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Edward Glenn “Fireball” Roberts began his racing career at eighteen, when he completed only nine laps in one of the historic NASCAR races that crossed the sand of Daytona Beach. During the next seventeen years he built a reputation as one of the most daring and exciting drivers in the fledgling National Association of Stock Car Racing (NASCAR). These were the days of small-town tracks, when many a weekend racer spent the rest of the week running moonshine from the hills to the big cities. The next year he won his first race on the same course, in 1948. After a couple of years dabbling in NASCAR, he stuck to local races until the mid 1950’s to be near his wife and only child, Pamela. Upon his return to NASCAR in 1956, he started showing signs of becoming one of the series’ most dominant drivers. Over the next decade he amassed dozens of wins and top-ten finishes, building a reputation in his era that rivals that of Richard Petty or Dale Earnhardt in modern times. Though his nickname, “Fireball,” was very appropriate for his bold driving style, he actually acquired it before his racing career, competing in another national pastime: baseball. He earned it for his ability to “bring the heat” as a pitcher for an American Legion team in a small town near Orlando. He was certainly able to bring the heat to the other drivers on the track in the Fords and Pontiacs he drove during his career. It was a fateful day in May 1964
when he was critically injured during a fiery crash
while competing in the World 600, at Charlotte
(now Lowes) Motor Speedway, in North Carolina.
He died of complications several weeks later. The
racing world—and America’s spirit—lost
a champion that day. But his passion for adventure
and competition lives on through our unique event.
We pay tribute to his competitive character and
honor the legendary race driver with our first
Fireball Run, sixty years after he ran his first
stock car race. |
The Fireball Run is an epic adventure
of American proportions – a courageous journey
that starts on the east coast and finishes after
crossing the great west. It’s namesake is a
racing legend whose daring persona is greater the
sport he helped define; a man who epitomizes the
strength of character that it took to tame the west—and
the track.