The NASCAR world lost a legend on Wednesday. Hall of Famer Fred Lorenzen died at the age of 89. When NASCAR fans discuss who the greatest drivers of all time are, Lorenzen’s name is seldom mentioned.
Lorenzen never won a championship. In fact, only once, in 1963, did he ever run more than half of the races on the Cup Series schedule. How good was he in 1963? Despite only starting 29 of 55 races, Lorenzen managed to finish third in points.
The man known as “Fearless Freddy” could invoke fear in his competitors just by showing up to the racetrack.
A call from legendary team owner Ralph Moody in December 1960 would be the catalyst for one of the most underappreciated careers in NASCAR history. Prior to joining the Holman-Moody team in 1961, Lorenzen only had 17 winless starts to his name.
Lorenzen’s greatest stretch would come from 1963 to 1965. In 62 starts over the three-year span, Lorenzen won 18 races — 29 percent — of the 62 he competed in.
In 1964, Lorenzen’s eight victories would be the high-water mark for his career. While he only won four times in 1965, two of those wins would etch his name in history. Lorenzen added two crown jewels to his collection in 1965, winning both the Daytona 500 and World 600 in the same season.
Lorenzen only won three more races from 1966 to 1972, but he managed to stay in the news. Lorenzen was the pilot of Junior Johnson’s infamous “Yellow Banana,” an extremely illegal Ford Galaxie fielded in an effort to boost attendance amid Ford’s NASCAR boycott.
While Lorenzen never won a championship, a title isn’t needed in order to understand his greatness. Lorenzen chased the big tracks and the big payouts, paving the way for a fellow competitor in David Pearson and the Wood Brothers to do the same in the 1970s.
Lorenzen nearly won the Daytona 500 for a second time in 1967, only to be bested by Mario Andretti, who spoke of his competition with Lorenzen in a 2023 interview.
While he came up shy of another triumph in the Great American Race, the 1967 Daytona 500 proved that Lorenzen could compete with the greatest race drivers in the world.
Lorenzen’s name may not carry the same weight as other men he raced against, but it does represent a driver who will always be one of the greats, even if his story is relatively unknown.
This news appeared first on @Yardbarker
