Butch Hartman

Larry "Butch" Hartman (May 11, 1940 – December 21, 1994) was an American stock car racing national champion in the United States Automobile Club (USAC) from Zanesville, Ohio. After winning the USAC Stock Car Rookie of the Year award in 1966, the series' Most Improved Driver in 1967, and its Most Outstanding Driver the following year. He won five USAC Stock car national titles in the 1970s. Hartman had the fourth highest number of USAC Stock car wins in the series' history. Hartman raced in twenty NASCAR stock car races; his highest finish was a fifth-place run at National 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway (now Lowe's Motor Speedway). Hartman worked full-time at his father's company, building his own engines and towing his cars to the track each weekend. In 1968, he became the first rookie to lead the Daytona 500. He was an independent driver in an era of factory teams. He raced a No. 75 Dodge car with yellow and black colors, sponsored by his father's company "Hartman White and Autocar Truck Sales and Service". Early life Hartman was a second generation racer. His father, Dick, started racing sprint cars in 1949. By 1951, the elder Hartman was racing two cars and won 126 races in a two-year period. Hartman began working on cars at age 7 when he helped his father warm up cars for his father's automobile repair company. For his ninth birthday, his father gave an old 1939 Ford sedan to him and his brother Terry for them to drive around in a field in an adjacent property, with the condition that the brothers needed to repair the car. They nicknamed the car "Death and Destruction". After attending Otterbein College for one year, he was sent to the United States Marines for four years.