Buddy Arrington

Born

July 26, 1938 (age 78)
Martinsville, Virginia

Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series career

560 races run over 25 years

Best finish

7th (1982)

First race

1963 Jacksonville 200 (Jacksonville)

Last race

1988 Firecracker 400 (Daytona)

Wins	Top tens	Poles
0	103	0

Buddy Arrington (born July 26, 1938) is a retired American NASCAR Winston Cup Series driver.

Arrington has the second-most starts without a win, and finished in the top 10 of NASCAR points twice; in 1978 (ninth) and 1982 (seventh). Arrington was loyal to his Mopar cars and engines, as he ran Chryslers and Dodges until 1985 (Chrysler stopped production of raceable body styles in 1983 and they became ineligible two years later) when the company stopped supporting them. His best career race and finish was at Talladega in 1979, where he had a powerful enough car to lead a few laps towards the end, and finished third. Arrington finished one lap ahead of Richard Petty, driving one of Petty's cast-off Dodge Magnums that were left when Petty abandoned Mopar and began driving General Motors vehicles a year earlier, and several other top NASCAR drivers. Arrington almost always ran his own car, and his operation was a very money-conscious effort. His pit crew were almost always unpaid volunteers, and he relied heavily (and almost exclusively) on used equipment with Petty's old Magnums being his primary cars. Since Arrington could not afford new cars, his team would have to reconfigure the Petty cars and re-skin them into Dodge Miradas or Chrysler Imperials for a 1981 rule change.

Arrington's two Chrysler Imperials were the last Chrysler products to run in the NASCAR Winston Cup series. He ran the car at first in two races in the 1981 season, and in more races (alternating with Dodge Miradas) until April 1985, when at that point the parts supply, even used, for Chrysler products (Chrysler factory support ended in late 1978) dried up. He sold one of the Imperials (purchased from Cecil Gordon in 1984) to Phil Goode in April 1985 (Goode raced it till the end of the 1985 season), and his other Imperial was given to the NASCAR Hall of Fame at Talladega, Alabama. Arrington was always a much-liked man on the NASCAR circuit, and other teams and a small, but loyal fan club pitched in to help keep him racing. In 1985 the generosity of rising NASCAR star driver Bill Elliott (who sold Buddy his slightly used Ford Thunderbird race cars and parts on the cheap) kept Arrington driving until 1988. Buddy's son Joey Arrington (who at the age of 17 served on Buddy's pit crew, and built up his engines), now runs Arrington Manufacturing in Martinsville, Virginia. The company builds racing engines (mostly Dodges) for the Craftsman Truck Series, and test engines for Nextel Cup Nationwide series cars. Buddy Arrington is a regular visitor to his son's company, and often offers advice to young (mostly Dodge) drivers trying to make it in NASCAR racing.

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Wikipedia