Edwards evokes fond memories of Hutch

By DAVID GREEN

After Carl Edwards' second victory in as many weeks, a name from 40 years ago popped into my head. It occurred to me that Edwards was having a Dick Hutcherson-like season.

Just days later, "Hutch" was dead.

Nouveau NASCAR fans can be forgiven if they don't recognize the name. Hutcherson's career was one of the briefest in the history of stock car racing. However, it was also one of the brightest.

In 1965, Hutcherson won nine races and finished second 10 times in a 52-race season. He pushed teammate Ned Jarrett to the Grand National championship title. Just like Carl Edwards in 2005, it was his first full season of racing in NASCAR's premier series, and like Edwards this year, Hutch was not eligible to win the rookie-of-the-year award.

There's more. Both were born in the Heartland -- Hutch in Keokuk, Iowa, and Edwards a few hundred miles south in Columbia, Mo. Both honed their racing skills on Midwestern dirt ovals.

You'd really have to be into the history of stock car racing to know of Hutcherson, except perhaps as half of Hutcherson-Pagan Enterprises. Fans from the last couple of decades know Hutch-Pagan as one of the chief suppliers of racing parts, up to and including turn-key, ready-to-race cars.

Some may know that Hutch, after only three seasons in NASCAR, hung up his helmet to take over management of the great Holman-Moody racing operation. They may know that Hutch directed the Grand National championship seasons of the great David Pearson in 1968-69, but then again they might not know; "crew chief" is a much more glamorous title now than it was in the 1960s.

Of those who do remember Hutch as a driver, some may point out that his super freshman season came in the year that Chrysler Corp.'s factory-supported teams boycotted most of the year because of NASCAR rules restricting the famous Hemi V8. However, Hutch's achievements stand on their own merits. He had plenty of seasoned competition all year long -- and Mopar's Richard Petty and Pearson (then driving for Cotton Owens) were added to the mix in the last quarter of the campaign.

In 1966, Hutcherson was on the other end of the boycott issue. Ford pulled its teams out of competition for much of the year. Hutch competed in only 14 races, winning three of them. While the boycott was keeping him out of the big Galaxies with which he was familiar, he took a spin in a Ford GT-40 sports prototype, and logged a third-place finish in the famous 24 Hours of Le Mans in France.

Not bad for an old dirt-dobber from Keokuk.

In 1967, Petty rewrote the NASCAR record books, winning 27 races. Hutch was second nine times. At the end of that year, during which Hutcherson won only twice in 33 starts, he retired at age 35. Despite the achievements he enjoyed as team manager with Holman-Moody and the business success he later built with Hutcherson-Pagan, despite the fact that so many of his contemporaries (Jarrett, Junior Johnson, Fred Lorenzen) were also calling it quits, Hutcherson second-guessed his decision to retire so early.

"Racing pumped me up," Hutcherson told Stock Car Racing Magazine's Gene Granger in 1983. "I loved it. I've regretted (retiring) ever since."

Hutch's achievements deserve remembering in these days following his death at age 73. There's no better tribute to him than the remarkable season Carl Edwards is enjoying.