Bill Blair | |||||||
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Born | High Point, North Carolina, United States | July 14, 1911||||||
Died | November 2, 1995 High Point, North Carolina, United States | (aged 84)||||||
NASCAR Cup Series career | |||||||
123 races run over 10 years | |||||||
Best finish | 4th (1949) | ||||||
First race | 1949 Race No. 1 (Charlotte) | ||||||
Last race | 1958 Lakewood Speedway (Atlanta) | ||||||
First win | 1950 Vernon Fairgrounds (Vernon, NY) | ||||||
Last win | 1953 Daytona Beach | ||||||
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William Ivey Blair (July 14, 1911 – November 2, 1995) was an American stock car racing driver in the 1940s and the 1950s, and he was one of the pioneers of NASCAR.
Blair started his racing career as a bootlegger in the 1930s. In 1939, he began racing at the newly-constructed High Point Speedway, and he opened his own track Tri-City Speedway after World War II.[1][2]
Blair won three NASCAR Strictly Stock/Grand National races:
Blair, Jimmie Lewallen, and Fred Harb are the subject of the independent movie Red Dirt Rising" which is based on the book Red Dirt Tracks: The Forgotten Heroes of Early Stockcar Racing by Gail Cauble Gurley.[4]