Career
After attending his first race in Bowman Gray Stadium at the age of ten, McDuffie was inspired by racers Curtis Turner, Glenn Wood, Billy Myers, and others to become a race car driver.
He won several small races throughout the Carolinas including a track championship at a small dirt track near Rockingham, North Carolina. McDuffie made his NASCAR Winston (Sprint) Cup debut in 1963 at the Rambi Speedway near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina driving Curtis Turner’s old 1961 Ford. Though McDuffie was an expert dirt track racer, he never met with much success on asphalt tracks. His best NASCAR finish came at Albany-Saratoga Speedway in 1971 where he managed to finish 3rd. Meanwhile, his first last-place finish came at the 1963 Pickens 200. In 1978 McDuffie won the pole position for the Delaware 500. In the 1988 Daytona 500 qualifying race, McDuffie received second and third-degree burns in an accident after he raced without fireproof gloves because they were stolen before the race.
One day before his fatal accident at Watkins Glen International Speedway, McDuffie won a celebrity race in Owego, New York at Shangri-La Speedway, not far from Watkins Glen.
Read more about this topic: J. D. McDuffie
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—Letty Cottin Pogrebin (20th century)