James Hylton Celebrates Fiftieth Anniversary in NASCAR

On October 18, 1959, thousands of stock car racing fans journeyed down US Highway 421 to the Blue Ridge Mountain foothill town of North Wilkesboro, N.C.  They came to attend the NASCAR Grand National series Wilkes 160, at one of NASCAR original tracks, the 5/8th mile North Wilkesboro Speedway.  The fans were primed to see the heroes of NASCAR compete in the next to last race of the 1959 Grand National season.  Coming into the race, Lee Petty and his Petty Enterprises Plymouth team had accumulated a substantial lead in the Grand National series points standings and had dominated the 1959 season with 10 wins in 42 races.

Also competing in the Wilkes 160 was Spartanburg, S.C.’s Rex White (pictured at left with Hylton) in his 1959 Chevrolet Impala.  During the 1959 season, White and his team had captured five wins while running only a limited schedule of NASCAR Grand National races.  The Wilkes 160  would mark the initial NASCAR appearance of a recently hired young mechanic on the team named James Harvey Hylton.  Hylton formulated his mechanical skills while working on agricultural equipment at his family’s Virginia farm. The crafty Hylton built a race car out of a 1937 Ford Coupe and practiced driving it on a makeshift track constructed on the farm.  He spent the next few years competing on local short tracks, all the while dreaming of one day making it to NASCAR’s Grand National Division.  “I had been racing since I was 15 years old”, stated Hylton, “some folks dream of being a fighter pilot,  I dreamed of being a race car driver.”

“Out of the blue one day I received a call from Rex White,” states Hylton almost fifty years later “he wanted me to move up to the Grand National Series as a mechanic and, of course, I jumped at the chance.”  Hylton and his wife Evelyn moved to South Carolina in October 1959 to begin work for White and crew chief Louis Clements.  The 1959 Wilkes 160 would mark the beginning of a NASCAR career for Hylton that would stretch for fifty years.  An appreciative Hylton stated “I learned a lot from Rex and Louis, they are responsible for bringing me into the big time world of racing.”  Hylton was also fortunate to have two of the sports biggest innovators as his mentors.  “Rex and Louis revolutionized racing by developing the jack-screw adjustable spring set-up” reminisces Hylton “those guys were absolute geniuses when it came to race car technology.”    

While Hylton and Clements were able to provide White with an exceptional car, unfortunately the day belonged to Randleman N.C.’s Lee Petty.  Petty led the entire 160 laps and won the Wilkes 160,  while White finished second and Richard Petty finished third.  “Back at North Wilkesboro in 1959, while working for Rex, I wanted to drive the car instead of just working on the car” states Hylton.  

“The crowd and the excitement at the Wilkes 160 was quite an experience” recalls Hylton “but nothing prepared me for the thrill I got the first time I drove through the tunnel at Daytona in February 1960.  I was in complete awe of the size of the place.  In fact, I still get that same thrill every time I enter the track.”  Hylton still lists Daytona International Speedway along with Talladega Superspeedway as his favorite tracks.  “Daytona and Talladega are the two fastest tracks in the world and I just love running at those places” stated Hylton.

When asked what was the most memorable moment of his career, Hylton quickly replied “The 1967 American 500 at Rockingham, no doubt.  On lap 55, I spun in some oil that had dropped from Bobby Isaac’s Dodge and I believe that every race car on the track managed to hit me.”  The wreck hospitalized Hylton for eight days and destroyed his 1965 Dodge Coronet race car.  “I guess I was pretty lucky in that the wreck happened at the last race of the season.  I was second in points at the time and I did not want to miss any races” said Hylton.  Hylton and his wrecked car finished the race in 38^th place, a position which allowed him to hang on to second place in the final 1967 NASCAR Grand National Standings.

“When I look back at all the race cars that I have driven throughout my career, I would have to say my favorite was the 1971 Mercury Montego that was purchased from the Wood Brothers” stated Hylton.  The first outing for Hylton and the Mercury occurred on March 12, 1972, at Rockingham's Carolina 500.  Hylton started 19th and finished 6th, collecting $2,500 for his efforts.  The car was sponsored by Atlanta's Pop Kola Bottling Company and was painted Corvette Red.

The next appearance for the Mercury (pictured at left) would be at Alabama International Speedway's Talladega 500 on August 6, 1972.  Hylton qualified the car 22nd for the 500 mile race and led 106 laps in route to a one car length victory over Keokuk, Iowa's Ramo Stott in Junie Donlavy's 1972 Ford Torino. The next closest competitor in laps led was Hueytown, Alabama's Bobby Allison, with 22 laps led in the Junior Johnson Coca-Cola sponsored Chevrolet Monte Carlo.  Hylton collected $24,865 for the win and etched his name in the history book by winning one of NASCAR's most prestigious races.  The 1971 Mercury Montego would be raced on 25 occasions by Hylton with one win, two Top-Fives and 12 Top-Tens  over the course of the 1972 and 1973 Winston Cup Series seasons.

When asked if he had any regrets during his career, Hylton emphatically stated “the Talladega Boycott of 1969, without a doubt.  I should have stayed and ran the race.  I guess I just got caught up in the whole camaraderie deal with the other drivers and just plain made a mistake.  I think that decision hurt me throughout my whole career.”  When drivers began practicing for the race, most began noticing that their tires were beginning to blister from the excessive speed and rough track surface conditions.  Officials from both Goodyear and Firestone insisted that the track surface was far too rough for competition periods exceeding only a few laps with their current tires.  Firestone went as far as to pull their tires from the event fearing a disaster.  Goodyear soon brought in a newer compound tire that engineers believed might be able to cope with both the track surface and the high speeds.  A driver meeting was called at the track and it was voted that there would be a boycott of the first annual Talladega 500. 

The highlights of Hylton’s fifty year resume in racing include three second place finishes in the NASCAR Grand National Driver Points Standings (1966, 1967 and 1971),  the 1966 NASCAR Rookie of the Year award, Crew Chief of the 1965 Grand National Champion team of Ned Jarret and two NASCAR Grand National wins.  Even more impressive is the fact that he has participated in 1,277 major sanctioning body races (NASCAR, USAC, ARCA and IMSA) as either a driver, owner, mechanic or crew chief.  Those 1,277 events include 52 wins, 312 Top-Fives, 528 Top-Tens and 46 poles. 

“You’ve got to be tough and perhaps even a little crazy to do this for 50 years” states Hylton “I’ve probably driven a couple of million miles across the Unites States going to all these races. I’ve seen the cars progress from basically modified showroom cars to the present day NASCAR COT.  I have watched the sport grow in ways I could have never imagined back in October 1959 at North Wilkesboro.”.