Cale Yarborough Trivia

By Rex Miller, Turner Sports Interactive
January 30, 2002

While Richard Petty and the late Dale Earnhardt have been celebrated as winning the most driving titles (seven each) in the Winston Cup series, neither can lay claim to winning more than two championships in a row.

Only one driver has won three consecutive driving titles -- Cale Yarborough.

Over a three-year stretch -- 1976-78 -- Yarborough was virtually untouchable, winning 28 out of the circuit's 90 races. He also finished as race runner-up 18 times. In all, Yarborough finished in the top five in 69 of 90 races (77 percent).

And, of course, Yarborough won the driving title each year by wide margins. In 1976, Yarborough scored 4,644 points to beat out runner-up Petty by 195 points. In 1977, he became the first driver to reach the 5,000 plateau (with 5,000 exactly) and beat Petty again, this time by 386 points.

For an encore, in 1978, he scored 4,841 points and whipped second-place finisher Bobby Allison by a 474-point margin. In 1977 and 1978, Yarborough's margin was so wide, he actually clinched the driving title with two races left in each season.

Unfortunately for Yarborough, those three consecutive titles were also his only driving titles. He finished second in three other seasons -- in 1973 to Benny Parsons, 1974 to Petty and 1980 to Earnhardt.

After 1980 through the end of his career in 1988, Yarborough did not finish again in the top 10 in the final standings. Yarborough began racing in 1957, and joined NASCAR's top division full-time in 1963.

Yarborough is also the owner of Cale Yarborough Motorsports, which fielded teams from 1987 through 1999.

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