Driver

Some referred to the “Racing Farmer” as the Richard Petty of West Coast stock car racing. He won an all-time record six NASCAR Winston West championships (1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1974, 1975), was second all-time in wins (47) and poles (47) and was named the series’ Most Popular Driver a record 10 times. Despite running with a largely volunteer crew out of his Caruthers, CA farm country base, he proved he could compete with anyone in 1971 and 1972 when he shocked the NASCAR Cup Series regulars by winning the 1971 Motor Trend 500 and ’72 Golden State 400, both at Riverside. In the 1973 DAYTONA 500, Elder ran in the top five in a secondhand Petty Charger until a late engine failure. He scored Top 10s in more than half of his 31 career Cup Series starts and Top 5s in almost a third. Elder was an inaugural year inductee into the West Coast Stock Car Hall of Fame and named one of the Winston West All-Time Top 10 Drivers in 2005.