We Still Don't Know What Happened to Leroy Yarbrough.

[Sofa King]

That's right. One-hit wonder of NASCAR, 1969.

Leroy disappeared, although for a couple of months a guy named Cale had to tell the press he spelled his name with an extra "o". Even got himself on the Dukes of Hazzard a couple of times. But the old-timer NASCAR fans remember Leroy....

Leroy is becoming the stuff of legend, exactly that which the SDMB seeks to dispel. Some say he killed his mamma. Some say he was a gay homosexual. Most of you don't care. Keep your redneck ridiculing comments to yourself, new computer users; this is a serious biographical inquiry.

Who was Leroy Yarbrough, and what ended his Junior Johnson-style career in NASCAR?

[Kegg]

A"gay homosexual" ?????

_______________________________________
Grammer and spelling subject to change without notice.

[tomndebb]

That would be the opposite of a dour homosexual.

[netscape 6]

[quote]Originally posted by Kegg
[b]A"gay homosexual" ?????

that means someone is a homosexual and is happy about it.

[samclem]

I think the spelling you used had me tripped up. I'm not sure exactly what's correct, as I'm on a borrowed computer for the holidays. But I did find a rather well done website which sounds believable.

He took a few too many crashes to the brain, and hit his head a final time before dying.

From http://www.flash.net/~dralstin/stories/Yarbrough.htm

[1FastFord]

LeeRoy Yarbrough... Died ... A NASCAR racer. His best season was 1969 when he won seven races and tallied 21 Top Ten finishes. During his entire career from 1960-1972, he competed in 198 races, scoring 14 wins, 65 top fives, 92 top tens, and 10 poles. His racing number was 98. LeeRoy ran the Indy 500 3 times with a best finish of 19th in 1970. A succession of crashes ended his career and he struggled to cope without driving. After an attack on his mother, Lee Roy, real name, Lonnie, was committed to a mental hospital for life. In 1984, he suffered a seizure and fell, hitting his head and died the next day, from his head injury.

[Colibri]

Moving to The Game Room, which didn't exist when this thread was last active.

Responders please note this is an old thread.

Colibri
General Questions Moderator

[GIGObuster]

Now, a zombie NASCAR driver would be something to see, but the most mundane explanation why information was hard to come by was that Wikipedia did not have page of him back in 2003, now there is and it links to a more recent NASCAR fan site (with text from the defunct link of samclem) that leads then to a newspaper article that confirms what 1FastFord said.

http://www.fultoncountynews.com/news...ports/031.html

http://www.legendsofnascar.com/leeroy_yarbrough.htm