NASCAR plays a home game of sorts as it goes racing at Lowes Motor Speedway. It’s been home since its first race June 19th, 1960 and has hosted 95 Cup Series races in all. Total cup miles at this track, 50,204. The first race was won by Joe Lee Johnson (no relation to Junior or Jimmie). The 600 mile race took 5 1/2 hours to complete, Kasey’s win in the spring race 4 1/2. Of the 490 drivers to start a cup race here over the years, there have been quite a few of the open wheelers to try their hand. Mario Andretti has 1 of his 14 Cup starts here. Christian Fittipaldi joined in for 1 race. A.J. Foyt has 16 starts with 1 top 5. Gordon Johncock has 4 starts with 1 top 5 along with 2 Indianapolis 500 titles, and is an International Motorsports Hall of Fame inductee. Johnny Rutherford has 4 starts. Bobby Unser took the green flag here just once and finished last. These are great names in Motorsports history. I guess my point is, if you ever sat on your couch and said “I could drive one of those cars.” look at a few legendary drivers who tried. We truly watch the best stock car drivers in the world every weekend. As I dig through all of these past stats, certain drivers stories get stuck in my craw, much like Marty Robbins did last race. Driver story of this post is about Rob Moroso. His first Winston Cup start was in a Rick Hendrick car. After that, his father Dick Moroso, famous for Moroso Performance Parts, sponsored him. It was 1988, and he was 19 years old. He made 2 cup starts in ‘88, and 2 more in ’89 along with the Bush Series Championship (3 straight Bush wins at Charlotte, the link to this track) and Most Popular Driver. In 1990 he went full time in the Cup series, but after 25 of 29 races that year he was involved in an auto accident on his way home from the race at North Wilkesboro Speedway. He was 22. He and the driver of the other car were killed. He was under the influence of alcohol. NASCAR posthumously awarded him the Raybestos Rookie of the Year award. If you can’t see the moral, tear up your driver’s license.

Next post will be current driver stats at LMS. Heads up; Jimmie Johnson averages $232,000.00 a race here in 10 starts. No whining here, Jimmie.