Burdick's win in '61 gives hope to all the little teams

In the far corners of the Cup garage, there are several low-budget teams this season that could describe themselves as being "held together by nothing more than paper clips and baling wire." But this weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway, the have-nots will have themselves a hero in Bob Burdick.

In perhaps the biggest upset in the 99 races run since the track opened in 1960, the 1961 Atlanta 500 was won by a part-time, family-owned operation despite not being able to afford new tires -- or a professional pit crew, for that matter -- and wound up borrowing a replacement rear end from a competitor just to make the show.

Nebraska car owner Roy Burdick nearly won the inaugural Daytona 500 in 1959 with veteran driver Johnny Beauchamp behind the wheel, losing in a photo finish to Lee Petty. Burdick's 24-year-old son Bob was a talented racer in his own right, with multiple wins and championships on the midwestern stock car circuit. Given the chance to drive the family car six times that season, Burdick won poles at Trenton and Columbia, and finished second to Jim Reed in the 1959 Southern 500.

But money continued to be the biggest bugaboo for the team, especially after Burdick finished 60th in the 1960 Daytona 500 and the $275 purse didn't even cover travel expenses. However, the Burdicks were determined to give it another go in 1961, switching from Fords to Pontiacs.

Things got off to a miserable start at Daytona, as the new car had mechanical problems at the three-quarter mark and Burdick was credited with a 36th-place finish and given a check for $200. The creditors weren't willing to keep funding a losing effort, so Roy Burdick was forced to find immediate financing in an effort to purchase the car outright. Things looked bleak, and shutting down the team seemed to be the only solution.

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However, the Burdicks decided to take one more shot at it. Perhaps one decent finish at Atlanta could earn them enough money to pay off the debt, they thought. But there were a few problems with that idea.

"We were a little short of money," Roy Burdick said in an article written by Al Thomy of the Atlanta Constitution. "We brought used tires because we couldn't afford new ones. The fellows here were grand to us. Jack Smith let us borrow a rear end he wasn't using."

And then there was the matter of a pit crew, so Bob Burdick recruited a few friends: "A dentist, a mailman, a plumber, an air corpsman, a car salesman and an unemployed car salesman."

"None of them had ever seen an automobile race," Roy Burdick added.

Bob Burdick qualified seventh, and ran a consistent -- if not spectacular -- pace early on, as attrition took its toll on the frontrunners, mainly because the weather was unseasonably warm. Fireball Roberts, who started on the front row, led 25 laps before the engine in his Smokey Yunick-wrenched Pontiac gave out.

Fred Lorenzen was in the lead when he slammed hard into the Turn 4 wall while trying to avoid another spinning car on Lap 106. Curtis Turner's Wood Brothers entry went out with a cracked head gasket, as did the Ford of Banjo Matthews.

Roberts subbed for Joe Weatherly, but he blew a tire and damaged the lugs. He then got into Panch's car and kept it in the lead, with Burdick running a distant second. Panch returned behind the wheel on Lap 286 and appeared to be well on his way to finishing out the day with a win, when suddenly the rear axle broke on his Pontiac.

And Bob Burdick -- who had made four unremarkable pit stops for fuel and a handful of worn replacement tires, thanks to "a spirited bunch of helpers," as his father put it -- was in the lead. But most of the estimated 50,000 fans in attendance had no idea, because Burdick's No. 53 wasn't being shown on the scoreboard. In fact, Burdick was among them.

"I never knew where I was at, to tell you the truth," Bob Burdick said. "The scoreboard never had my number up there, it seems, and I really didn't know I was out front until I got a signal from the pit. I just flat-footed it all the way."

Burdick led the final 43 laps as the race finished under caution, beating Rex White and Ralph Earnhardt to the checkered flag. Only 13 of the original 46 starters were running at the finish. The win paid $15,775, and when asked later what he would do with the prize money, Roy Burdick's answer was, "Pay some bills, I guess."

Just to prove that his Atlanta win wasn't a fluke, Burdick finished fourth in the Southern 500 in his next race. But he crashed the car at Charlotte in the fall, and a broken crankshaft put him out of the 1962 Daytona 500, which wound up being his last NASCAR start. In a 15-race career, Burdick had nine top-10 finishes.

Burdick, who died in 2007, remains the only driver from Nebraska to win in NASCAR's premier series, and the only driver to score a victory with the numeral 53.