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1984 LeeRoy Yarbrough pt 1

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Many Asking 'What If?' Yarbrough Had Potential At a motorsports luncheon Friday at the 21 Club in New York, word began to circulate that former driver LeeRoy Yarbrough, winner of 14, Grand National races, had died during the night. An awards program that night at the Waldorf -Astoria began with a Ray Charles rendition of "America The Beautiful" that brought a tear to many eyes. Then, before delivering the invocation, two-time Grand National champion Ned Jarrett asked for a minute of silence in memory of Yarbrough. That also meant an additional tear for those who had known the driver in his glory days, 15 years before and who knew what might have been, but was lost. What might have been for Yarbrough was an honored spot in Friday night's festivities, and the veneration affored veterans like Richard Petty and David Pearson. But instead, at 1:38 a.m. Thurs- Tom day, Yarbrough was pronounced dead of a brain hemorrhage at University Hospital in his native Jacksonville, Fla. Yarbrough, 46, had fallen and hit his head while suffering a siezure at McClenny State Hospital, a mental institution. Yarbrough had been at McClenny the past couple years, confined after doctors at Florida hospitals and Appalachian Hall in Asheville concluded that his organic brain damage was incurable. The once flashy competitor had been taken to Asheville by a concerned Junior Johnson, the team owner who fielded cars for Yarbrough during the late 1960s when he dominated the South's superspeedways. Johnson planned to give Yarbrough a job in his Wilkes County shop if treatment could rehabilitate him. However, Yarbrough was too sick to reenter society. He wasn't safe to himself or others. The attack on his 76-year-old mother, Minnie, was what led to Yarbrough being hospitalized behind locked doors, in 1980. I can sympathize with Johnson's concern and disappointment. While some found Yarbrough distant and uncommunicative, he always was pleasantly cooperative with me. Why? I've never been exactly sure, but I suspect it was because he knew I shared his love for fishing. In the late 1960s, YarSee YARBROUGH Page 7C
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