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November 14, 1929 - August 17, 1975

 

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Tiny's first NASCAR race was on October 9, 1955 in Lehi, Arkansas.  He started in 23rd position in his 1955 Chevrolet, sponsored by Ruppert Safety Belt Company.  He suffered a broken arm and multiple bruises, when his car flipped repeatedly on lap 65.  He was credited with finishing in 25th place...his seat belt had broken during his series of flips.

Lund would receive the Carnegie Medal of Honor for heroism when he pulled fellow driver and friend Marvin Panch from a burning sports car at Daytona in February, 1963.  Since he was not able to compete, Panch convinced the Woods brothers to let Tiny drive his Ford in the Daytona 500.  Lund won the race at an average speed of 151.566 mph on a single set of tires!  Later that year, he would win another premier race...the 500 mile Modified Sportsman race in Atlanta.
    
   
Lund would go on to win two other NASCAR Grand National events: on April 28th, 1965, he won the rain-shortened 100 mile event at the old Columbia, S. Carolina Speedway.  He has qualified Lyle Stelter's year-old Ford in fourth place, and ran among the leaders all evening.

On June 15, 1966, he outlasted the Factory drivers to win at Beltsville, MD.  He started 7th, and took the lead on lap 71 when Richard Petty blew his engine.  Lund led the balance of the race.

During his long and varied racing career, Tiny would win races in USAC, ARCA and the Pacific Coast Racing Association, as well as the Grand American Series.  He won the Grand American Championship three times (1968, 1970 and 1971).  And, he won the Grand National East Championship in 1973.

Tiny also won the Most Popular Driver title in the Grand National American Series a total of four consecutive years: (1969, 1970, 1971 and 1972).

The Shelby County Speedway was Dewayne "Tiny" Lund's home track when he first started racing. One of the most colorful drivers of his era, with a heart as big as his stature, Tiny was a very generous man who loved fast cars, fishing, good times and children. It was more than once when Tiny was seen giving his trophy to a child after winning that day's main event.  Tiny is also a member of Iowa's Motorsports Sports Hall of Fame.  Credit: Fletcher Williams                                                                                                                                                                                     Jeannie Barnes Painting*

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News 7/1/06: Former Tiny Lund Car Owner, Bill Gazaway, Passes at Age 76

Hey,  My name is Carol Henry, I am a friend of Wanda Lund Early.  The poem that is on this web page was written by my brother John W. Cain and I was wondering if you could put his name on the poem.  He wrote this at Wanda's request for the Tiny Lund Day in Iowa.  I just happened to find this web site, it is great!
Thanks, Carol Cain Henry

Here it is . . . 'Tiny' by John W. Cain



-----------------------------------------------------------

 Add Me To your TinyLund.com Update Email List!

DeWayne "Tiny" Lund
Birthplace: Harlan, Iowa
Born: November 14, 1929
Died: August 17, 1975
Cause of Death: Racing Accident
Awards: 1963 Daytona 500 Winner

NASCAR Grand American Champion - 1968, 1970, 1971

Two-Time Daytona Permatex 300 Winner

NASCAR Cup Statistics
303 races run over 20 years.
Best Cup Position: 10th - 1963 (Grand National)
First Race: 1955 "LeHi 300" (Memphis-Arkansas Speedway)
Last Race: 1975 Talladega 500
First Win: 1963 Daytona 500
Last Win: 1966 Beltsville 200 (Beltsville Speedway)
Wins Top Tens Poles
3 / 5 54 6

: Tiny Lund Biography

DeWayne Louis Lund (November 14, 1929-August 17, 1975), affectionately known as "Tiny" due to his rather large and imposing size, was born in Harlan, Iowa, and started racing at a young age - first motorcycles, then trying his hand at sprints and midgets. He eventually settled on Modifieds, gaining a reputation as a good, hard racer "who never lifted" as he worked on perfecting his ability on a wide variety of Iowa short tracks - dirt and clay, flat to high banks. To this day, there isn't a definite number on just how many features Lund won in his career - some have said as many as five hundred.

After a stint in Korea in the Army, Tiny was ready for the big time and in 1955 decided to try his hand in stock car racing.

Difficult Debut

Lund went south and managed to scrounge together a '55 Chevrolet for a big money Grand National event in Lehi, Arkansas - $2,900.00 to the winner, an unbelievable sum at the time, with Carl Rupert and his safety belt company footing the bill. While the race was dominated by Speedy Thompson and his Pete DePaolo (1925 Indianapolis 500 champion driver, by now was operating a Ford factory team in NASCAR) owned Ford, Lund qualified mid-pack but experienced a frightening accident on lap sixty-five when his car flipped end over end and his flimsy safety belt broke. He was bruised and had a broken arm but was hooked.

