Daytona International Speedway: Tiny  Lund Grandstands (Named in 1994): Tiny Lund (1929-1975). Lund was a gentle, fun-loving giant who drove a race car like a demon. He was a master of dirt tracks, but he also mastered Daytona International Speedway by winning the 1963 Daytona 500. Tiny was a four-time NASCAR Grand American division champion and he twice won Daytona's Permatex 300, a forerunner of today's Busch Series race.

TINY LUND:  Dwayne “Tiny” Lund was the first and still, to this day, the only driver to ever win the Daytona 500 (1963) on one set of tires. After pulling Marvin Panch from a burning sports car after crashing at Daytona in 1963, he was awarded the Carnegie Medal for Heroism. Unable to compete in the 500, Panch asked the Wood Brothers to let Tiny drive the car in the race and the rest was history. A three time Grand American Champion (1968, 70 and 71), he was also the Grand National East Champion in 1973, was the winner of 41 of 109 Grand American races from 1968-72 and was voted the most popular Georgia driver four times from 1969-1972. Tiny was also voted most popular Grand American driver four years in a row (1968-1962) and earned $164,204.00 in his NASCAR career. On August 17, 1975, while doing a friend a favor and subbing for him in a race, a horrible wreck at Talladega, Alabama claimed Tiny’s life at 45 years old.

Buddy Baker says that a lot of would-be rivalries take care of themselves. "At Martinsville one Sunday afternoon I was so mad at Tiny Lund I didn't know what to do. I wanted to run right over the top of his car," Baker said. "Finally, the race ended. I was standing down in my pits and I saw him coming, walking toward me. Tiny was 6-7 or more and weighed about 300 pounds. When he walked, dust would puff from under his shoes.

"I looked over there about three feet from me, and there was part of an axle about the length of a ball bat. My first thought was to take the axle and whop him across the head. Then it occurred to me, what if I miss? He might really get mad then. Tiny

kept coming straight toward me. He got within about 10 feet, and he burst out laughing. It was one of the sweetest smiles I ever saw. "That's the thing," Baker said. "Before you get into one of these scraps with another driver, make sure you know who you are fooling with.

A 'notchback 63 1/2' Ford was made especially for racing by Ford. At the Atlanta 500 in 1962, the Holman and Moody... crew (Fast Freddie Lorenzen) and the folks at Ford came up with the "Starlift" removable roof option that was supposedly an over-the-counter option for 1962 Galaxie convertibles. The new replacement roof was as 'swoopy' as a roller coaster ride and it did wonders for the 1962's top speed. The fact that the windows on a stock street model wouldn't go up with the new hard top roof did make the option a little more suspect. NASCAR approved it...they won...NASCAR outlawed it. Ford stylists permanently cured the problem in 1963 with a "convertible" style roofline.

The Galaxie raced with its stock glass windows and the chrome strips carried off the showroom floor.

The 427 was capable of 650 horsepower with the right gears. Whole catalogs full of special "off-highway" or "police package" parts were being produced by the 'Big Three' solely for NASCAR cars. Pontiac offered an over-the-counter 421 "Super Duty" engine package that never came installed in any regular production car, and unless your name was Yunick or Fox, you had very little chance of actually buying one from your local dealer. Built in only limited numbers specifically for racing, Chevy had come up with a stagger-valved big-block 427. They were the forerunners of the modern "Rat" motor and kept a closely guarded secret, the new power plants quickly came to be called 'Mystery Motors'.

Add the rollcage, a pair of slacks (jeans), a T-shirt, helmet & goggles, a stiff shock on the right front and a little less in the right rear and you were ready to race a Stock car.

Ford drivers Tiny Lund's Galaxie #0  and Fireball Roberts in his Passino Purple Galaxie #22 with Junior Johnson's # 3 Chevrolet at the Daytona Firecracker 400 in 1963.

