INMAN, S.C. -- The single-story brick building off the Asheville Highway is filled with the detritus accumulated over a lifetime of racing. There are bins full of bolts, nuts and washers, shelves stacked with jars of peanut butter and cans of pork and beans, old work shirts and caps piled in a corner. Every inch of space is crammed with something that looks like it's been there for ages, from a half-empty coffee cup to an old Virginia truck license plate to the weathered cover of a Ric Flair three-disc DVD set. James Hylton has raced out of this shop since 1965 and, much like its owner, the place feels timeless.

“

They talk about having a fire in the belly. Well, I've got a furnace in there now.

”

JAMES HYLTON

Just check out the office, with its black and white checkered flag floor tile, and shelves filled with trophies and plaques and mementos. There are large photos of a young Hylton -- the one who won NASCAR's rookie of the year award in 1966, claimed a pair of premier-level race wins, and finished 11th or better in points 10 consecutive times -- kneeling in front of his No. 48 car, which he made famous long before Jimmie Johnson did. And then there's the jar of strange copper-colored liquid, with what looks like pieces of fruit floating inside. Turns out they're peaches, soaking in moonshine that Hylton keeps around as a reminder of his pre-racing days.

"Well, I don't advertise it. But I was a farm boy," he says with a laugh. "That's where I got my road [racing] experience. It wasn't a racetrack. You weren't racing for prize money, but you were racing for a living. The revenuers always knew you were doing it, and you had to be mentally strong. Let's put it this way -- I never went to jail."

Yet there's one final memento that Hylton, now 74 and sharper and more quick-witted than many men half his age, still wants to collect. He holds the record as the oldest driver ever to qualify for a race in the ARCA Series, in which he still competes; Monday, crewmen in his little shop outside Spartanburg, S.C., were prepping cars for events at Salem, Ind., and Talladega next month. He claimed the record as the oldest driver ever to start a Nationwide Series race when he qualified Johnny Davis' No. 01 Chevy for the event at Daytona this past summer. It wasn't exactly a start-and-park effort, either -- Hylton completed 82 of 105 laps and finished in 36th place.

And now he wants the Cup Series record, currently shared by Jim Fitzgerald and Hershel McGriff, who were each 65 when they started their final event on NASCAR's premier level. Hylton tried to make the 2007 Daytona 500, but failed after a clutch went bad during a qualifying race. He returned to Daytona this season, but an engine problem prevented him from ever getting on the racetrack. Like so many other drivers not named Gordon or Earnhardt, there are issues with sponsorship and financing. So his Sprint Cup car sits idle, not here in Inman, but in John Carter's EM Motorsports shop in Toccoa, Ga. But Hylton is restless, eager to give it one last chance.

"One more Cup race," he says. "I want that record. I've put my whole life into this thing, and I feel like I'm still capable of doing it. If I thought I was endangering any of the competitors or I was in the way or I was somebody out there to cause a wreck ... I ain't going to cause anybody no wreck. That's not saying I won't wreck, I've wrecked several times, had bad crashes. But worst crash I've been in wasn't my fault." (Continued)