Delma Cowart
Delma Cowart (born July 6, 1941), is a retired NASCAR and ARCA driver.
Career
Cowart made his first start in NASCAR by qualifying for the 1981 Daytona 500 with sponsor Heyward Grooms.
Tracks
Cowart's main tracks were Daytona International Speedway or Talladega Superspeedway, but he did run in the 1992 race at Rockingham, North Carolina. Cowart also tried, but failed to make the 1994 Brickyard 400.
Numbers
His main number was 0, but he did run the 01 a few times.
1992 Daytona 500
Cowart made the 1992 Daytona 500 and made his trademark quote, "I aint never won a race, though I aint lost a party."
Final years
Cowart tried to make the Daytona 500 1993–1997, but failed each time. His last race was the 1997 Winston Open, but was flagged shortly after the start. Delma Cowart Racing brought two race cars to Charlotte that weekend. One was for the ARCA race as the newer Penske Ford that Delma had bought was for the Cup race. The Cup engine developed a problem so the team decided to make an engine change. The problems that followed were that the clutch components, some of the brackets, etc., were different from what Delma had as backup parts. Once the ARCA race had completed the team worked feverishly on the Cup car to make the race. It was about 4 pm when the team started making the engine change as well as trying make all of the pieces fit together; by the time the car was ready it was roughly 6pm. The green flag was to drop at 7:30 pm. The car had yet to pass inspection. A little after 6 pm, the team started the car and found that there was a transmission problem now. The team now had a decision to make: to quit or keep on fighting. The team decided to go and make the transmission swap. Later on, the command to start engines went out. At that time Delma was still in the garage area and he started his. He left the garage area and entered the track only to see the black flag displayed. A few caution laps were made and then Delma decided to pull off. At that time the NASCAR officials were present in the garage area as Delma and his crew chief had a meeting in the NASCAR trailer. In later years Delma was featured in a Growing Bolder interview. When asked to as why he did what he did, he said, "Look, it wasn't a points race, just a money race, and the crew worked so hard, I wasn't about to let them down."