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Larry
Frank
Born: April 29, 1931
Died: January 5, 2010 (in Greenville, SC)
Home: Indianapolis, IN
Larry Frank is a former
NASCAR driver from Indianapolis, IN.
He competed in 103 Grand National
events in his career spanning from
1956 to 1966. Frank would earn one
victory, ten top-fives and
thirty-two top-tens in his career.
Frank's lone
triumph came in the 1962 season,
when he pulled an upset at
Darlington Speedway. He led 85 of
the 364 laps in route to a
five-second victory on legend Junior
Johnson. He earned a career best
eight top-tens that year in route to
a career best 14th place in points.
Frank, however,
was never much of a factor. The
Darlington race was the only race he
was in true competition and his
part-time schedule prevented him
from ever making a good run in the
sport. In his last year of 1966, he
earned a finish of 9th and 10th in
his only two starts of the year
before hanging up the helmet.
 Larry
S. Frank,
80, husband
of Margaret
Ann Gilreath
Frank, died
Tuesday,
January 5,
2010.
Born in
Marshall
County,
W.Va., he
was the son
of the late
Lawrence and
Florence
Marie Crowe
Frank.
Mr. Frank
was retired
owner of
Larry Frank
Auto Body
Works and
L&M Self
Storage. He
was a
veteran of
the United
States
Marines and
Merchant
Marines.
Larry was a
NASCAR
Legend and a
1962
Southern 500
winner.
Surviving,
in addition
to his wife,
are two
sons, Larry
J. Frank
(Crystal)
and Rob, all
of
Greenville;
grandchildren,
L. J., Adam
and Nicholas
Frank; and
two sisters,
Harriet
Nocifora of
Woodbridge,
Va. and
Wilma
Douglas of
Newark,
Ohio.
Visitation
will be
Thursday,
January 7,
2010, from 6
to 8 p.m. at
Thomas
McAfee
Funeral
Home,
Downtown.
The funeral
service will
be Friday,
January 8,
2010, at
1:30 p.m. in
the Downtown
Chapel.
Burial will
be at
Greenville
Memorial
Gardens.
Condolences
may be sent
to the
family by
visiting
www.thomasmcafee.com.
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A Story
with "Little" Joe Weatherly
Weatherly was
a delight to watch, sober or drunk.
During one race, Joe was beating on
fellow competitor
Larry Frank
--- really tearing up his car. Frank, a
tough, ex-Marine who wasn't afraid to
tangle with anyone, chased ‘Little Joe'
into the parking lot after the race. To
escape his wrath, Joe jumped on a car's
roof, and ran across the roof's of every
car parked in that row -- denting them
all.
Both men laughed about it the next day.
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Curtis Turner passes a looping Larry Frank (76)
David
Pearson (#6) and Frank (#9)
Interesting. Evidently Larry Frank raced
a Purple Ford before Fireball. 1960 at
Daytona
Larry
Frank and Little Joe Weatherly
The 1962 Southern 500 was a
Grand National
event held at
Darlington Speedway on September 3,
1962.
Larry Frank pulled an upset out of
his hat, leading eighty-five laps late
in the race in route to his only career
victory.
Junior Johnson finished second, five
seconds behind. Eventual points champ
Joe Weatherly finished 10th.
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Once Upon A Time In
Darlington...
by Tom Higgins
(Article
Edited for space)
 Much of the appeal of
Darlington Raceway on sweltering Labor Days
was that something bizarre was likely to
happen. And so it was 45 years ago, on Sept.
3, 1962. I was in the midst of a brief
stint with the Durham Morning-Herald in
North Carolina at that time and was assigned
to cover the race. I was invited by
friend Ducky Everett, the basketball coach
at Darlington's St. John's High School, to
drive down and spend the race eve night at
the home of he and wife Norma.
Ducky had a job taking tickets at the main
gate on race day, so he was gone at dawn.
By the time I got to the track about 9 a.m.
