Where is ... Lloyd Moore?

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.

Photo Gallery

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

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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.

The cars Moore and Rexford drove were good cars. They might have different cars for different types of tracks. If they needed it, they took cars right off the showroom floor to race.

More photos

Above: Lloyd Moore (left) with Bill Rexford in 1950. Below: Moore in the South Turn at Daytona Beach in 1950.

"You couldn't find any better [a person than Buesink], no matter how far you looked," Moore said. "You couldn't find any better nowhere. He was good, a good sponsor. He owned the cars and Bill and I just drove 'em or wrecked 'em for him.

Moore insists that there was "not a bit" of competition between himself and Rexford, who died in April 1994.

"Bill ... he had a high temper to a certain extent, but we got along good," Moore said. "We raced each other the same as we raced other drivers on the track."

Petty, on the other hand, was a different matter entirely.

"Out on the track, he was an enemy," Moore said. "He was a good driver. Off the track, he was real friendly. I forget where it was, but I started before him. When we got to runnin', he booted me in the bumper a little bit. That was something I didn't think was necessary, and I told him afterward. He said, 'Well ... that was just an accident on purpose.'"

Moore finished second twice in 1950 and third three times before finally winning at the track then known as Fund's Speedway in Winchester, in his next to last start of the season. Only 13 cars were in the field because many, if not most, of the day's top drivers chose instead to head to another Grand National event the same day in Martinsville.

"When I first seen the track, we kinda came over a hill and here was the track," said Moore, who would finish fourth in the 1950 Grand National standings. "I told Julie, the car owner, 'I don't like the looks of that track.' It was scary, but after we got onto it, it commenced to being like a regular ol' track of any kind. We just got used to it."

Six children -- all girls -- were born to Moore and his wife. Ask how many grandchildren he has, and Moore has to check with Virginia. Moore has 14 grand kids ... and 32 great-grandchildren. All live within a radius of 25 miles.

He left the sport to concentrate on providing for his family. Still, to this day, Moore loves racing.

"When I quit [racing], I quit a hundred percent," Moore concluded. "That was the end of it. I'd had about five years of it. I figured my job was at home. ... [Racing]'s still in my blood. You couldn't wash it out. If I'd made a little better progress when I was there, financially, I might've stayed for another spell. But not making too much money when you had the family to help support, that didn't go over too good in my estimation."