White reflects on days of old with 'Gold Thunder'

"We built our cars, and knew them better than we did our wives. There was a time when you could insult a man's wife easier than his car. He'd be more insulted if it was his car, because he considered it personal. Drivers today rarely know the men who build their engines."

The preceding excerpt is from Gold Thunder: Autobiography of a NASCAR Champion, as told to author Anne B. Jones by Rex White, who rose from the Depression-era Appalachian foothills of North Carolina to win the 1960 Grand National Championship. White is one of 20 finalists for the Class of 2007 International Motorsports Hall of Fame.

Rex White's story is one of legend. In fact he is one, his name is among "The 50 Greatest NASCAR Drivers of All Time."

White overcome poverty and polio as a child, and it was those early years that molded him into a winner before he ever stepped into a racecar.

The lessons he learned from a very young age -- he was doing chores on the family farm in Taylorsville, N.C., by the time he was six years old, and tinkering with his parents' Model T when he was 8 -- paved the way for White to pursue his dreams.

"I worked at a gas station in Maryland and a guy came along one time and he wanted to put a poster in the window about stock-car races," White recalled, "and I looked at that poster for maybe two or three months [but] didn't have money to go."

When White finally earned enough money, the proverbial wheels had been set in motion.

"My first racecar I'd seen go around the racetrack I decided that was what I wanted to do, and I set out to accomplish that," White said.

White's foray into stock-car racing began when he got a job working for Frankie Schneider, the 1952 NASCAR Modified champion.

"I learned about how to set chassis up, gear ratio, how did get around racetracks, travel, sleep in the car, sleep on the ground," White said. "We [regularly would] run eight races in one week."

When White got his opportunity to drive, he was ready. It was the only thing left to do.

"In 1956 I ran approximately 38 races that season and I worked on and built the car and towed to three-quarters of those races by myself," White said, his travels at the time taking him as far away as Iowa and Wisconsin. (Continued)