Well soon the Daytona 500 will be here, but Nascar has had some of there races already this year (small races). Yesterday they had two races to see if some people could make it into the Daytona 500. One of those people trying to make it into the Daytona 500 is James Hylton (age 72). He use to race in the 60s, 70s and 80s. But now he has no money and he was trying to make the Daytona 500 to earn some cash and be the oldest Nascar driver to ever start a race.
The sad news is James Hylton did not make the line up for the Daytona 500. So today I reviewed some of Hylton's career earnings from the years he did race. I found out that Hylton was a pretty good driver. Even if he never won a championship he did win second place and third place quite a bit. And he did earn quite a lot of money. I don't know if he did not managed his money very well or he thought that all his money would last for the rest of his life or what?
I do know that even if he won a lot of money he had other people he had to pay. Also something I notice is that some years he would finish better then some drivers and the drivers behind him would get more money. The reason why is because Hylton did not have the name Petty, Bonnett, Parsons, Baker and Yarborough. It all matters when it comes down to a name.
Let me point out some facts so you can understand the statement I just made. In 1973 James Hylton finished 4Th in the points and Richard Petty finished 5Th. Hylton earned $82,512 and Petty earned $234,389. In 1975 Hylton did good for himself and finished 3rd, but Benny Parsons finished 4Th and made more money then Hylton. In 1980 the same thing happened again, but this time Neil Bonnett and Buddy Baker made about $100, 000 more dollars then Hylton. Also in 1982 Cale Yarborough finished behind Hylton and Yarborough made almost $200,000 more then Hylton.
Now I do believe that Hylton would have made a great Nascar driver. His stats prove that, but no one ever got behind Hylton and gave him that push that he needed. I mean it does matter what the name is, in sports today. I mean this is 2007, and I have heard of Petty, Bonnett, Parsons, Baker and Yarborough, but I had never heard of James Hylton until now. And I may have never heard of him, if he hadn't ran out of money and that is really sad, because he was a good race car driver.