No Where Fast

For 1956, Lund tacked on with Gus Holzmueller - they did little, a fourth in Columbia (SC) their best result. He also ran a few events for A.L. Bumgarner, without the equipment to succeed but their relationship led them to go racing in 1957, as Lund split primary time between Bumgarner's Pontiacs and a Petty Enterprises Oldsmobile; it was with Bumgarner that he nearly won an event at the Cleveland County Fairgrounds, winning the pole and leading until a right rear axle gave out, and he also showed muscle in the season's premiere event at Martinsville Speedway before his engine expired. Two other poles on the season showed he had raw speed but the reliability wasn't there and so Lund left Bumgarner and became a journeyman for 1958. He won a pair of pole positions at Gastonia and Hillsboro but did nothing much else and for 1959 he fielded self-owned Chevrolets. Again major success eluded Lund and by 1963 he was rideless.

Hero
In February of 1963, Lund went down to Daytona shopping around for any ride, but soon was thrust into the limelight when his good friend Marvin Panch, then driver for the now famous Wood Brothers racing team, had a massive accident while testing an experimental Ford-powered Maserati sports car for the second Daytona Continental three-hour sportscar race (it is now the Rolex 24, having adopted a 24-hour format in 1965) - it had suddenly swerved out of control, flipped over, and burst into flames. Lund, with no regard to his own safety, ran into the inferno and managed to pull Panch out of the wreckage. For his actions, Lund was awarded the Carnegie Medal of Honor.

Panch, stricken in hospital and originally told he would never race again, asked Lund to take over his ride and Glen Wood agreed, believing Lund the best replacement available at such short notice. He timed in fourth in individual qualifying trials, but could only muster a sixth place finish in the second qualifying heat to determine the race lineup. Lund would take the green flag from twelfth on the grid.

Traks 2006 Collectors Legends CardCinderella

The race almost didn't get underway that Sunday, delayed over an hour and a half due to heavy rains, and then the first ten laps were run under caution. As the green flag waved on the Great American Race, it was Fireball Roberts on pole in a Banjo Matthews Pontiac and "Flying" Fred Lorenzen in a Holman-Moody factory Ford outside of him - the race had no clearcut favorite on the onset but as contenders like Junior Johnson fell by the wayside, Lorenzen took control. But Lund was methodically working his way through the field and his Wood Brothers team had an ace up their sleeve - they planned to make the race on a stop less than the field. Lund managed to take the lead very late in the going, but Lorenzen came out of no where with ten to go and passed Lund before his gas tank sputtered and he had to dive to pit road. Then Ned Jarrett made the pass on Lund for the top spot but with three to go he befell the same fate as Lorenzen. It was all down to whether or not Lund could make it on fuel; he sputtered on the final lap, but he managed to coast home to win what has been called the fairytale story of NASCAR.

Journeyman Redux

Leonard Wood & Tiny celebrate Daytona 500 win in 1963Lund's victory (on a single set of tires!) jumpstarted what had been a dead career but didn't spell instant success; he would stay in the Wood Brothers Ford for several races after Daytona, and came close to another victory in the Southeastern 500 before his motor gave out, but regular driver Marvin Panch returned and Lund was kicked to the curb. Holman-Moody gave him a car for several big races at Atlanta, Daytona and Charlotte but nothing came of it. For 1964 he was back to journeyman status, hooking up with a string of backmarkers before vaulting into the lead in the Columbia 200 and then overheating. Late in the year, he settled in with Lyle Stelter and despite little success they continued their partnership into the 1965 season and it was with Stelter that Lund got his second career victory in that year's Columbia 200, qualifying in fourth and wrestling control from short track ace Ned Jarrett before rains came after the race had been declared official, and washed away the second half of the event. In 1966, he continued his partnership with Stelter and flexed his muscle, dominating at Spartanburg before a differential failed and at Manassas before his engine grenaded; nonetheless he took victory at Beltsville Speedway, but mechanical gremlins and accidents in the form of 21 DNF's kept him from more widespread success.

For 1967, he teamed once again with Stelter for the majority of the year but it was with Petty Enterprises in a #42 liveried Plymouth with which he had most of his success; he finished fourth in the Daytona 500 despite running out of fuel with a lap to go behind the Ford factory contingent of USAC star Mario Andretti and Fred Lorenzen, handing third to perennial independent James Hylton, and then finished fifth in the World 600 in that same ride. He struggled in Stelter's Fords despite a promising run in Fonda, NY where he qualified second and lead some before an axle broke; plagued by horrific reliability, they parted at season's end.

