,184 starts, while Pearson had 105 wins in 574 starts. Pearson was nicknamed the "Fox" (and later the "Silver Fox") for his calculated approach to racing.At his finalist nomination for NASCAR Hall of Fame's inaugural 2010 class, NASCAR described Pearson as "... the model of NASCAR efficiency during his career. With little exaggeration, when Pearson showed up at a race track, he won." Pearson ended his career in 1986, and holds the second position on NASCAR's all-time win list with 105 victories; as well as achieving 113 pole positions. Pearson was successful in different venues of racing; he won three times on road courses, 48 times on superspeedways, 54 times on short tracks, and had 23 dirt track wins. Pearson finished with at least one Top 10 finish in each of his 27 seasons. ESPN described him as being a "plain-spoken, humble man, and that added up to very little charisma."Petty had high praises for Pearson, saying, "He could beat you on a short track, he could beat you on a superspeedway, he could beat you on a road course, he could beat you on a dirt track. It didn't hurt as bad to lose to Pearson as it did to some of the others, because I knew how good he was." Pearson said of Petty: "I always felt that if I beat him I beat the best, and I heard he said the same thing about me." Petty went further by saying that he believed Pearson would have pulled off 200 victories like him, if he ran the full schedules of NASCAR racing.