Ducky's clothes were so wet with sweat it
appeared he'd jumped in the pond behind the
original second turn. "It's gonna be a long
day," Ducky said, shaking his head and
puffing for breath. Ducky had no idea how
true his prophecy would prove.
There were crashes galore. A young Buddy
Baker wrecked. So did pole winner Fireball Roberts and fellow veterans
Jack Smith, Darel Dieringer and Bobby Johns.
The scariest accident involved
Johnny
Allen. He hit the steel guard rail in
the first turn, got atop it for several feet
and then tumbled back onto the track, his
car rolling down the banking to the apron
about 150 yards from the press box. The
railing had severed the fuel tank, and a
trail of gasoline followed Allen's car.
Suddenly, the 140 degree heat of the asphalt
ignited the gas, and a trickle of flame
started heading toward the stricken race car
as Allen struggled to get out. The car
erupted in a ball of fire as members of the
media and fans alike gasped in horror. Allen
finally popped out, miraculously unhurt.
Want a print of this Bill Rankin
sketch? Email Here.
The 364-lap race rolled on, with NASCAR
showing Junior Johnson, Marvin Panch
and Pearson battling for the lead. Finally,
after 4 hours and 14 minutes on the sizzling
track, Johnson took the checkered flag in a
Ray Fox-fielded Pontiac. As he did
so a little-known driver named
Larry Frank
skidded across the start-finish line on
three wheels and with sparks and dust
alternately flying plowed to a stop in the
grass across the track from the old open-air
press box in turn one.
As Johnson went to victory lane, some fans
were chanting "No, no. no!!!" I wondered
why, because at that time Johnson relatively
was as popular as the late Dale Earnhardt
was to become in the 1980s-90s.
Turns out those fans thought someone else
had won the Southern 500--Larry
Frank. Frank thought so, too. But
the wiry, tough ex-Marine didn't make an
issue of it. At least not right away. He
left it to car owner Ratus Walters to
file an official protest.
According to stock car racing historian
Greg Fielden in his great series of
books that trace every single race through
1993, Frank was badly dehydrated and
suffering from blisters on his eyes. He
went to a motel in nearby Florence to
recover and await NASCAR's decision.
The press generally wasn't told that a
scoring problem existed, and the traditional
winner's interview went ahead with Johnson
in a basement-like building nicknamed "The
Dungeon" that had been dug partially into
the first turn banking. Asked what he was
going to do with his winnings, Johnson, a
major poultry supplier in Wilkes County,
N.C., for Holly Farms, famously replied,
"I'm going to build some more chicken
houses."
I wrote my column around that line and
headed home to Durham, fighting heavy
traffic on two-lane roads created by a crowd
estimated at 60,000 which had attended the
race. Imagine my surprise, then, to awake
the next morning to see a streamer headline
in the Morning-Herald proclaiming "Larry
Frank Is Southern 500 Winner."
"No!" I shouted.
Then, I saw the editor's note on my column,
explaining that it had been filed before
NASCAR changed the race result at around
midnight. There were no cell phones in those
days, remember, so the editors had no way of
reaching me.
NASCAR had decided that Frank's scorers had
shorted him a lap, so he actually led the
final 84 laps. Johnson was ruled the
runnerup, with Panch third, Pearson fourth
and Richard Petty fifth, a lap down.
Some thought Johnson was two laps behind,
but NASCAR showed him only five seconds
back. "Hell, if I had known I was trailing
Larry, I think I could have caught him and
passed him easily, " Johnson said later.
It was to prove
Larry Frank's only victory in 102
starts. He left the circuit after racing
just twice in 1966, still deeply
disappointed that he didn't get to
experience the excitement and satisfaction
of going to victory lane at the raceway that
will live in NASCAR lore as "The Track Too
Tough To Tame" and the devious "Lady In
Black."
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The Southern 500 was Junior Johnson
being flagged the winner in 1962,
seemingly realizing a deep personal goal
of capturing the race.
