Cale Yarborough, three-time NASCAR champion in '70s, dies at 84

Cale Yarborough, considered one of NASCAR's all-time greatest drivers and the first to win three consecutive Cup titles, died Sunday at the age of 84.

Yarborough's crowning achievements include four Daytona 500 victories and five Southern 500 wins at his home track of Darlington Raceway.

His championships in 1976, 1977 and 1978 made him the only driver to win three straight NASCAR titles until Jimmie Johnson's run of five in a row from 2006 to 2010. Yarborough and Johnson are tied on NASCAR's career wins list with 83.

"Cale Yarborough was one of the toughest competitors NASCAR has ever seen," NASCAR chairman and CEO Jim France said in a statement. "His combination of talent, grit and determination separated Cale from his peers, both on the track and in the record book. He was respected and admired by competitors and fans alike and was as comfortable behind the wheel of a tractor as he was behind the wheel of a stock car. On behalf of the France family and NASCAR, I offer my deepest condolences to the family and friends of Cale Yarborough."

Johnson honored his "childhood hero" in a post on social media, saying "the legacy of Cale Yarborough will forever live on."

Yarborough competed in NASCAR's top series for more than four decades, making his debut in the 1957 Southern 500 and closing his career in Atlanta in 1988. He won his final race in Charlotte in 1985 and had 319 career top-10 finishes and 69 pole positions. A three-time Driver of the Year award winner, Yarborough was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2012.

But one of his most famous moments came in the 1979 Daytona 500, the first to be televised live flag to flag across the country. Yarborough crashed while racing with Donnie Allison on the final lap for the win. The two drivers got out of their wrecked cars to fight, Allison's brother, Bobby, pulled over to join the scrap, and it was two Allison brothers versus Yarborough as Richard Petty crossed the finish line first.

It was a breakthrough moment for NASCAR, which because of a snowstorm on the East Coast was being shown on live television to its largest audience ever.

Yarborough quit full-time racing after winning six races in 1980 and finishing second in the Cup standings. He said at the time it was to spend more time with his three daughters. During his NASCAR Hall of Fame induction speech, Yarborough said he felt he had completed his journey from the bottom rung of the ladder to the top.

"I sure hoped I was going to get to this point because working in the back of the fields in that hot sun would make you want to do something else," he said. "I always dreamed of ... ending up where I have ended up tonight."

Yarborough also competed in open-wheel racing, including four appearances in the Indianapolis 500 with a best finish of 10th in 1972.

William Caleb "Cale" Yarborough was born March 27, 1939, to a tobacco farmer, in the tiny community of Sardis, just on the outskirts of Timmonsville, South Carolina. The oldest of three boys, Yarborough was 10 years old when his father died in a plane crash.

A star athlete during high school, Yarborough went on to play semipro football for four seasons and was a Golden Gloves boxer for a period before turning to racing.

After retiring for good in 1988, he owned Cale Yarborough Motorsports, which competed in the Cup Series until 2000, as well as several agricultural businesses and a used car dealership.

Yarborough is survived by his wife, Betty Jo, whom he married in 1961, and daughters Julie, Kelley and B.J.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.