JOHN DELPHUS "JD" MCDUFFIE - 12/05/1938 - 08/11/1991
was a NASCAR Cup Series driver. He raced in the top division of NASCAR from 1963 to 1991. McDuffie had 106 top-tens in his Cup Series career. His death was a result of a crash at Watkins Glen International in 1991. 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. In 1978 McDuffie won the pole position for the Delaware 500. The 1978 pole came on McCreary tires, the only time in NASCAR this happened. 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. McDuffie was involved in an accident on the fifth lap of the 1991 Budweiser At The Glen race at Watkins Glen International. On the straight between the Esses and the Loop-Chute, at 170 mph, McDuffie and Jimmy Means touched wheels. McDuffie's driver's side outer tie rod end dropped from the front wheel spindle, which caused him to lose control of the position of the right side tire/wheel. Further, the impact caused the front wheel assembly to completely fall off the car, starting a chain reaction that resulted in all of McDuffie's brakes failing. This left him no way of stopping
1969
1981
the car or steering it away, and to further complicate matters there was no gravel trap in the corner that McDuffie was headed toward. As a result, McDuffie skidded across the grass and hit the outside retaining wall and tire barrier with such force that the car shot into the air, rotated in mid-air, and then came to rest upside down. Means also crashed into the same corner but was able to slow his vehicle down before the impact; his car went under McDuffie's as it was in mid-air. Means, a fellow independent racer, suffered only minor cuts and bruises in the accident, and got out of his car to check on JD. After peering into McDuffie's car, he began frantically signaling for assistance, and a host of medical personnel and track workers rushed to the scene. The race was delayed for an hour as McDuffie was removed from his car and his car was
removed from the infield. Also, the wall that McDuffie and Means struck had to be repaired. As the cars got back on the track and cruised under yellow flag conditions, the media attention turned to Chip Williams, NASCAR's PR director, who disclosed that McDuffie had lost his life in the accident. The 52-year-old was survived by wife Ima Jean, son Jeff (who himself drove in five Cup events), and daughter Linda. McDuffie's death led to changes at Watkins Glen. Six weeks earlier, Camel GT Prototype driver Tommy Kendall had a hard crash in the same section
1987
fatal Watkins Glen crash
during the Camel Continental VIII, when a wheel failed on his Pratt & Miller Intrepid-Chevrolet prototype, sliding into the barrier, breaking both ankles and sidelining him for the rest of the 1991 season, including the Cup race, where he was set to substitute for Kyle Petty, injured at Talladega in May with a leg injury. (Kendall had substituted for Petty at Sears Point earlier in the year.) The track then responded with a bus stop chicane placed slightly before the entrance of Turn 5, the section of track in question, and a gravel trap, for the 1992 season. Some info from WikiPedia. Here is the fatal crash video at Watkins Glen. Here is a tribute to JD McDuffie.
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