For 1968, he teamed with Big Bud Moore and his Mercury's and also ran Moore's cars in the new NASCAR Grand American division designed for light cars like Mustangs and Camaros; a fifth in the Firecracker 400 and a fourth in Rockingham highlighted his short Grand National season, but he won the Grand American championship. In 1969, he continued to toil in the Grand American division and ran one Grand National race, guesting for Bill France, Sr. himself who had placed himself on the entry list in the inaugural Talladega 500 as an abortive attempt to get an "in" with Richard Petty's new drivers' association on the eve of their boycott over tire safety protests; Lund drove into the lead but his clutch packed in and he was classified ninth.

 

Bill Rankin, Race Artist"Winning"

Along with his back-to-back Grand American championships in '70 and '71, Lund "won" two Grand National events in 1971 - the Buddy Shuman 100 (a 276-lap race, 100 miles, as NASCAR rules required 100 mile races at the time) at Hickory Motor Speedway and the Wilkes 400 at North Wilkesboro Speedway driving a Camaro Grand American car for Ronnie Hopkins. As the number of entrants for the fields were low, NASCAR allowed Grand American cars to fill out the remaining spots on the grid; Grand American cars equally fast if not more so than the regular Grand National cars at short tracks, and Lund controlled the event at Hickory before falling into a win when dominator Richard Petty fell by the wayside at North Wilkesboro. Neither of these victories were added to Lund's official win tally, as the legitimacy of whether or not Lund should've been considered a Grand National competitor in these events has been questioned. NASCAR had dictated that if a Grand American car won it would not be credited with the victory; first place points would not be awarded. Despite this, the wins were counted as constructors victories for Chevrolet and starts for Lund.

Greg Fielden and Peter Golenbock's "Stock Car Racing Encyclopedia" has credited Lund with the two victories, bringing his career total to five. This also has disputed the win total between Bobby Allison and Darrell Waltrip, both of whom are tied at 84. Allison had one win in such a race in a Grand American car, which he claims should put him one greater than Waltrip.

Tragedy

After 1971, Lund began to fade from the Grand National limelight and moved to the new Grand National East and short track Late Model Sportsman (now Busch Series) series'; he twice won the Sportsman season opener down in Daytona and continued to rack up the triumphs on the short tracks that he had cut his teeth on.

In 1975, he entered an A.J. King Dodge in the Talladega 500 as first alternate; when Grant Adcox's car was withdrawn from the event, Lund was in and after a short track event that Saturday was flown down in Bobby Allison's private airplane. The race was delayed a week by heavy rains but on August 17th the green flag was waved by Juan Manuel Fangio.

On the seventh lap, the race took a horrific turn when Lund got into fellow independent J.D. McDuffie on the backstretch; Lund and McDuffie spun down the track as it turned into chaos behind them. Rookie Terry Link was spun straight into the drivers' door of Lund's Dodge and Link's Pontiac exploded in flames. Richard Simpson and David Garmany, two Vietnam War veterans spectating in the infield, climbed over the catchfencing and with help from Walter Ballard, who was also involved in the crash, pulled Link from his car and managed to revive him. Lund, however, was beyond saving. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Drivers in race were not informed of the tragedy however Richard Petty ominously remarked on his radio that ... "I don't think he's going to get out of that one,".

Aftermath

Buddy Baker was victorious in that Talladega 500 in a Bud Moore Ford but there was no celebration as he fell to his knees upon hearing of Lund's passing. The entire NASCAR community was saddened by the death of one of their most colorful stars. At the time of his passing, he was married to Wanda Lund and had one son, Christopher DeWayne Lund.

Lund was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1994, and in 1998 named one of NASCAR's 50 greatest drivers.

There is a Tiny Lund Grandstand at Daytona International Speedway, and in his hometown of Harlan, Iowa, there is a local dirt-track International Motor Contest Association (IMCA) Modified race, the Tiny Lund Memorial, with over 200 entries annually for this popular event.
 

Sons of Lund and Jarrett Together by Sponsorship

Wanda Lund (Early now) & TinyIn 2001, Christopher Lund, who by this time was grown and a 30-year old financial analyst at United Parcel Service, was profiled on the firm's Web site in preparation for their NASCAR sponsorship with Dale Jarrett. Ironically, Jarrett's father Ned had raced Lund's father in that 1963 Daytona 500, and it was ironic that UPS chose Lund to be profiled to celebrate their employee and his racing heritage.

