He wouldn't drive another
NASCAR stock car until 1969, the same year he won his second consecutive ARCA Championship. That year he finished 3 of his
4 starts in the top 10, with his only non-top 10 coming after a blown motor relegated him to a 38th-place finish.
The following season
he would make 45 out of the 48 races on the schedule. While he didn't win a race, Parsons finished almost half of his races
in the top 10, and finished a solid 8th in points. The next year, 1971, saw BP score his first career NASCAR Winston Cup win
at South Boston Speedway.
Two years later, consistency
was the name of the game for 32-year old Parsons, who edged out Cale Yarborough by 67.15 points (under an old, now extinct,
points system), after scoring just one win, at Bristol in July. For his title-winning year, Parsons was given a little over
$182,000. To put that into perspective, last year's champion Jimmie Johnson won $15.8 million.
Winning a NASCAR Winston
Cup Championship is pretty big, and winning a couple races is big, but winning the Daytona 500, some say, is bigger than both.
In 1975, Parsons claimed the lead with 4 laps left after leader David Pearson spun. He led only 4 laps the whole race -- the
final four. It was also his only win that season.
In 1977, Parsons won the most
races he would ever win in a single season, four (Nashville, Pocono, Dover, Charlotte).
In 1979, Parsons had
a fierce battle with rival Darrell Waltrip at the Coke 600, NASCAR's longest race. Waltrip barely beat Parsons to the line,
but to this day DW says that it was one of the best races he ever had with BP, or any other driver for that matter.
During the next six years,
BP would win 12 more times, with his last win coming at Atlanta in 1984.
Late in the '80s when
Parsons saw his driving career coming to a close, he opened the door to a new profession -- broadcasting. He joined Bob Jenkins
and Ned Jarrett in the booth at ESPN to broadcast races, and the trio was very successful. In 1988, Parsons won an Ace Award,
and in 1996, an Emmy. The threesome continued to commentate races until ESPN's contract with NASCAR expired at the end of
the 2000 season. Jenkins and Jarrett did not continue to broadcast NASCAR, but Parsons moved over to NBC and TNT for the 2001
season, joining Allen Bestwick and Wally Dallenbach in the booth. In 2005, Bill Weber replaced Bestwick in the booth.
2006 StockCar Review.
