A couple of things Dick May accomplished during his days as a NASCAR stock-car driver are likely never to show up in a NASCAR record book.
In 1975 at Dover, Del., May, who’s a native of Watertown, N.Y., drove five different cars in the same race, all in relief. None of the cars finished the race. His final finish was one of “dropped out.”
“Afterwards, they asked me what happened,” said May, “and I said that I ran out of cars.”
It wasn’t unusual for May to qualify two or three different cars for a lot of races because there were several drivers during those days, who couldn’t make it to the track on the first day of qualifying and they would engage May to qualify their car.
Qualifying three cars for one race forced NASCAR to adopt rules to prevent such practices from happening in the future.
That forced May to start submitting several entry blanks for each race.
“Bill Gazaway (the late director of the NASCAR Cup series) got wind of what I was doing in qualifying and recommended at one race that I come sit and talk with him during qualifying,” said May. “I told Bill I couldn’t because I was busy.
“He was very persistent. He told me, ‘you don’t understand. I want to talk to you.’
“That pretty much was the end of me qualifying more than one car for a race.”
May never won a race during his Cup career.
But his antics earned him a couple of nicknames — “professional stroker,” “Rent a Hertz.”
“Back then, the races were 400, 500 miles and a lot of guys were workers, not in the shape the guys are today, they’d get tired and would knock on their heads for relief and I got a lot of relief jobs.”
A couple of years ago, May was inducted into the DIRT Hall of Fame in Weedsport, N.Y., near his hometown where he once raced modifieds.
“When I was driving a modified, I was out to win,” said May. “When I was driving down South, I was out to finish.”
In 1978, May finished 15th in the Cup standings.
“I had a heck of a time explaining to the IRS I didn’t collect all that money,” said May.
What Dick May did wasn’t for money.
“Anyone who would drive his own truck to park in newly laid clay (as May and fellow truck driver Neil “Terrible” Tooley did in the spring of ’62 at Watertown), did so only because they loved the sport,” said Dick May.