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 During
his storied career, James Harvey Hylton stood as the physical
embodiment of the term “independent driver”.
The on-track performances recorded during his career are
without question the most competitive of any independent driver
in the history of the NASCAR CUP series.
Hylton spent the overwhelming majority of his career
with minimal funding but was still able to finish
second in NASCAR CUP standings on three
different occasions.
During the 12 year period between 1966 and 1977, he finished in
the top-ten in driver points standings on 10 occasions.
Heroically, Hylton
stood up for
his fellow competitors during the lean years of the sport.
In 1971, he pushed for the inclusion of his fellow
independent drivers in NASCAR’s “Winner’s Circle” program. When
this program was implemented for the 1972 season, drivers in the
top-25 in 1971 points standing received $250 for short track
races and $500 for races at tracks a mile or greater in length.
This helped the NASCAR CUP recover from
the low car counts of the 1971 season and stand strong to
weather the
upcoming 1974 energy crisis.
James Hylton was the
leader of the independent owner / operators through-out the
sixties and seventies. The competitors that composed this group
were the backbone of the sport and helped pave the way for the
huge growth of NASCAR in the eighties.
His record and accomplishments speak for themselves.
Please honor this man by inducting him into NASCAR’s Hall
of Fame.
Jeffery Moore Droke
jdroke1045@aol.com
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 On
October 18, 1959, James Harvey Hylton began his NASCAR career
as a lanky 25 year old mechanic working
for fabled car owner Louie Clements.
Hylton was hired to work on a 1959 Chevrolet Impala, driven by Spartanburg, South
Carolina’s Rex White (pictured at left with
Hylton at North Wilkesboro Speedway’s
Wilkes 160.) In 1960, the
NASCAR Grand National Series was still primarily composed of former
moonshiners and many others simply escaping the boredom of working in
the textile mills of the Carolinas. By
the end of the 1960 season, the team of White, Clements and Hylton had
amassed enough points to win the NASCAR Grand National Championship.
The team continued to win races until White decided to hang up
his helmet at the end of the 1963 season.
For the 1964 season, Ford team owner Bondy Long
hired popular NASCAR veteran driver Ned Jarrett and secured the services
of James Hylton as crew chief for his fleet of Ford Galaxies.
The team meshed well and won 14 of 55 races,
finishing second in the points battle to champion Richard Petty.
The team would dominate the series in 1965 by winning 13 of 52
races and captured the NASCAR Grand National Championship. At age 33,
James Hylton had two NASCAR Grand National Championships under his belt
as a mechanic / crew chief.
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 In
1966, James Hylton made the transition to driver and did
so remarkably as he won the 1966 NASCAR Grand National Rookie of the Year
award and finished second in Grand National championship points. Before
the start of the 1966 season, Hylton bought a 1965 Dodge Coronet from
legendary race car builder Cotton Owens for $5,500.
Along with crew chief Bud Hartje, Hylton ran a single car team
for the entire 1966 Grand National season. The rookie driver
claimed his first NASCAR victory on November 6th, as he
captured the NASCAR Late Model Sportsman Series
Cracker 250 at Atlanta Motor
Speedway. Hylton bested second place finisher Donnie Allison by two laps
in a field that included NASCAR legends Bobby Isaac, Bobby Allison and
Curtis Turner. Hylton’s
determination and mechanical prowess had beat the odds and the little
team from Inman, South Carolina
was now a contender.
Hylton contested the 1967 season again with his
lone Dodge Coronet, financed with a limited budget.
For the year, Hylton accumulated 26 top-five finishes and 39
top-ten finishes in 46 NASCAR Grand National Races.
Those numbers were good enough to again place Hylton in second
place for the year-long driver point championship. Impressively, Hylton was atop
the Grand National point standings from the start of the season until
the 25th race of the year at
Rockingham,
North Carolina.
For two straight years, Hylton
and his small operation had shown the big boys that heart and
determination can sometimes level an uneven playing field.
Hylton would continue his on-track success
during both the 1968 and 1969 NASCAR Grand National seasons with
respective seventh and third place
driver points finishes.
His seventh place performance in the 1968 season is especially
impressive considering the Inman, South Carolina driver missed 8 races during
the season. During the 1969
season, Hylton racked up 27 top-five finishes in 51 races while driving
both Dodge Chargers and Daytonas. He would finish only 420 points shy of
champion Richard Petty and a mere 53 points behind second place finisher
David Pearson. On September 21st, he would capture the NASCAR
Late Model Sportsman Blount 300, contested at Smokey Mountain
Speedway in Maryville, Tennessee.
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 James
Hylton would begin the 1970 season by capturing the NASCAR Grand
American Series Citrus 250 at
Daytona International Speedway on February 20th.
Less than two weeks later, he would win the Grand National series
Richmond
500 by a 15 second margin over Richard Petty.