1963 Maserati

Ten days before the 1963 Daytona 500, Marvin Panch wrecked while testing a "Bird Cage" Maserati. Pinned inside an overturned and blazing car, Dewayne 'Tiny' Lund, a journeyman on the modified and GN circuits, sprinted to the car and before track safety crews could arrive, Lund lifted the blazing sports car off Panch. When Panch asked the Wood Brothers to give Lund his 500 ride, they quickly agreed. Tiny qualified the Galaxie 12th and crossed the finish line out of gas but ahead of second-place Fred Lorenzen. Lund was awarded the Carnegie Medal for heroism shortly after his Daytona 500 win.     

A big man with an ironic nickname, Lund won five NASCAR Winston Cup races through a 21-year career.

Lund's career was distinguished by one act of heroism in February, 1963, when he rescued fellow driver Marvin Panch from a burning car during a practice session at Daytona. The injured Panch asked Lund to take his place in the Wood Brothers' Ford. In the crowning achievement of his career, Lund won the Daytona 500.

He was a four-time NASCAR Grand American champion. Lund was fatally injured in an accident during the Talladega 500 in 1975. In 1994, Lund was inducted in the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in Talladega, Ala.

Tiny as own tire man at the old Richmond Fairgrounds

  Tiny Lund         Another Story

DeWayne Louis Lund was born in Harlan, Iowa in 1929. Tiny started racing motorcycles at age 15, then tried Sprints and Midgets , but gave them up because of his size. Lund stayed with Modified's, earning a good reputation in Iowa even as a youngster. In 1955, after serving in the US Air Force, he returned to racing. On February 14,1963, Marvin Panch was driving a Maserati experimental car in practice at Daytona International Speedway when the car became airborne, slid on it's top and caught fire. Tiny was the first man to rach Panch and pulled him from the fire. Because of his burns, Panch was not able to compete in the Daytona 500. Panch suggested to the Wood Brothers that they let Tiny drive their Ford in the Daytona 500. Tiny won the biggest Winston Cup race of his career, the Daytona 500, and was subsequently awarded the Carnegie Medal for Heroism. During his career, Tiny won over 500 major features and 49 major racing events. He was a four-time champion in the Grand American division, winning titles in 1968, 70, 71 and 74, Lund died August 10, 1975 after a racing accident.

One of the most underrated drivers in stock car racing history is Marvin Panch. Known as 'Pancho' by his fellow chauffeurs, Marvin piloted the Wood Brothers Ford, and assorted other vehicles to seventeen Grand National/Winston Cup victories. Unfortunately the race for which Marvin is most often remembered did not involve a stock car.

America lost a folk hero that day, but if you're ever at Daytona International Speedway on a February day, be sure to look up. You might just see a big man smiling. February of 1963 provided Tiny Lund's finest moment... and it wasn't winning the Daytona 500.

Daytona drama fueled Lund's career

By JANE BURNS    -   Register Staff Writer     -     07/15/1990  (Old article reprint...)

It didn't seem as if DeWayne "Tiny" Lund would win a race coasting. He was an aggressive driver, a vivacious personality, the kind of guy you'd figure would roar across the finish line the way he roared through life. But there he was in the winner's circle of the 1963 Daytona 500, howling with joy and saying his Ford ran out of gas on the final turn and he had to float across the finish line with an empty tank. Because of that victory and a successful career as a NASCAR driver, Lund of Harlan, Ia., enters the Des Moines Sunday Register's Iowa Sports Hall of Fame.

To hear Lund tell it back then was to hear a dramatic story. One driver, then another fell off to make pit stops, leaving Lund alone at the finish, cruising on fumes to the biggest victory of his career.

It was a great story, said Glen Wood, the owner of Lund's 1963 Ford. It's just too bad it wasn't true.

"He just imagined it, I guess," Wood said. "He had taken the checkered flag and went around the track. Then we loaded the car onto the truck and it still had fuel in it. It could have sputtered on the final turn and maybe he thought he was out of gas. But it hadn't sputtered all day."
 

The car may have had fuel, but it didn't have much. After a caution flag after the 36th lap, the other racers made five pit stops that day, including Fred Lorenzen and Ned Jarrett. Those two led most of the way.

Lund made just four pit stops.

