Harry Gant

Career prior to Winston Cup

Before he was a Winston Cup regular, Harry Gant got his start on Hickory’s dirt track. He and his friends built a hobby-class car and shared driving duties, but Gant eventually took over full-time and won the track championship. When Hickory Speedway was paved in 1967, Gant adapted quickly and scored his first sportsman division win. Teaming with car builder and crew chief Kenneth H. Sigmon, he racked up over 300 NASCAR Sportsman victories and three national championships in 1972, 1973, and 1974. He also placed second in the Late Model Sportsman Division standings three times, in 1969, 1976, and 1977. In 1979, Gant sold half his construction business to race full-time in the Winston Cup Series.

Winston Cup career

Harry Gant’s first Cup Series start came in 1973 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, where he drove the No. 90 Ford for Donlavey Racing to an 11th-place finish, even though he wasn’t initially keen on the ride. Over the next four years, he made just six starts, scoring two top-tens. His first full season arrived in 1979, when he ran for Rookie of the Year alongside Dale Earnhardt and Terry Labonte, placing fourth in the rookie standings while driving the No. 47 Race Hill Farm car for Jack Beebe. The following year, he split time between the No. 47 and the No. 75 RahMoc Enterprises entry, ending up 21st in points.

After bouncing between teams early in 1981, Gant landed in the No. 33 Skoal Bandit Pontiac, owned by Hal Needham and Burt Reynolds (and later Leo Jackson after 1988). In his first outing with the team, he finished second at Darlington, then added five more runner-up results and three poles, closing the year third in points. He racked up ten second-place finishes before finally breaking through for his first Cup win at Martinsville on April 25, 1982, in the Virginia National Bank 500, and wound up fourth in the final standings. In 1983, he won once at Darlington in the Transouth 400, collecting ten top-fives and 16 top-tens on his way to seventh in points. The next season, he earned three poles, 15 top-fives, and 23 top-tens, winning at Pocono and again at Martinsville in the fall, finishing second to champion Terry Labonte. In 1985, he won at Martinsville in the spring, then at Dover and North Wilkesboro in the fall, setting a personal best for wins and finishing third in the standings, 259 points behind champion Darrell Waltrip. After a winless stretch from 1986 to 1988, Gant ended the drought with a spring victory at Darlington in 1989, shouting “The Bandit is back” in victory lane. He finished seventh in points that year. Gant also claimed the IROC championship in 1985, tying on points with Darrell Waltrip but winning the title on a tiebreaker after a photo-finish victory over Terry Labonte at Michigan.

1990s and Mr. September streak

Gant entered the 1990s with a win at Pocono in spring 1990, finishing 17th in points with six top-fives and nine top-tens. In 1991 he had a career year, winning the Winston 500 in spring by gambling on fuel mileage with a push from Rick Mast. He earned the nickname 'Mr. September' after winning all four September Cup races (Darlington, Richmond, Dover, and Martinsville) and two Busch races (Richmond and Dover) at age 51. Crew chief Andy Petree led the team. The four consecutive Cup victories tied the modern era record set in 1972. At the next race at North Wilkesboro, Gant dominated but brake failure ended his hopes of five straight wins. He scored five victories in 1991, with fifteen top-fives and seventeen top-tens, finishing fourth in points. In 1992 he finished fourth in points again, one of five drivers in contention for the championship, but six finishes of thirteenth or worse in the final races doomed his hopes. He won at Dover in spring and scored his last Cup victory on August 16, 1992, at the Champion Spark Plug 400 at Michigan, gambling on fuel; this was also the final victory for Oldsmobile in Cup competition. Gant and the Leo Jackson team switched to Chevrolets in 1993, and he announced 1994 would be his last season, finishing with a pole and seven top-tens, placing 25th in points. In 1996 he substituted for the injured Bill Elliott in the Winston Select, driving Elliott's No. 94 McDonald's Ford Thunderbird, and also ran a partial Craftsman Truck Series season in his own No. 33 Westview Capital Chevrolet C/K. He was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame on April 27, 2006.

Cup records

Gant holds the record as the oldest driver ever to win a Cup Series race and as the oldest driver to collect his first career Cup victory at 42 years and 105 days. He is the second oldest driver to win in NASCAR's second-level circuit, now the Xfinity Series, after Dick Trickle. His career includes eighteen Cup wins, one runner-up finish in 1984, and third-place points finishes in 1981 and 1985, along with 21 Busch Series wins and three runner-up finishes in the Busch Series championship (1969, 1976, and 1977). In 1985 he won the IROC title. His four consecutive wins in 1991 tied a 'new era' (1972–present) record, and he came second in the fifth race. With five Winston Cup and five Busch Grand National wins in 1991, he became the only driver at that time to post the most wins in both series in the same year, though he tied with Davey Allison for five Cup wins.