When asked about Tiny, Christoper mentioned, "I didn't really know my father very well, but when I think about the shoes I would have to fill, I realize what a truly larger-than-life man he was. I am so proud of the success my father was able to attain in his lifetime."

Lund mentioned in regards to the UPS sponsorship, "I love UPS and plan to retire here. I feel like we all got a bonus when UPS got involved in this awesome sport."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MORE..... Tiny Lund

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 reach 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.

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.

July, 2003:  One-race paint schemes should really be of interest to NASCAR fans across the nation because they remind us, in a subtle way, where NASCAR has been. The Wood Brothers special paint schemes track the timeline of 50 years worth of hard work, victories won and lost, and storybook finishes. Perhaps the best example is the paint scheme that will be run at Daytona on July 1st. The Wood Brothers will return to Daytona in July with a Ford Taurus that duplicates the paint scheme carried in 1963 when Tiny Lund won the Daytona 500 in storybook fashion. You see Marvin Panch, not Tiny Lund, was the driver for the Wood Brothers when they rolled into Daytona for Speedweeks in 1963.

Marvin Panch had some twenty years of racing experience when he joined the Wood Brothers team in 1962. During the ’62 season, Panch ran 14 races for Glen and Leonard Wood and, though he didn’t post a victory that year, his obvious skills behind the wheel impressed the Wood Brothers because they kept him on for the 1963 season.

At the 1963 running of the Daytona 500, Panch qualified the Wood Brothers Galaxie with little fanfare. With several days1973 at Heidelburg Speedway of Speedweeks still remaining, what else was there to do but drive fast cars? The Briggs Cunningham Maserati team was at Daytona experimenting with Grand National engines and, when they asked Panch if he would take some hot laps in their car, he eagerly accepted. The car did not feel right from the start, and following a stop for fuel and a few adjustments to the car, Panch went back out onto the track. Panch opened the Maserati up, eager to collect a $10,000 prize offered by Bill France to the first driver to break the 180 mile per hour mark, and according to Panch, he almost made the mark when the Maserati went airborne, came down on its side and rolled upside down before coming to a stop near the tunnel turn.

Because of the Maserati’s design, Panch was trapped in the burning wreckage and the first fire crews on the scene apparently didn’t understand his shouted instructions to aim their extinguishers at the burning engine compartment. Their confusion nearly cost Panch his life and would have were it not for a giant of a man called “Tiny” Lund.

DeWayne Lund, all 6 feet, 6 inches of him, hailed from Iowa. In a bow to his huge stature, he had been nicknamed “Tiny.” In 1963, Lund was at Daytona International Speedway without a steady ride and as the flaming wreckage of Panch’s Maserati came to a skidding halt, he was entering the track through the tunnel along with a group of men, including a Firestone Tire engineer. The group of five leapt a fence, ran to the mangled, burning sports car and attempted to lift the car enough to let Panch escape. At the same time, Panch kicked the door out and was halfway free when the fuel tank erupted. Panch’s would-be-rescuers dropped the car and stepped back, then one shouted that Panch was still trapped and kicking. The men stepped back into the fight and lifted the car again, burning themselves in the process. With the car again lifted, Tiny Lund grabbed Panch by the ankles and dragged him free of the fiery wreckage.

Marvin Panch was taken to a nearby hospital where his burns were found to be not life threatening. In a hospital bed conference with Glen and Leonard Wood, it was decided to offer the Wood Brothers ride to Tiny Lund, the man who contributed so much to saving Panch’s life. Naturally, being without a ride, Lund accepted.

In true storybook fashion, Tiny Lund went on to win the 1963 Daytona 500 in the car he “borrowed” from the Wood Brothers – though arguably, through his heroic action, he earned the ride fair and square. The fact that the Daytona 500 marked Lund’s first career victory was just more icing on the cake. Add to all this the fact that Lund reportedly ran out of gas as he crossed the finish line and the story has all the makings of a Hollywood thriller. Finally, as if this weren’t all just too much, DeWayne Lund would eventually be awarded the Carnegie Medal for Heroism for helping to save Panch’s life.


Marvin Panch would recover and continued to drive racecars – and win races - for the Wood Brothers Racing Team through the 1966 season. Driving for other teams, Tiny Lund would go on to score four more official NASCAR wins before he lost his life tragically in 1975 while running in the Talladega 500. For those who knew him, and for those who care to keep track of such things, Tiny Lund was truly a giant of a man, both in stature and in heart and soul.

