It can’t be said how good of a driver he was. This was a man who at 9 years old was never expected to walk again. He broke his hip in an accident and it never fully healed properly. Growing up poor in rural Wisconsin, he plowed fields for local farmers and worked in a mechanic’s shop starting at age 13. He started building his own race cars by age 17, and started winning races soon after.

He didn’t compete full time in NASCAR until he was 48 years old (and he still won rookie of the year). He never bothered with it because he was making so much money competing in weekly short track races all over the U.S. He competed in over 150 races a years and won over 1200 races in his career. We’re not even sure what his total earnings were, but for most of the 1970s and 1980s he was the highest-earning racing driver in North America- regardless of discipline. He may have possibly been one of the highest-earning athletes in general during this time.