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Lloyd Moore drove this No. 59 Lincoln to a third-place finish at Daytona Beach in 1950.

Where is ... Lloyd Moore?

At 95, recognized as NASCAR's oldest living driver

By Rick Houston, Special to NASCAR.COM
September 27, 2007
03:23 PM EDT
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Most of us can only read about NASCAR history. Lloyd Moore lived it.

At 95, he's considered to be the oldest living former NASCAR driver. Moore ran a total of 49 Grand National races between 1949 -- the first year of what's now the Nextel Cup circuit -- and 1955. He captured 13 top-fives and 23 top-10s along the way, and one win in 1950 at Winchester, Ind.

Lloyd Moore

Photo Gallery

Above: Lloyd Moore shares a photo of racing pioneer Lee Petty. Below: with wife, Virginia.

Virginia and Lloyd Moore

That's the cold, hard data, the numbers that can be found in any old and dusty record book. Moore's story is far more than just a few columns of statistics. When he talks about Bill Rexford, the 1950 Grand National champion, he speaks not of a myth but of a friend and teammate. When Moore speaks of Lee Petty, Petty becomes more than just Richard's father and Kyle's grandpa. No. Moore remembers the fierce competitor that the elder Petty was.

Red Byron, NASCAR's first Strictly Stock champion. Bill France Sr. His own car owner, Julian Buesink. Moore can tell you about all of 'em.

"We had no idea what it was going to turn into," Moore said of the sport's growth. "It really, really growed up, from driving on dirt tracks to the tracks they've got now. It's sure a lot of improvement."

Moore lives in the Frewsburg, N.Y. house in which he was born on June 8, 1912. Forget NASCAR. That was before the sinking of the Titanic. Before World War I. The airplane was less than a decade old ... and Moore would live to see men walk on the moon. Moore still mows the grass when he's able. He putters around the garage. He does a little bit of housework ... and the dishes.

Imagine that. Married 60 years to Virginia, Moore still has a "honey-do" list.

Moore's father lost a leg when he was 5. As a result, everybody in the family had to help out around the farm. His mother and the rest of the Moore kids "done a good share of the work." The family had fields to plant, and horses and cattle to tend.

"When he picked farming for a life-long job, it's about the worst thing he could've done," Moore said. "Because farming, you need two legs, sometimes four legs, sometimes two or three arms ... sometimes more ... to keep going."

Moore drove a school bus beginning in the early 1930s, and he also worked as a mechanic in a Studebaker garage. There was the time he bought an airplane and taught himself how to fly. Call it a wild streak or what, but Moore evidently craved excitement. An old jalopy on the farm became Moore's first racecar.

He would branch out into NASCAR in 1949, when he finished sixth in one of Buesink's cars at Heidelberg Raceway in Pittsburgh. Rexford took third in a Buesink Ford. The multi-car team concept had been born. In that, and several other instances, Buesink seemed well ahead of his time.

(Continued)

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