When the green flag drops at Daytona this July 1st, there will be a car on the track that honors not only the 50th anniversary of the Wood Brothers Racing Team, but the bravery of men like Marvin Panch and Tiny Lund and also the fact that, in NASCAR anything is possible.           copyright 2000, Michael Smith


Wanda Lund Early, Tiny's widow - Wood's Brother Car, Daytona 1963
Every fall the Shelby Couty Speedway in Harlan, Iowa celebrates Tiny's memory by hosting the Tiny Lund Memorial Nationals, drawing over 200 participating drivers in 1999 and paying out over $50,000+ in cash and contingencies. John Burnette-Larkins, former editor of Hawkeye Racing News, named it one of the "Top 3 must see" races in Iowa. Wanda Lund Early, Tiny's widow, attends each year to preside over the festivities
and visit with family and friends.

Marvin and Tiny    By Steve Samples

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.

The year was 1963, and like many drivers of his era, Marvin competed not only in stock cars, but in sports cars as well. As preparation began for the 1963 Daytona 500, Panch and the Wood Brothers were riding high. The newly released 427 cubic inch Ford V-8, which delivered a street rated 425 horsepower, was designed specifically to outclass the 421 Pontiac which dominated the Grand National circuit the previous season. This high displacement package provided the Ford factory teams with a dominant power plant to build their NASCAR modified racing engines. Additionally, the fastback design of the Ford Galaxie was aerodynamically superior to anything in the GM or Chrysler camp, and the folks at FoMoCo were salivating at the chance to win the first superspeedway race of the year.

For Marvin Panch things couldn't be better. He had landed a ride in a Masarati for the preliminary sports car race prior to the 500. Though now referred to as the 24 Hours of Daytona, the race was originally a three-hour event. Panch had hoped to take home first place in his Masarati in the comparatively short sports car race, and then win the 500 in his Fastback Ford.

Unfortunately for Marvin, one of stock car racing's all time tragedies was about to unfold. While roaring down the backstretch in the high-powered sports coupe, Marvin tangled with another car. His Masarati flipped and burst into flames. Unlike modern day machines with puncture proof fuel cells and automatic fire extinguishers, the cars of Marvins day offered little protection against gas spills and their resulting infernos. Sadly this day at Daytona resulted in Marvin suffering severe burns over 67% of his body. His saving grace was a bystander named Dewayne "Tiny" Lund. Tiny was a huge man weighing well over 300 pounds, and a regular on the Grand National tour. Usually driving an independent car, with little chance to win, Tiny simply happened to be a spectator that day. His presence saved Marvin Panches life. As the Masarati rolled to a halt, Tiny reached inside the vehicle and pulled Panch to safety. He quickly helped other bystanders extinguish the flames, and Marvin was rushed to the hospital where he fought for his life for several weeks.

Through sheer mental toughness, and the ability to withstand enormous pain, Marvin recovered. Though it was expected he would never drive again, 'Pancho' fooled everyone by not only returning, but driving the Wood Brothers Ford to a photo finish at the very same track where he was critically burned just five months earlier. Although he finished third that day behind Fireball Roberts and Fred Lorenzen, Marvin had proven his point. He had gone from a bed ridden burn victim, to within a mili second of winning at the same speedway which nearly took his life. His lead foot remained, and his willingness to win at the cost of great personal pain and sacrifice was rewarded. Marvin Panch would see victory lane another nine times before finally retiring in 1966.

Despite losing their driver for the 500 in February, the Wood Brothers had a happy ending to a horrifying month. Their replacement for Panch in the famed number 21 Ford, was "Tiny" Lund, the very man who saved Marvin's life, and his career. Tiny dominated the field that February day, and won the Daytona 500. When interviewed in victory circle, he was asked what he planned to do with all the money. "Pay my damn debts," Tiny responded. And no one was happier than Marvin Panch that Tiny could do just that.

For the next nine years Tiny Lund competed in 161 Grand National events. He saw victory circle another four times. By 1972 he had tired of racing and retired to his fish camp in Cross, South Carolina. But racing was in the big mans blood, and in 1972 he tried a brief comeback. Tiny raced only four events that year, and after making five starts in 1973 he decided to hang it up for good.

After staying out of the game for almost two years, Tiny once again contemplated racing and his love for speed. He shopped around and found a ride for the Talladega 500, an event held on a racetrack very similar to the one where he had seen his greatest career day. Sadly, the big racetrack would take the life of Tiny Lund. It was his first and only start of the 1975 season.

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.

The Woods Bros. TeamNot 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