The Unlikely NASCAR Driver: The Mysterious Story of L.W. Wright

In the world of professional racing, few stories are as fascinating as that of L.W. Wright, a man who somehow managed to qualify for the 1982 Winston 500, one of the most prestigious events in NASCAR history. But what's even more remarkable is how he pulled off this feat and then disappeared from the face of the earth.

Wright's story began two weeks prior to the big event, when he was hastily assembled by a con man into a team called Music City Racing. The team's car number 34 Monte Carlo was hastily prepared, and Wright was thrust onto the starting grid alongside NASCAR legends like Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt, and Cale Yarborough.

While many people spend their entire lives dreaming of achieving this level of success, L.W. Wright made it happen by riding a wave of his own overconfidence for just two short weeks. His story is a testament to the power of luck and the human spirit.

However, as soon as he took to the track, it became clear that Wright was not a natural behind the wheel. His total lack of experience eventually caught up with him, and after 13 laps, he was painfully clear that he was a danger to himself and everyone else on the track. In fact, his driving was so bad that he was even blackflagged by race officials, who showed him the door after just a few more laps.

So what happened next? Well, L.W. Wright vanished into thin air, leaving behind only a trail of confusion and unanswered questions. His car, the number 34 Monte Carlo, was left stranded on pit road, with Bernie Terrell's semi-truck waiting in the wings to collect it. To this day, no one knows who L.W. Wright was or what became of him after that fateful day.

The mystery surrounding Wright's identity and disappearance has only added to his legend, with many wondering how someone could pull off such an incredible feat without being seen or heard from again. If you have any information about this enigmatic figure, we want to hear from you!

For now, L.W. Wright remains a footnote in the history books, a reminder that sometimes even the most unlikely person can achieve greatness, if only for a brief moment in time. His story is a testament to the power of determination and the human spirit.