"He made a gamble," Lorenzen said of Lund. "He made it, I didn't. I just got outsmarted on the gas. It wasn't calculated right. It wasn't often that I was outsmarted, but I was that day." It was a gamble, Wood said. Just simple arithmetic.

The equation began with that first caution flag. Lund got his refill of 20 gallons of fuel at the 36th lap, rather than on the 40th lap as planned. That gave the crew four laps to play with, and that's just what they did, Wood said.

Not only did Wood own the car, but he called the signals from the pit. Wood and his brothers made up the premier pit crew of the 1960s. Wood's strategy and his crew were the keys to the 1963 Daytona. When Lund made his second stop after another 40 laps without any problem, Wood told him to try 42 laps the next time. If that would work twice, Lund would have the victory in the 200-lap race. "At the end, we only had 40 laps to go," Wood said. "Nobody else did that. They all came in near the end." All except Tiny Lund, the stocky stock car racer who came to Daytona Beach, Fla., expecting to work on a pit crew, not take the checkered flag. Even without Lund's embellishments, his victory was still a good story.

A week before the Daytona 500, Marvin Panch was the driver for the Woods. But Panch flipped a Maserati-Ford in a Daytonatest run. Lund, at 6 feet 4 inches and 250 pounds, led rescuers through waist-high flames to free Panch from his overturned car. The accident left Panch in the hospital recovering from burns and the Woods without a driver. Lund earned  the Carnegie Medal for Heroism.

Most of the other drivers the Woods had in their entourage had raced primarily on dirt tracks. What Glen Wood needed for this race was an experienced NASCAR driver who could race the paved track of Daytona. Lund, an eight-year NASCAR veteran, came to the rescue again. "It came down to that Tiny would be the most likely to win the race," Wood said. "He was an aggressive-type driver and a good driver."

Started 12th    Wood wasn't dismayed by Lund's size. "In recent years, weight is more important," Wood said, but not in 1963. "He weighed down the left side of the car and that's where you needed the extra weight." Lund started the race 12th and stayed close in the field, which included A.J. Foyt, Richard Petty and rookie Johnny Rutherford. A drenching rain and 50-mph winds delayed the start by an hour and a half. When the race did begin, it was slow, with the first 10 laps run at 97 mph under a caution flag to dry the track.

When the track dried and the 40 racers were off, Lund patiently stayed among the leaders. Car after car broke down, leaving Lorenzen and Jarrett at the front, with Lund just behind. Lorenzen and Jarrett stuck together, saving fuel by drafting with each other. In a draft, the trailing car is carried by a vacuum created by the lead car. Lund got in on the drafting trio by taking the lead at the 395th mile. Lorenzen and Jarrett made pit stops with 44 laps left. Lund came in with 40 laps left.

"I thought I could make it," Jarrett said. He tried to save as much gas as possible, and the drafting helped. But when Lorenzen went in to fill up with seven laps left, Jarrett knew he was in trouble. "That slowed me down because I didn't have anyone to draft with," Jarrett said.

Getting a Lift        Lund had his own way of saving gas. He bummed a ride off Jarrett by slowing down in front of him enough to get a push around the track. "I was just returning the favor," Jarrett said of the push he gave Lund. "He taught me to do that. Tiny would always do that. It took a lot of guts and made other drivers real nervous." It turned out Jarrett was the one who needed the push, and he came in for more gas with two laps left.

"Then it was all coming down to us," Wood said. "When were we going to stop? Everyone in the stands was standing and the announcer was shouting 'Can he make it?' Every lap he would count how many he had left. It became real suspenseful." Lund made it, and made $24,600 for doing so. His time was 3 hours 17 minutes 50 seconds -- an average of 151.566 mph. Lorenzen was second, 24 seconds behind, followed by Jarrett.

"A Good Guy"

Losing to Lund wasn't too painful, Lorenzen said. "It went to a good person," he said. "Tiny was a good guy, one of the best down there."  Lorenzen said Lund took him under his wing when Lorenzen first hit the circuit from Illinois in the late 1950s. "He took me under because I was a Yankee from the North," Lorenzen said. Lund also had relocated to the South, living in Lake Moultrie, S.C.

