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."

That was decades ago at Rockingham, when Hylton slid through oil dropped by Bobby Isaac's car and wound up in a hospital for three weeks. Hylton was a media favorite when he arrived in Daytona two years ago, with a bright orange car supplied by colleague Richard Childress and backed by a friend who made hit country-music records. These days, he operates a little more under the radar. There were hopes to try and make the Cup race at Talladega, but Hylton isn't optimistic. And he still rues what happened in Daytona this year, when he was unable to make a lap of practice, and therefore not allowed to attempt to qualify for the race.

He climbed in the car, he said, and it just wouldn't start. His crew spent five minutes pushing the vehicle up and down pit road, trying to get the engine to fire. Later they discovered that an epoxy had somehow gotten on a part of the carburetor, interrupting the mixture of air and gasoline. By then, it was too late. This wasn't the feel-good, near-Cinderella story of two years earlier, when Hylton stayed out on a pit cycle late in a qualifying event and nearly raced his way into the 500. This was a debacle that made people question what a 74-year-old man was doing at Daytona in the first place.

"It was the most frustrating thing that's ever happened to me in my life," he says, and you can tell by looking at him that he's telling the truth. "My pride was destroyed. We looked like a bunch of monkeys out there, pushing the car up and down pit road. That's hard to live down. Something like that destroys your team morale. Since then, Carter and myself, we've thrown up our hands and not done much on this Cup deal."

Episodes like that make it easy to forget what Hylton has accomplished. He was a crew chief for former champion Ned Jarrett before he struck out on his own in 1966, buying one of David Pearson's old dirt cars from legendary owner Cotton Owens for $5,500. He used only one car, that square-backed 1965 Dodge with a hemi engine, for all 41 races of his rookie of the year campaign. He finished second in points, still the highest for a first-year driver. He finished second again the next year, too, and might have been capable of more had he not remained so adamantly independent.

He did it all with the No. 48, which Johnson has driven to three consecutive championships. "I still feel like it's my number," Hylton says. Some time ago, when the Cup and ARCA circuits were both competing at Pocono, Hylton needled Johnson. "You've got to pay me something for that number," he told the Hendrick Motorsports driver. In actuality all he wanted was a cap, which crew chief Chad Knaus eventually brought to him.

Sitting in Hylton's little shop, surrounded by loose spark plugs and stacked telephone books, it all seems so outrageous. While other drivers shoot commercials or make sponsor appearances, Hylton works on his farm. While other teams operate out of modern steel and glass palaces, Hylton's crew works in a little brick building down the street from a feed shop and an abattoir. Two years ago, when Hylton began this somewhat quixotic journey to make one final race, it all seemed so irresistible. Now, in many eyes, it looks desperate. He understands this. It doesn't matter. Age has not tempered the desire within.

"I feel like I can still race, and I can be competitive once I have a good enough car to make the race. To make it now, you've got to have a rocket," he says. "If I never make another Cup race, I can't say I've been a failure. But believe me, I'm not giving up yet. They talk about having a fire in the belly. Well, I've got a furnace in there now."

The opinions expressed are solely of the writer.