Sam Ard

Sam Ard

NASCAR Cup Series statistics
Best placement	-
Starts Victories Poles Top 10 1 - - -
NASCAR Xfinity Series Statistics
Best placement	1. - (1983, 1984)
Starts Victories Poles Top 10 92 22nd 24 79

Sam Ard (born February 14, 1939 in Asheboro , North Carolina , † April 2, 2017 ) was an American NASCAR racing driver. In 1983 and 1984 he won the title in what is now the Xfinity Series .

Career

Sam Ard was one of the drivers who took part in what was then the Budweiser Late Model Sportsman Series, now the NASCAR Nationwide Series, from the first race. This first race, which took place on February 13, 1982 at Daytona International Speedway , Ard finished in third place. In the course of the season Ard won four races, 20 times he managed to finish a race in the top 5, 23 times he finished in the top 10. At the end of the season, these performances were almost enough to win the title. Ard was only 47 points behind Jack Ingram .

In the 1983 season things went much better for Ard. He won ten races and the championship with a large point advantage. In 30 of the total of 35 races, he finished in the top 10. As in 1982, the season was marked by battles for positions between Ingram and Ard.

In the 1984 season, Ingram could no longer build on the successes of previous years. However, Ard continued to get good results and had a big lead in the championship quite early in the season. On September 23, 1984 he contested his first race in the NASCAR Winston Cup , today's Sprint Cup , at Martinsville Speedway . He retired after one lap with steering problems and ended the race last. Hardly anyone would have thought it at the time, but this race was his last in the Winston Cup, because only about a month later on October 20, 1984 he had a serious accident in a Busch Series race, which meant the end of his career. As it was the penultimate race of the season, Ard still won the title after being more than 500 points ahead of second in the overall standings before the race.

After retiring as a driver, Ard was still a team owner in NASCAR for a few years. Afterwards he withdrew from the public. He was suffering from Alzheimer's .

Web links

Driver statistics on racing-reference.info