Larry Frank (April 29, 1931-January 5, 2010) is a former NASCAR driver from Indianapolis, IN. He competed in 103 Sprint Cup Series events in his career spanning from 1956 to 1966. Frank would earn one victory, ten top-fives, and thirty-two top-tens in his career.
Frank's lone triumph came in the 1962 season when he pulled an upset at Darlington Speedway. He led 85 of the 364 laps in route to a five-second victory on legend Junior Johnson. He earned a career-best eight top-tens that year in route to a career-best 14th place in points.
Frank, however, was never much of a factor. The Darlington race was the only race he was in true competition and his part-time schedule prevented him from ever making a good run in the sport. In his last year of 1966, he earned a finish of 9th and 10th in his only two starts of the year before hanging up the helmet.
External Links[]
Stats from Racing-Reference.info
Larry loved open cockpit racing and cut his eye teeth racing motorcycles, sprints, and midgets. He came south to Nascar with the convertible circuit and had some of his finest moments racing in the convertibles. In the Nascar Convertible Division points, Larry finished 12th in 1956, 4th in 1957, 2nd to his dear friend Bob Welborn in 1958 and Frank always declared that he had actually won the 1959 Convertible Championship. He was posted as the winner and 6 weeks later, Nascar declared Joe Lee Johnson the 1959 Convertible Driver Champion and Larry maintained the '59 Car Owner's Championship. Larry Frank was fearless and was well respected by his competitors as a hard charger. He had the reputation of being the strongest man in racing, once lifting an engine with a chain around his neck on a bet. He won the engine. Money was hard to come by in Larry's day and he is definitely remembered as being one of the true Legends of Nascar that sacrificed and paid his dues to help lay the foundation for the sport today. He never knew but one speed and that was wide open and he gave it his all as long as his car lasted.