IOWA HALL OF FAME & RACING MUSEUM

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Gary Webb

(Davenport, now in rural Blue Grass, IA) – Gary Webb was one of the more unique Iowa stock car drivers more than three decades ago. You see, Webb was one of the few who could make automobile racing not only an avocation, but a vocation as well. Webb was a fulltime racer, and a great one at that. Foregoing the income a steady job would provide, Webb opted instead to live on what he could earn going fast around dirt tracks in Iowa and the Midwest. Now nearing 70 years old, Webb continues to race in weekly shows around the Midwest.  Webb’s 2000 season was one that most drivers only dream of achieving. Fueled by 16 feature wins in 18 starts at Dubuque Fairgrounds Speedway, Webb won 22 total features in 54 starts to win the NASCAR Winston Racing Series National Championship, while driving a car owned by Larry Moring and another owned by himself. That win netted Webb a $150,000 bonus from series sponsor Winston. He finished second in the 2001 NASCAR national title race and won the series Most Popular Driver award. Now a competitor in six consecutive decades, Webb began racing late models as a 19-year-old in 1968, and his greatest decade came in the 1980s. During that 10-year period, Webb raced to 201 feature victories and won UMP national championships in both 1984 and 1985. He counts the 1998 Yankee Dirt Track Classic one of his biggest career victoriesWebb has raced in more than 26 states and has well more than 500 feature victories. Honors have poured in for Webb over the years. He was named one of the 25 greatest NASCAR Winston Racing Series drivers during the 25th anniversary of the NASCAR Weekly Series in 2006 and he’s also been inducted into the National Late Model Hall of Fame.