The 11th race of the 1964 NASCAR Grand National season was the Easter Saturday night Greenville 200 at Greenville-Pickens Speedway in South Carolina. Four of the season's 11 races had been run in November and December 1963.
Dick Hutcherson, an IMCA champion from the midwest, made his way south to give NASCAR a go. In his first career GN start and in a Holman-Moody Ford, Hutch won the pole with a track record.
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| Source: Greenville News |
Lee Roy Yarbrough started second with Ned Jarrett, Jimmy Pardue, and Ralph Earnhardt rounding out the top five starters. Other notable starters included:
- Maurice Petty qualified 16th in the 22-car field. The race was the 7th of eight times Ralph Earnhardt and Chief qualified for the same show.
- Richard Petty started seventh in a second Petty Plymouth.
- Jim Paschal started eighth in Cotton Owens' Dodge as a teammate to ninth place starter David Pearson. Paschal started the season with Owens. After a few more races, however, he returned to the Petty Plymouth team for whom he'd raced a good bit in 1962 and 1963.
- Marvin Panch, the 1961 Daytona 500 winner, qualified 10th in the famed Wood Brothers Ford. One has to laugh at the caption of the photo featured in the Greenville News. Panch had his greatest success at the wheel of the Woods' car, but it's rather certain the owners/crew were the ones providing the instructions.
Hutcherson leveraged his top qualifying spot as the race began. He got the jump on Yarbrough and led the first 60 laps. When Hutcherson pitted, Richard Petty's Plymouth then went to the top of the board where it remained for nearly 30 laps before falling by the wayside with mechanical issues.
Another Ford driver assumed the lead as Ned Jarrett led 88 of the next 89 laps. Along the way, the King took over the wheel of brother Maurice's #41 Plymouth. It's uncertain if Chief wasn't feeling well or if team owner and father Lee believed the car could get a better finish with Richard at the helm.
With just over 30 laps to go, Wendell Scott blew a tire on his Chevrolet. The car then rolled over although Scott was uninjured.
When the race returned to green with about 20 laps to go, Pearson wrestled the top spot away from Jarrett as the two banged doors. Jarrett maintained hot pursuit, but Pearson led the rest of the way and won by about 100 yards ahead of Ned. Panch finished third - the only other car on the lead lap.
Pearson's fifth career Grand National win came with his first of four victories at Greenville-Pickens. It was also his second win in three races having won at Richmond about three weeks earlier. Pearson took naturally to the track in a GN car as he'd run and won on his home track often in the track's sportsman division in the late 1950s.
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| Source: Greenville News |
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