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Factsheet

• Was granted a court order to race at Lake Hill Speedway in Missouri at the age of 16, two years below the minimum age requirement.
• Worked for his family's vacuum-cleaner repair shop, OK Vacuum, before racing full-time.
• Earned his first pilot's license in 1984, has logged over 15,000 hours of flight time and owns several aircraft, including a Learjet 31A and Bell 427 helicopter.
• Fined $5000 for using an obscenity in a 1997 radio interview, which he paid by sending 500,000 pennies to NASCAR CEO Bill France.
• Bestowed, upon retirement from racing, with Delaware's Order of the First State and North Carolina's Order of the Long Leaf Pine, the highest civilian honors possible in those states.
• Designed Iowa Speedway, a 7/8-mile track in Newton, IA, that opened in September 2006.