Evans set benchmark for consecutive championships

Jimmie Johnson may have equaled Cale Yarborough's Cup record of three consecutive championships, but he's not even halfway to the NASCAR record of eight titles in a row, held by Richie Evans.

Driving the bright orange and black No. 61, Evans won nearly 500 races in his career and nine championships between 1973 and 1985, including his amazing streak of eight consecutive, beginning in 1978. The next season, "The Rapid Roman," as he was nicknamed, won 37 times in 60 starts.

Mark Aumann

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As a teenager in Rome, N.Y., Evans started working as a mechanic during the week and drag racing on the weekends. Someone suggested he try oval-track racing at nearby Utica Rome Speedway, and in 1962, Evans made his debut in the track's Hobby division. He moved up to modifieds in 1965, winning his first feature on the season's final date.

At 32, he decided to try running NASCAR Modifieds full time, and it paid off with a national championship in 1973, snapping the stranglehold that fellow Rome driver Jerry Cook had on the title at the time. Cook came back to win the next four, but Evans prevailed in 1978 and never relinquished his grasp on the crown from that point on. He was also a fan favorite, winning the series' most popular driver award on multiple occasions.

Evans and Geoffrey Bodine had a bitter rivalry, and it came to a head in 1981 at Martinsville Speedway.

Bodine had won the 250-lap Busch race earlier in the day and was the pole-sitter for the modified portion of the doubleheader. He wound up leading 231 of the 250 laps, but Evans dogged him the entire distance, spinning him out once to take the lead, only to have Bodine get back past.

With two laps remaining, Evans drove deep into Turn 3 and nudged his way under Bodine to take the lead. As the cars crossed under the white flag, Bodine was well behind. But he refused to give up.

"He was quite a ways ahead of me -- an impossible distance to make up in one lap, but I wasn't thinking that. I wasn't thinking, really -- I was seeing red," Bodine said in an interview with Thomas Pope, who currently works for the Fayetteville (N.C.) Observer. "I really wanted to win both races in one day and was in position to do that. I was pretty mad."

Bodine held the throttle to the floorboard in Turns 1 and 2 and somehow pulled up even with Evans heading into the final corner. He re-paid Evans with a bump of his own, but Evans somehow kept his foot in it as the two cars stayed side-by-side coming out of the corner. (Continued)