EDWIN KEITH “BANJO” MATTHEWS
Edwin Keith “Banjo” Matthews was known as a master car builder. If a driver won a NASCAR Cup Series race at any point during the 1970s or ’80s, there’s a good possibility he was driving a car built by Matthews. His cars won hundreds of races and several championships with some of NASCAR’s greatest drivers onboard.
Matthews began racing and working on modifieds in 1954, winning 50 times that season. In 1963, he left the driver’s seat to focus on building cars for Ford Motor Co. before starting Banjo’s Performance Center near Asheville, N.C. Starting in 1976, his cars won three consecutive NASCAR Cup Seires championships with Cale Yarborough and team owner Junior Johnson.
Donnie Allison, a 10-time winner in Cup Series competition, collected four victories while driving for Matthews during the late 1960s.
“Banjo Matthews was one of the very best car builders in the business, bar none,” Allison said. “I won some of the biggest races of my career on superspeedways in Banjo’s cars. As a person, Banjo was as good as I ever knew. As a racer, he was the most knowledgeable about race cars that I had ever seen. We had some great years together as driver and team owner.”
HERSHEL MCGRIFF
Hershel McGriff, NASCAR’s West Coast champion in 1986, started racing in September 1945. He won the 1950 Carrera Panamericana race in Mexico, the first victory of his career. That same year, McGriff drove his Oldsmobile from Portland, Ore., to Darlington (S.C.) Raceway for the inaugural Southern 500, finishing ninth in the 70-car field.
Between 1954 and 2002, McGriff won 38 NASCAR races with 34 coming in what is now known as the ARCA Menards Series West. He was also named one of NASCAR’s 50 Greatest Drivers before temporarily retiring from racing at age 74. His most recent NASCAR race came at age 90 in 2018.
“I’ve always worked (outside of racing) and been very family oriented, so when I would go back east and run a race like in Darlington or Daytona or Talladega, I always came back home. I never stayed back there,” McGriff told Tuscon.com in 2015. “That’s why I never won any championships because I kind of raced where I wanted to.”
RALPH MOODY
Moody, a two-time NASCAR Cup Series owners’ champion and mechanical genius, helped revolutionize the sport through race car innovation and safety.
After driving a tank under the command of General George S. Patton in World War II, Moody moved to Florida from Massachusetts in 1949 so he could drive race cars all year-round. He won five NASCAR premier series races from 1956 and ’57 before turning his attention to the mechanical side of the sport.
Moody and John Holman formed the famed Holman Moody operation in 1957 and fielded teams through 1972.
Their Fords earned 96 victories, including the 1967 Daytona 500 with Mario Andretti, as well as 83 pole positions in 366 starts. Pearson won consecutive Cup Series championships in their cars in 1968 and ’69.
Holman Moody also fielded cars for other legends in their cars, including NASCAR Hall of Famers Joe Weatherly, Fred Lorenzen, Fireball Roberts and Bobby Allison.
“Ralph was an incredible friend who helped me tremendously throughout my career,” Bobby Allison said. “He helped bring me into Holman Moody in 1967 and gave me the opportunity to drive for them and win my first superspeedway race at Rockingham (N.C.). Ralph had been a driver himself early on and was a great innovator when it came to building race cars, where John Holman was more on the business side of things. Ralph is truly one of the most respected figures in NASCAR history, for sure.”