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WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: en(counter ticking)(typewriter keys clicking)(piano music)- Hey guys, you guys are not gonna believewhat I'm about to tell you.I just found out about the mostamazing NASCAR driver ever.No, he did not win a bunch.This guy ran one race and then disappearedforever, leaving nothingbehind, but bounce checksand multiple arrests warrants.Today, we're talking aboutone of the weirdest unsolved mysteriesin the history of cars,the guy who conned his wayinto NASCAR and then vanished.Let's get you up to speed onthe guy who snuck into NASCAR.(upbeat music)- A big thanks to Skill Sharefor sponsoring today's episode.Skill Share is an onlinelearning communitywith thousands of inspiringclasses for creators.So you can learn new creativeskills like music production,or graphic design, or improve a skillfor the holiday season.Like the underrated forgottenart, of gift wrapping.Remember that incrediblefeeling you had as a kid,just tearing the wrappingpaper off the game systemyou got for your birthday?It was the best.So why be selfish andjust toss all your giftsinto a gift bag, deprivingyour family and friendsin the same pleasure.In the class, Creative Gift Wrapping,simple methods for wrappingbeautiful gifts that will,wow your friends and familyby forced culture design,you'll learn not only theart of wrapping a gift,but also how to easily designand create your own wrapping paper.Skill Share is curatedspecifically for learningmeaning there's no ads andthey're always launchingnew premium classes soyou can stay focusedand follow wherever yourcreativity takes you.Plus Skill Share isentire catalog of classes,now offer subtitles inSpanish, French, Portuguese,and Dutch, what a gift.The first 1000 of you to clickthe link in the description,will get a free one monthtrial of Skill Share.So why wait, learn now.(gentle music)- The early eighties werea magical time in America.Steven Spielberg discoveredthe nostalgic powerof kids, riding bikes,the personal computer revolutionbrought a blocking greenversion of the futureinto every householdand NASCAR's popularity,well, she was on the rise.People couldn't get enoughsick, nasty American speed,including a weirdo that wentby the name L. W. Wright.Nobody knows where this guycame from or who he was before,but for two weeks andtwo weeks only in 1982,he went by L. W. Wright.He was a smooth talking 33year old NASCAR veteran,with 43 Busch grandnational races to his name,or so he claimed and claim it he did.First in the office ofguy named Bernie Terrell,the owner of a Nashville ad agency calledSpace Age Marketing,which I can only assumeDelton regional plumbing advertisements,and furniture stores.Wright pitched himselfas an experienced raceron the rise, who justneeded to borrow some moneyto buy a new race car beforethe Winston 500 Talladega,you know, normal stuff.He said he already had arace team together too,Music City Racing, sounds legit right?Now L. W. claimed thatcountry music legends,Merle Haggard, and TGshepherd, where his sponsors,nobody would make that up, right?'Cause that's like a thingthat you can easily check.They're very famous guys.That's like me using RyanGosling as a reference for a job,fun fact, he hit on mygirlfriend one time.I met him in a diner.He's like you ever try this milkshake?It's got peanut butter in it.I was like, yeah, man, it's great.Peanut butter is great.He's like, it's likepeanut butter and jellybut it's a milkshake.Then he said, some girlwas like, cilantro.I don't know what that meant.Now let's just stop fora moment to considerthe incredible audacity on display here.This dude, this totalstranger walks into the officeof a popular marketing firm in Nashville,the country music capital ofthe world, AKA Music City,and says that he needs moneyto fund his racing team,Music City Racing, which is sponsoredby two of the biggest countrymusic stars in the world,who also live in that city.All right, that's like walkinginto an Atlanta marketingfirm and asking for moneyto fund Hotlanta Racing,a team sponsored byOutkast and Tyler Perry.How do you assume thatno one's gonna check?That seems like somethingworth fact checking.Wright's big brass act totallywon over Bernie Terrell,who sounds like thesmartest guy in the world,so much so that he gave L.W.,a man he literally just met$37,000 and a semi truckand trailer on the spot.That's $113,000 cash in today's money.Plus a fricking semi-truck.Now in an interview monthslater, Terrelle said,Wright got him good becausehe knew nothing about racing,which you know, duh.I'm going to add another fun fact hereto ramp up the insanity.This meeting went down twoweeks before the race, 14 days.Does two weeks seem like areasonable amount of timeto locate a race car, buy therace car and prep the race carfor one of the biggestNASCAR races of the season?I mean, at least two people thought so.The next guy is someone thatyou actually might recognizefamous NASCAR driver, Sterling Marlin.Now he wasn't so famous back then,but he was steeped in NASCAR from birth.His dad was NASCAR's mostsuccessful and certifiably insanedriver cuckoo Marlin.It's a shame that therearen't any jokes to be madeabout that name.Absolutely none.So you'd think with multiple generationsof NASCAR experience racingaround in his brain dome,Sterling would be able tospot a fraud from a mile away,or maybe he just wanted tosee where this crazinesswas going because Sterling offered L.W.his Chevy Monte Carlo from last season,a big brown 450 horsepower bruiser,good for 190 miles per houron the straight at Talladega,on the spot, WrightCoughed up $17,000 cashand a $3,700 check.Deal!