Hylton drove a newly purchased 1969 Holman-Moody built Ford
Torino at
Richmond.
The win exhibited just how competitive the Inman,
South Carolina
native could be when provided with the right equipment. The 1970 season
would conclude with Hylton third in points behind the factory-backed
efforts of Bobby Isaac and Bobby Allison.
He would finish second in the 1971 driver championship by a 364
point margin behind champion Richard Petty.
The 1971 season finish would mark Hylton’s third second place
driver championship finish in six years.
 NASCAR
fans will best remember James Hylton for his impressive victory in the
1972
Talladega
500. Goodyear introduced a
new tire to the competitors for the race that was supposed to give
drivers better traction but unfortunately tended to wear out quicker.
Hylton believed that the 1971 model tires superior wear would
allow it to beat the newer tire.
His decision proved to be correct as Hylton scored a major upset
by winning the Talladega
500 over better funded competitors.
He collected $24,865 for winning the race and would go on to
finish third in the 1972 Winston Cup point total.
 With
11 top-five finishes under his belt, Hylton would wind up fourth in the
1973 Winston Cup points championship. He finished 11th in the
1974 Winston Cup standings and returned to top form with an impressive 3rd
place finish in the 1975 season. His last top-ten Winston Cup points
championship season would be 1977, as he amassed 11 top-ten race
finishes in route to a 7h place driver championship finish.
Hylton’s historic consistency will be remembered by his eight top-five
and ten top-ten point championship finishes amassed during the twelve years
period which ran from 1966 to 1977.
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Hylton would soldier
in Winston Cup until the 1993 season, impressively collecting 9 top-ten
race finishes in the process.
Hylton’s last CUP Series race would be the 1993
Trans-South 500 at
Darlington, driving a Pontiac Grand Prix sponsored by family-owned
Rumple Furniture of Elkin,
North Carolina.
Hylton’s small sponsorship package contrasted to the others present at Darlington on that day.
The race was won by Dale Earnhardt in the Goodwrench Chevrolet
and included cars sponsored by corporate giants such as Valvoline,
Miller Brewing, STP, McDonalds and Tide as well as a young rookie named
Jeff Gordon driving the DuPont Chevrolet.
In February 2007, when most men his age had
long since retired to grandkids and hobbies, James Harvey Hylton once
again pulled into the infield of Daytona International Speedway, poised
to do battle with the top race car drivers in the world. Gone were
the competitors of 1966, replaced with talented young drivers like Jeff
Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Tony Stewart and Jimmie Johnson. Just
as in 1966, Hylton was ready to defy the odds on the historic 2-½ mile
superspeedway. With just 16 laps to go in the
Gatorade 150, James Harvey
Hylton had managed to race his way to second place. However, a faulty
clutch during a late-race restart caused him to fall out of the draft
and Hylton’s dream of making the
Daytona 500 field ended.
Hylton was also a full-time participant in the
ARCA racing season for a number of years and finished 11th in
driver points in both 2011 and 2013. His last career start came at the
ARCA Series
Kansas
Lottery 150 on October 4, 2013, at the age of 79. This race would
mark Hylton’s 801st major sanctioning body start. “You’ve got
to be tough and perhaps even a little crazy to do this for all these
years” stated 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
GEN-6. I have watched the sport grow in ways I could have never
imagined back in October 1959 at
North Wilkesboro.”
Tragically, Hylton was killed in a
crash along with his son, James Jr., on April 28, 2018.
The two were returning from a race which had taken place at the
scene of Hylton's greatest triumph, Talladega Superspeedway.
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Five NASCAR
Victories: Two in NASCAR CUP Series, two in Late Model Sportsman
and one in the Grand Touring Division.
Finished second in NASCAR CUP
Championship points for three seasons. (1966, 1967 & 1971)
Finished third in NASCAR CUP Cup
Championship points for four seasons. (1969, 1970, 1972 & 1975)
Mechanic on team that captured 1960 NASCAR Cup Championship
with driver Rex White.
Crew Chief on team that captured 1965
NASCAR Cup Championship with driver Ned Jarrett
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Series
|
Races
|
Wins
|
Top 5
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Top 10
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Poles
|
Earnings
|
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Sprint Cup
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602
|
2
|
140
|
301
|
4
|
$
1,478,096
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|
Grand
National East
|
6
|
0
|
3
|
4
|
0
|
1,875
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|
Xfinity /
LMS
|
8
|
2
|
3
|
3
|
0
|
59,436
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|
Camping
World
|
1
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
7,300
|
|
Grand
American
|
3
|
1
|
2
|
2
|
0
|
n/a
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|
ARCA
Racing Series
|
177
|
0
|
0
|
1
|
0
|
n/a
|
|
USAC
|
3
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
1
|
2,945
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|
IMSA
|
1
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
n/a
|
|
Total
Career:
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801
|
5
|
148
|
311
|
6
|
n/a
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