Ageless McGriff ups record
Monday, Jul. 19, 2010
It was another record weekend for West Coast racing legend Herschel McGriff.
McGriff, 82, finished 17th in Sunday's K&N Pro Series West race at Portland International Raceway, won by road-course specialist Patrick Long.
The longtime Oregon resident already owned the record as oldest driver to compete in a NASCAR race, and even though he finished two laps back, McGriff had a good time.
"I enjoyed it," said McGriff, the 1986 champion of the series. "I tell you what. I remember when I won here in '86. I just went out there and stroked and won the race. Boy, it's not like that now."
McGriff's first race was in 1945 and was in the field for the first Southern 500 in 1950 at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway. Also that year, McGriff won the Pan American Road Race in Mexico.
He also recorded wins at Charlotte's old Southern States Fairgrounds track and at Macon, Ga., in the mid-1950s.
In the early 1970s, he was a consistent top-five finisher in Grand National competition (which became Winston Cup and is now branded as Sprint Cup). He later campaigned his own car in occasional NASCAR races on the West Coast before announcing in 2002 – at age 72 – that he planned to retire from racing.
The Statesman Journal contributed to this article.
The Charlotte Observer is pleased to be able to offer its users the opportunity to make comments and hold conversations online. However, the interactive nature of the internet makes it impracticable for our staff to monitor each and every posting.
Since charlotteobserver.com does not control user submitted statements, we cannot promise that readers will not occasionally find offensive or inaccurate comments posted on our website. In addition, we remind anyone interested in making an online comment that responsibility for statements posted lies with the person submitting the comment, not The Charlotte Observer.
If you find a comment offensive, clicking on the exclamation icon will flag the comment for review by the administrators, we are counting on the good judgment of all our readers to help us.
