If, like Aesop's fable suggests, slow and steady wins the race, then there will always be a place in NASCAR's record book for the Turtle. A hard crash in Saturday night's Southern 500 ended Clint Bowyer's streak of consecutive races running at the finish at 83, a modern day record but one shy of the all-time mark set by Herman Beam more than four decades ago.

Beam

Jeff Bobo of the Kingsport (Tenn.) Times-News wrote a fascinating article about Beam in 2007 that gives a little bit of background into one of NASCAR's most unusual characters. Unlike most of the drivers of his day, Beam was a college graduate, majoring in chemical engineering at the University of North Carolina. And he used a very analytical approach to racing.

In an era when reliability was as much of a factor in a top-10 finish as sheer speed, Beam employed a contrarian strategy. His Fords were top-notch, as his qualifying records would show. But when the race started, Beam would immediately drop down to the apron and run consistently but conservatively, with the idea of getting his car to the finish line without too much wear and tear.

"He knew the distance to each racetrack, how many gallons of gas it took to get there, what you had to do to qualify for the race, how much money the race paid for each position, and where he thought he could finish," Gene Glover said. "He built his own car and towed his own car, and didn't have much help and didn't really have a lot of overhead. He was really a genius at stretching a dollar and stretching his equipment longer than anybody.

"They called him Herman the Turtle because he had good equipment but he just didn't want to drive fast, so he just got down on the apron and stayed out of the way. A lot of times he'd end up with good finishes."

Not surprisingly, Beam never finished on the lead lap in 194 Cup starts. But amazingly, the Turtle's unusual strategy left him fourth in the points in 1959, and just outside of the top 10 the following three seasons. Still, the heavy-set driver who wore horn-rimmed glasses and had a scholarly demeanor never made more than $850 in any one race -- that coming when he finished sixth, 31 laps behind, at Bristol in 1962 -- and a total of $42,161 in a seven-year career.

"Everybody respected Herman and his mechanical abilities," Paul Lewis said. "He was very intelligent and very articulate, and he always had good equipment. He just didn't like to drive fast.

"I remember one time at Richmond qualifying got rained out. They drew for starting position, and he drew the pole. When the race started, he just dropped down to the bottom of the track and let the rest of them go on. He was happy to run around at the bottom by himself."

Beam also gained notoriety for an incident at Daytona in 1960. He went out for his qualifying race but without his helmet, and it took NASCAR officials eight laps to realize the Turtle was missing his shell. That incident resulted in Beam being black-flagged, although he was allowed to race in the Daytona 500, this time with helmet firmly in place.

But it's Beam's uncanny ability to be around at the finish that separates him from the rest of the drivers of his day. He was sidelined by engine troubles at Richmond in the spring of 1961 -- still winding up seventh -- and from that point on, didn't fail to finish a race again until the clutch went out on his Ford at Atlanta two years later, a stretch of 84 races without a DNF.

Beam quit driving shortly thereafter, but with factory backing from Ford, he put a young Cale Yarborough in the driver's seat for the next two seasons.

"Ford Motor Company was real high on Cale Yarborough, and they gave Herman two cars and a lot of parts to help Cale mature as a driver," Lewis said. "I guess Herman was getting tired of driving, and this Ford deal was too good to refuse. It was really Cale's first big break in racing, and they put together some strong runs together."

Yarborough proved to be the hare to Beam's tortoise, recording five top-fives and 13 top-10 finishes during that span, including a pair of fifth-place finishes early in the 1964 season. But the relationship grew strained when Beam reverted to his thrifty ways.

According to the story, Yarborough retired from one race with wheel bearing issues, and when the racing folks from Ford asked why, Beam admitted he had used the old bearings instead of new ones because they looked good enough to use again. Ford soon decided to pull its support, and Beam later fired Yarborough with the famous line: "Cale Yarborough will never make it as a race car driver."

Beam then hired Larry Thomas to drive the car for the remainder of 1964, and he responded with nine top-10s in 10 races, including a seventh in the Southern 500, one spot in front of Yarborough, who had by then landed a ride with the bigger Holman-Moody operation. However, Thomas was killed in a traffic accident before the 1965 season began.

J.T. Putney drove Beam's car in 28 races in 1965, scoring 20 top-10s. Finally, the rising costs of running a race team caused Beam to shut down his operation early in 1966. But befitting the Turtle, even as an owner, his cars never recorded a lead-lap finish.

However, Beam did visit Victory Lane once as a crew chief later that season.

"I can say that one of the proudest achievements of my career was that I gave Herman Beam and Jess Potter their only NASCAR win," Lewis said. "Herman was the crew chief on my Plymouth in 1966, and he got the car ready for me to race every week. Herman and Jess both helped me. We got on a real hot streak. We finished second at Bristol and then won the race over at Smoky Mountain Speedway.

"Jess was never one to show much emotion, and Herman was even worse. He'd just stand there with that sheepish smile. But it was a joyous occasion because it was the only Cup win that any of us had been a part of."

Beam, who later owned a garage in Johnson City, Tenn., died in 1980 at the age of 50.