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For NASCAR fans, the likes of Richard Petty, David Pearson, Dale Earnhardt, Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson are considered heroes. But where heroes are concerned, perhaps no man in NASCAR history encapsulates the word hero more than Hall of Fame team owner Bud Moore. A native of Spartanburg, South Carolina, Moore joined the United States Army in 1943 at the age of 18. One year later, Moore was thrust right into the fray of one of the most important military operations in American history. On June 6, 1944, Moore and Company D, 1st Platoon, 1st Battalion, 359th Infantry Regiment of the 90th Infantry Division landed on Utah Beach in Normandy, France, as part of the D-Day operation. After serving in the war and earning two Bronze Stars and five Purple Hearts, Moore went from being an American hero to a sporting hero. From American hero to hero of the sports world In a NASCAR career that spanned 50 years — 11 as a crew chief and 39 as a team owner — Moore became a household name. Moore's team, Bud Moore Engineering, began fielding entries in 1961. In his first season as a car owner, Moore fielded cars for the likes of Joe Weatherly and Fireball Roberts. The next year, David Pearson ran a race for Moore. By the time the decade was out, Moore has also fielded entries for Rex White, Cale Yarborough and Tiny Lund. It was the the 1970s, however, that Moore's team began to be known as a consistent contender. From 1976 to 1987, Moore's full-time entry finished top-10 in the Winston Cup Series standings every year. That 12-year stretch included 27 wins between Buddy Baker, Bobby Allison, Benny Parsons, Dale Earnhardt and Ricky Rudd. The last hurrah for Moore's team came in 1990, when Morgan Shepherd finished fifth in the standings and won the season finale at Atlanta Motor Speedway. In total, Moore's Cup Series entries started 958 races and won 63 of them. While Moore's team didn't produce many results in its final decade of operation, he left an indelible mark on the sport. His contributions were rightfully recognized in 2011, when he was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame. It was the least amount of recognition Moore could be given on such a prominent stage for his contributions to his country and the sport of stock car racing — the former of which saved the world and the latter of which made him a racing legend.