Johnson, a former moonshiner-turned-farmer,
declared that he was going to use his
approximately $21,000 in winnings to
"build some more chicken houses."
Around midnight, after repeated checks
of scoring cards, NASCAR declared that
Larry Frank actually had
triumphed, with Johnson second.
Associated Press motorsports writer
Bloys Britt memorably observed, "Junior
counted his chicken houses before they
got built."
It proved to be the only victory of
Frank's career.
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The Win
UNDER
CONSTRUCTION: More info is needed on this driver.
If you have stories, stats or
pictures, please send them
HERE.
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Larry
Frank DRIVER Statistics
Grand National Statistics
| Year |
Age |
Races |
Win |
T5 |
T10 |
Pole |
Laps |
Led |
Earnings |
Rank |
AvSt |
AvFn |
|
1956 |
25 |
1 of 56 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
77 |
0 |
50 |
|
26.0 |
38.0 |
|
1957 |
26 |
4 of 53 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1113 |
0 |
995 |
|
19.2 |
15.2 |
|
1958 |
27 |
11 of 51 |
0 |
1 |
4 |
0 |
2099 |
0 |
2,590 |
137 |
14.7 |
18.8 |
|
1959 |
28 |
15 of 44 |
0 |
4 |
9 |
0 |
3300 |
39 |
5,993 |
22 |
12.9 |
10.5 |
|
1960 |
29 |
11 of 44 |
0 |
0 |
2 |
0 |
1984 |
11 |
2,440 |
34 |
20.3 |
19.0 |
|
1961 |
30 |
8 of 52 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
978 |
0 |
2,380 |
42 |
19.2 |
28.1 |
|
1962 |
31 |
19 of 53 |
1 |
2 |
8 |
0 |
3566 |
85 |
32,986 |
14 |
15.2 |
18.1 |
|
1963 |
32 |
11 of 55 |
0 |
2 |
2 |
0 |
2392 |
5 |
5,450 |
28 |
13.8 |
15.7 |
|
1964 |
33 |
12 of 62 |
0 |
0 |
3 |
0 |
1483 |
0 |
7,830 |
24 |
17.8 |
18.6 |
|
1965 |
34 |
9 of 55 |
0 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
1009 |
33 |
5,080 |
53 |
8.3 |
23.3 |
|
1966 |
35 |
2 of 49 |
0 |
0 |
2 |
0 |
232 |
0 |
1,575 |
50 |
14.0 |
9.5 |
|
11 years |
103 |
1 |
10 |
32 |
0 |
18233 |
173 |
67,369 |
|
15.5 |
18.1 |
 1957
Chev
Convertible Series
| Year |
Age |
Races |
Win |
T5 |
T10 |
Pole |
Laps |
Led |
Earnings |
Rank |
AvSt |
AvFn |
|
1956 |
25 |
38 of 47 |
0 |
0 |
16 |
0 |
4497 |
0 |
4,877 |
12 |
13.5 |
12.8 |
|
1957 |
26 |
35 of 36 |
0 |
9 |
23 |
0 |
5601 |
0 |
8,569 |
4 |
11.8 |
9.4 |
|
1958 |
27 |
17 of 19 |
0 |
8 |
13 |
1 |
3155 |
0 |
5,428 |
2 |
8.6 |
7.7 |
|
1959 |
28 |
15 of 15 |
0 |
8 |
12 |
2 |
2860 |
148 |
8,393 |
2 |
6.5 |
6.9 |
|
4 years |
105 |
0 |
25 |
64 |
3 |
16113 |
148 |
27,267 |
|
11.1 |
10.0 |
Frank finished in
the Top 10 in 64 races out of 105.
Copyright © 2003
LegendsofNascar.com
by Roland Via. All rights reserved. Revised:
06/08/12 08:11:13 -0400.
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Larry Frank was a poster boy for HIS United States Marines. Crew cut. Sinewy muscles. Thirty-inch waist. Square jaw. Deep, coarse voice. Take no prisoners attitude.
