Herb Thomas

Herb Thomas won two Cup Series championships, in 1951 and 1953, during an era when NASCAR was still a fledgling enterprise and the men who raced were building the sport with every lap they turned. The Olivia, North Carolina native was one of the first great drivers of the Cup Series, winning races on the dusty dirt tracks and rough-hewn speedways that formed NASCAR's earliest schedule. Thomas won 12 races during his 1953 championship campaign, a dominant season that underscored his position as one of the premier talents of NASCAR's opening decade. Driving Hudsons prepared by legendary mechanic Smokey Yunick, Thomas combined natural ability with equipment that was at the cutting edge of early stock car technology. His career was tragically shortened by a near-fatal crash at Shelby, North Carolina in 1956 that ended his full-time racing career. But the two championships and 48 career victories he accumulated in a compressed timeframe spoke to a level of talent that stood alongside anyone in the sport's history. Inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2013, Herb Thomas is one of the foundational figures of stock car racing, a champion from the dirt-track days whose victories helped prove that NASCAR was a sport worth taking seriously.

Written by Richard R. Glover, NASCAR Reference