(mans fingers snapping)Shake hands, we're done,but there was one condition,Sterling wanted to serveas wright's crew chieffor the race, by the way, the racewas only a week away at this point.So Wright said, yeah, dude, of course.I mean, he was honestlyprobably stoked out of his mindthat his plan was working.Like, can you imagine whatis going on in this guy's(beep)head right now?One, how do you decide to do this?And two, it just keeps working.It's like Mr. Beansneaking into the Pentagon.This is like crack for con men.The con stands for confidence.And once L.W. saw his firstcouple cons worked out,he pulled maybe the boldest grift yet.This complete maniac, cold calleda renowned motor sports writerat the Nashville, Tennesseean newspaper,and not only did he feed himthe same hot horse hockeythat worked on theclueless advertising guy,he added an extra level.He told this guy that Merle Haggard,the king of outlaw countrywas scheduled to appearat Talladega with his driver.Now I wanna remind youguys that Merle Haggardhad no clue who L.W. Wrightwas just like everyone else,but he did have a bit of acocaine problem in those days.And maybe Wright thoughtthat he'd read the blurbin the paper and assumethat the whole thingwas something he agreedto, but forgot about it.And then he'd show up on race dayand pretend everything was cool.He'll be like, dang.I forgot to write that on my calendarand my entire staff ofpeople that work for me,the most famous countrymusic star in the world,they all forgot too, Ibetter get a plane ticketbecause I don't want to look like a jerk.(man burping)Surprisingly, that plan didn't work.The article ran on April 25th,seven days before the Winston 500,Merle Haggard did not notice,but the other country musicstar that L.W. claimedto be a sponsor of his team, TG shepherd,well, his attorney did notice.Attorneys do coke too, butthey also write stuff down.He called the newspaperimmediately and told themthat his client had no cluewho this L.W. Wright guy was.And so the story ends there, right?It was busted, not!The writer who wrote, Wright's write up,called L.W. and confronted him,L.W. turned on the charmas hard as he couldover an old time cordedtelephone and said, well,I was kind of prematurewith the TG Shepherdand the Merle Haggard announcements.And somehow it worked.Maybe it would've madesense if I was alive back,oh God, I'd be so rich, 'cause you know,I would just lie, like I do now.Nollen's my son.All right, so let's recap real quick guys.L.W. Wright has money, check.Semi-truck and a trailer, check.It's got a fricking race car, check.He's got an experienced crew chieffrom a legendary NASCAR pedigree, check.But now he needs a NASCARcompetition license.Something that's really hard to getafter a lifetime of training and racing.There's no way he can getthis in like five days, right?Apparently wrong.When L.W. showed up at theNASCAR credential office,nobody recognized him.Which surprised prettymuch no one at this point,but it wasn't much of a red flagbecause a lot of driverswere in and out of the sportin those days,a NASCAR licensing official asked L.W.for his racing history.And like my dad at thebar, L.W. listed offsome races that he had competed in,and the dude gave him a licenseand cleared him to qualify.The vetting process was the honor system.Yeah, man, I played D one ball.Yeah, I won the Rose Bowl I was,we thought I was gonna get the Heisman,my parents were really upset about it.I won every, I won literallyevery single freakingRose Bowl that year dude, I'mgonna start for the Patriots.Yeah, I kiss my dad on the lips.(man chuckling)Again, this was a different time.All the NASCAR's record-keepingwas written out by hand,then stowed away in a three ring binderin Bill Francis, sex dungeon.He's got one, I've been there.It's nice, one of the nicerones I've ever been to,but there's anotherlayer at work here too.NASCAR had to follow somethingcalled the right to work law,which for them meant, that thedriver could afford the feesand had a functioning race car.They legally had to allow themto at least try to qualifyfor the race.Incredible.Wright's race car was parked in the garageat Talladega Super Speedwayand Sterling Marlin,was wrenching on it inanticipation for a qualifying run.All right, so maybe atthis point, L.W. realizedthat he was actually about to push a 450horsepower race car to itslimits on the biggest meanestfastest stock car track in the nation.Something he'd almostcertainly never done before,but Mr. Wright was acting wrong.Sterling remembered himasking weird questions,dummy questions that any driverwould know the answer to,questions like, hey Sterling,man, you seen my keys, dude.Can't seem to find my keys dude.Keys, for your race car?There ain't no keys for a race car.Right(man laughing)I was just joking with you, man.Got another question.What if I got to peein middle of the race,or poop or whatever?Is there