Rex White

Rex White might have been the shortest man to win the NASCAR Grand National championship, now the Winston Cup (1960) but he was considered a giant in the Stock Car Racing fraternity. Born on 17^th August 1929 in the small town of Taylorsville at the foot of the Brushy Mountains in North Carolina, he was born during the Great Depression of the nineteen twenties, the youngest of five children, to parents Arlie and Wade M. White. The family lived on their farm and life was very hard for all of them, each child had their own particular chores to do to earn their keep. The family were self sufficient, Asking for no help from outside of the family they survived by planting the crops, feeding and caring for the livestock and chopping wood from the nearby countryside. His mother worked hard all day, from morning to night, cooking, cleaning, sewing and tending the crops and chickens, his father was also hardworking and had a favourite saying “Workin’ is can to can’t, from mornin’ when you can ‘til dark when you can’t”, he said, “Hard work ain’t never killed nobody. You make your own luck”. His firm upbringing and the skills that he learned during this time were to prove invaluable later in his life, giving him perseverance, determination, self reliance, resourcefulness and fearless. At the age of ten he contracted polio, he was taken on two occasions to the nearby hospital at Gastonia where he was treated but unfortunately the illness left him with a withered right leg and from that time he had to wear a special brace and shoe but he was determined to overcome it. At the age of fifteen he stole a few of his mothers chickens to sell and made his way to Washington where he slept for a while on a park bench and after lying about his age he became a cook. Later, after he had married, he saw a sign for car racing coming to the area and when the day of the race arrived he and his wife, Edith, went to see their first proper race (he had seen cars being raced all of the time whilst he was growing up but this was generally the locals with their moonshine trying to out-drive the police) and he was smitten. He got near the pits through some loose boards in the fence and after volunteering to help eventually he wound up with a job. Although he became a driver nobody took him seriously because of his size and his problems with his foot but through persistence and determination eventually he was allowed to drive. At first he drove without a sponsor, the crew shared their money, slept in the cars and washed in the stream. Finally a sponsor came in the form of Chevrolet and using his modifications and driving skills he obtained the highest level of performance with the car. Rex became one of the most successful winners in history, even today, nearly forty years on he still ranks 21^st on the NASCAR all-time circuit. Rex raced for only eight plus years (1956 – 1964) but during that time and driving in 233 races he achieved 28 wins, 163 top ten positions and 36 pole positions. 1960 brought him the Grand National Championship, a further six wins, The Most Popular Driver Award and the Driver of the Year Award. 1961 saw him win a further seven races, finishing 2^nd in points and 1962 a further, career best of eight wins but he maintains that his best win was in 1962 at Atlanta Speedway when he won over Marvin Panch in the Dixie 400, his last fuel stop was out of sequence and he knew they would not make it if they didn’t refuel so “I hung on to Marvin and just drafted. He ran out of gas with two laps to go, and I went all the way to the bank”. He is considered by NASCAR to be one of its top 50 drivers and a winner of the Living Legends of Auto Racing Pioneers award and the Smokey Yunick Pioneer award. He is also a member of the National Motorsports Press Association Hall of Fame at Darlington and the Georgia Automobile Racing Hall of Fame.

Rex is still active giving appearance and interviews on television, radio and national racing magazines whilst living in Fayetteville, North Carolina.

"I admired Rex as a race driver because he was a little guy. I started out small, graduating from high school at 5' 4" and 100 pounds. Seeing him winning encouraged me to chase my dream". Bobby Allison (1983 Winston Cup Champion)

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Rex White - Wikipedia
Rex White - Legends of NASCAR
Gold Thunder: Autobiography of a NASCAR Champion

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