When Lorenzen was 19 and racing on dirt tracks, he rolled his car before a race in North Carolina. "Tiny said 'Come on, we'll fix it,'" Lorenzen said. "I said I didn't have any money, but he said his guys would take care of it." After days of working and nights of only a few hours' sleep, the car was finished -- with one difference. "We walked in and there were roller skates on top of the car," Lorenzen said. "Tiny said, 'If you roll over again, you can just keep going." Those were the old, fun days of racing. It's changed, Lorenzen said. "There's more money in it and the cars are shinier," he said. "But overall, it's four tires and a brain. And young squirts blowing the old guys off the track. Tiny never hit that stuff."

Fatal Accident         At the Talladega 500 in 1975, Lund was killed when his car was hit on the driver's side by Terry Link. The night before, he had been racing at Ned Jarrett's dirt track in Hickory, N.C.. Lorenzen went on to sell real estate in Oak Brook, Ill., a suburb of Chicago. Jarrett retired to become a racing broadcaster.

At the time of this article, Wood was is in his 41st year of racing. Wood has seen a lot of racers, but he still remembers Tiny Lund fondly. "Tiny's picture hangs with all the great ones that raced for us," he said.

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Cale & Tiny

Cale Yarborough is well known to all NASCAR fans. He's always been described as one of the best there ever was. And if Cale wasn't a great driver, he was a fabulous purveyor of practical jokes.

Among his close friends, in addition to Curtis Turner, was Dewayne ‘Tiny' Lund. Lund, a 6-6, 280- pound behemoth, was one of the nicest people to ever climb into a stock car. But get him angry, and he could be a tornado on two legs.

Lund and Yarborough were roommates on several occasions ----- an arrangement that was necessary in those early days when drivers made little money. One day, Lund was in the shower when Cale dumped a bucket of ice water over the curtain. Lund was livid. He burst from the shower stall and chased Cale out into the parking lot. The chase ended when Lund, naked as a jay bird, found himself standing in front of an elderly lady. "Pardon me, Ma'am." was all he could mutter.

He then pretended to tip an imaginary cap, and the biggest man in NASCAR trotted away.

This kind of horseplay continued to the race track. Lund knew that Cale was an accomplished handler of Rattlesnakes. So, at one race, Lund had a rubber snake, and threw it in Cale's car after he had climbed in. Cale's reaction was pretty much what you would expect, until he realized that the snake was fake.

Cale got revenge the next week, and went one step further. He caught a live rattlesnake and pulled it's fangs out with a pair of pliers. At the track, Cale waited until Tiny had strapped himself in, and then threw the angry snake onto Lund's lap. Lund's reaction was even more intense, as he instantly realized that this snake was alive --- it was real. Of course, he didn't know the snake had no fangs.

Lund was screaming bloody murder, and unable to free himself from the straps. The snake was rattling it's tail. And Cale, who had tipped a few of his friends off to the stunt, stood back and laughed. It was no small feat for ‘Tiny' to get strapped into his car. He barely fit through the drivers window, and it took minutes to get all the belts and straps tightened. But when that snake landed on his lap, Lund got out of that car considerably faster than he went in. Lund tore from the cockpit, grabbed a ball peen hammer, and chased Yarborough into the garage. It took a couple of men to restrain Lund. By the end of the race, fortunately, both men laughed about the incident.

Tiny Lund was a great practical joker. At Daytona one year, he and his wife had a motel room next to Bobby Unser. They were friends, and Bobby was the recipient of a rather embarrassing joke when Lund slipped a pair of his wife's panties in Unser's suitcase. Lund used to roll on the ground when he told the story of Mrs. Unser's reaction when she found those panties in her husband's suitcase after he got back home.

Lund was also good friends with Larry Frank. Frank was a small but tough ex-Marine who one time chased Joe Weatherly out of the pits, on foot, after a race. Weatherly, who had a good 40 pounds weight advantage on Frank, feared for his safety and jumped up and onto the roof's of a line of parked cars. Frank was below, chasing and grabbing at Weatherly's legs as he bounced fr