It’s 58 days until the 2017 Daytona 500 is televised live on FOX, bringing to mind the unusual history of the No. 58 in NASCAR’s Premier Series.
It has gone to Victory Lane just once.
That happened on June 16, 1962, when little-known (then and now) Johnny Allen took his No. 58 Pontiac to Victory Lane in the Myers Brothers 200 at Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
A total of just 133 starts have been made across the history of NASCAR in the obviously unpopular car number, including 12 by Ricky Craven and two by Tiny Lund. Virtually all of the rest of the starts have been made by drivers long forgotten or never really remembered in the first place by the NASCAR community.
Allen’s lone victory — not only in the car number, but of his career — came against a stacked field. Rex White finished second in the race and Richard Petty was third, while Joe Weatherly placed fifth and Wendell Scott was sixth. White, Petty, Weatherly and Scott all are now members of the NASCAR Hall of Fame.
Allen led 178 of 200 laps in earning the victory, and took home first-place race winnings of $580 for his efforts.
