[continued from Part 4a]
The Nichels Engineering Pontiacs take the green flag at Darlington to set more world records.
The 1962 season had 53 races. Joe Weatherly, Richard Petty and Ned Jarrett each raced in 52 races that year and that was the order of finish in the final point standings.
Weatherly won the championship with nine wins, 39 Top Fives, 45 Top Tens, and seven poles. Petty had eight wins with Jarrett wining six times.
The Southern 500 of 1962 had caused a big problem for Joe Weatherly.
The race was the 13th annual Southern 500 and Weatherly told track president Bob Colvin that he would not compete.
Colvin was furious, as he had a handshake deal with Weatherly and Colvin demanded that Weatherly honor the agreement. But Joe refused to have anything to do with the number thirteen.
Colvin finally devised a way to appease Weatherly. The 1962 Southern 500 was renamed the “The 12th Renewal of the Southern 500.”
Weatherly captured the 1962 NASCAR championship on the strength of his nine wins in 52 starts. An amazing level of consistency contributed to Weatherly's title run as he finished out of the top 10 only seven times.
Weatherly drove 51 of his 52 starts in Bud Moore’s No. 8 Pontiac, and made one start in Fred Harb’s Ford at the 0.333-mile Southside Speedway just south of Richmond VA.
Weatherly finished the 1962 season with 30,836 points with an average finish of 5.0, Petty with 28,440 and an average finish of 6.9, and Jarrett with 25,336 points and an average finish of 9.3.
In 1962 Joe Weatherly is shown racing against a rising star, Fred Lorenzen in the soon-to-be-famous No. 28 Holman-Moody Ford.
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