Jim Paschal
Quickly and regularly, the North Carolina native became a force to be reckoned with—winning 25 races in a career that spanned more than two decades.
- Position:Driver
Jim Paschal holds a rare distinction in that he competed in the very first race in what is now the NASCAR Cup Series.
All but two of his 25 victories came on short tracks. The two “big track” wins both came in the Coca-Cola 600, including the 1967 race in which he led a dominating 335 of the 400 laps. That laps-led mark held nearly five decades—until 2016, when Martin Truex Jr. led 392 laps to win that race.
Five times in his career Paschal led at least 300 laps in claiming a race victory. The most productive stretch of his career came in 1969-1972 seasons when he won 16 of the 73 races he competed in—a 22 percent winning percentage. For the entirety of his career he averaged an impressive 11th place on short track venues.
He boasts a remarkable statistic in finishing top-10 in more than 50 percent of the races he competed in—230 of 421 races. Six times he won multiple races in a season and yet he never ran a full schedule in his 23-year NASCAR career.