like a bathroom break?Like we line up like we inkindergarten or something?You do what you did when youhad to in all them other races.Slow down a little bit, tryto arch it out the window.Cool man. Yeah, I've been there.I knew he was a phony whenhe called his piss, pee.I mean, so what, maybethis guy's a Dingus.There have to be some successfulDingus's in NASCAR history.Let's see if he can qualify.All right, so Wright strappedhimself into his race car.Started it, without a key,pulled out onto the track,drop the hammer andwouldn't, you know, it,the dude qualified for the race.He came in 36 in a 40 car gradeand clocked a track speedof 186 miles per hour.That's insane, every step of the way,you're surprised that it worked.And now you're goingalmost 200 miles per houron a racetrack in the earlyeighties, he definitely peed.He also crashed his carinto a wall in the secondqualifying lap.And he didn't have a backup car,which meant that the MusicCity Racing crew had 48 hoursto repair the badly damagedMonte Carlo for the race.But I get, I mean, thisguy is like a time Lord.So like time doesn't matter,he started this whole thing two weeks ago.And by the power ofblood, sweat, duct tape,Bondo, thick rubber bands, and JB weld,and probably curiosity asto what is going to happenat this point, Marlin and the crewmended the car in timefor the 1982 Winston 500.Music City Racing, a teamhobbled together in two weeksby a con man, who'd almost certainlynever driven a race car beforewas on the starting linealong NASCAR legends like Richard Petty,Dale Earnhardt, Cale Yarborough.This was a position that many people spendtheir entire lives, dreamingabout and L.W. Wrightor whoever he was, madeit here by riding a waveof his own over the top blue(beep)for two freaking weeks.Honestly, respect bro.No, let's be real.This dude was probably a psychopath,but he pulled off something,most people believeis totally unachievable bythe seat of his Wranglersand he never lost hiscool one step of the way.So whatever God likes status,this guy was experiencingon the starting grid did notlast long, unsurprisingly,he was laughed almost immediately.He wasn't a good driver.He's not a race car driver,his total lack of experiencefinally caught up with him,showing the world a glimpseof who he really was.It's like, yeah, maybe I canlike get hired to play bassfor the Red Hot Chili Peppers,'cause flea fell off theroof or cleaning the gutters.But when we get on stage,I don't know how toplay the fricking bass.You know what I mean?The guy's not a race car driver,race officials, blackflagged L.W. off the trackafter 13 laps, when hewas painfully clear,that was a danger tohimself and everybody else.It's like that scene in Ricky Bobby,where he's going like 40.- Are those the other cars?(Ricky Bobby screaming)- But I mean dude, 13 laps,that's 13 laps in a NASCAR race.Right?And so I want to give a littlecredit where credit is due.When the black flag wave L.W. pulledthe number 34 Music CityMonte Carlo in the pit road,got out of the car andvanished into thin air,with Bernie Terrell's semi-truck.(horn honking)And to this day, no oneknows who L.W. Wright wasor at least nobody who does is talking.He was never seen or heard from again.And as far as history is concerned,this guy only existed for twoweeks, in the spring of 1982.And if that isn't the American dream,then I don't know what is.If you guys know anything about this,I really want to get to the bottom of it.If like your weird uncletalks about how he racedin the Winston Cup, andyou're like, all right, Larry,you know, let us know, hit us up.I really, really want tofind out more about this.It's a huge mystery.How do you do it?And then how do you disappear?I'm so impressed and just like intrigued.So let's get to the bottom of it.(short beep)- Are you one of themillions of people strugglingto stay warm by latheringhot beans all of your body?Are you tired of peoplejudging you for wearing beansand constantly feeling a little sticky.Introducing the Donut Beans Hoodieavailable right no at DonutMedia.com.♪ Stay nice and warm ♪♪ With Beans Hoodie ♪This all new thick boy, isthicker than our normal hoodieskeeping you comfortable all winter long.So stop spending hundreds of dollarson new cans of hotbeans to cover your bodyand get this warm thick DonutBeans hoodie for only 49.98.That's way cheaper than $50.Oh, what you thoughtthis merch spot was done?Think again, bud, take a huge whiffof the all new beans air freshener.(man sniffing)No, it doesn't actually smell like beans,it smells like a forest.Hang a can in your rearview and let everyone knowthat you like to give it the beans.Upgrade your beans merchnow at DonutMedia.com.(man sniffing)Nice.- Thank you so muchfor watching this videoand everything else on Donut.Hit that subscribe buttonto make sure you don't miss anything.Click that like button,the views for this showhave not been very good andit's making me kind of sad.So we're totally changing the formatand telling smaller stories.Let me know if you likeit in the comments.Dropping new merch every single week,go to DonutMedia.com, signup for our mailing listso you don't miss anything.We have a new point system,the more stuff you buy,the more points you get,then you get free stuffand you get points onyour birthday, it's nice.I love you.