Rex White

Born

August 17, 1929 (age 87)
Taylorsville, North Carolina, United States

Achievements

1960 Grand National Series Champion
Led Grand National Series in wins one time (1960 - 7 Wins)
69% Career Top 10 Rate Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series
Smallest Champion in NASCAR history (5'4", 135 lbs)

Awards

NMPA Hall of Fame Inductee
Georgia Racing Hall of Fame inductee
Named one of NASCAR's 50 Greatest Drivers (1998)

NASCAR Hall of Fame inductee (2015)

Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series career

233 races run over 9 years

Best finish

1st (1960)

First race

1956 (Daytona Beach)

Last race

1964 Dixie 400 (Atlanta)

First win

1958 (Fayetteville)

Last win

1962 Dixie 400 (Atlanta)

Wins	Top tens	Poles
28	163	36

Statistics current as of February 21, 2013.

NMPA Hall of Fame Inductee
Georgia Racing Hall of Fame inductee
Named one of NASCAR's 50 Greatest Drivers (1998)

Rex White (born August 17, 1929) is a retired auto racer and NASCAR champion. White was one of the drivers who competed for the original Ford racing team. He began racing in 1956, grabbing fourteen top-ten finishes. After a part-time run in 1957, White won twice in 1958. His most notable year came in 1960, when he won six races, and the NASCAR Grand National (now Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series) championship. When he retired in 1964, he had acquired 73 career victories. Throughout most of White's NASCAR career, he drove General Motors brand cars, typically painted gold and white, sporting the number "4" on the side. After he retired, White was inducted into the National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) Hall of Fame in 1974, and was named one of NASCAR's 50 Greatest Drivers in 1998.

White was born on August 17, 1929, and raised in Taylorsville, North Carolina. White said that at the age of eight, he was working on his family's Model T. "I was unaware the car on which I labored represented hope to people around me, frustration to those trying to stop illegal moonshine. I saw automobiles as transportation, not the symbol of an upcoming billion-dollar sport." White was born during the Great Depression, and suffered from polio as a young boy The polio left one leg withered, but when speaking about it White said: "Most of the lessons I have learned have stayed with me all my life. The biggest one was how to conquer fear." Rex learned how to drive by piloting a neighbor's truck in the fields where he lived when he was 6 years old, and often pretended to drive while sitting in the family Model T, imagining that he was on a race track. White's looks have at times been compared to those of comedian George Gobel.

In 1954 White got his first car when one of his wife's relatives helped him scrape together the $600 he needed for an old 1937 Ford. Within a year he was making enough at the race-tracks to survive. White ran his first race in the Sportsman division at West Lanham Speedway in Maryland. He was forced to drop out of the race due to engine problems. By the time the season was over, White, as a rookie, had won the Sportsman championship at the 1/5-mile high-banked oval.

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Wikipedia