75 days until the Daytona 500: Neil Bonnett ruled in the No. 75
With just 75 days until the Daytona 500 field rolls off Feb. 26, 2017 on FOX, we remember the No. 75 in the NASCAR Premier Series.
The No. 75 visited Victory Lane a total of six times, four of which came with the late, great Neil Bonnett behind the wheel. Driving Butch Mock’s Chevrolet in 1983, Bonnett won the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway and captured the penultimate race of that season at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
Five years later, Bonnett won back-to-back early season races at Richmond International Raceway and Rockingham in Mock’s Valvoline-backed No. 75 Pontiac.
The only other two drivers to win a NASCAR Premier Series race in the No. 75 were Fireball Roberts in 1961 and Jim Paschal in 1956.
Kyle Busch also ditched his traditional No. 18 for the No. 75 in the 2016 NASCAR All-Star Race as part of a special M&M's 75th anniversary paint scheme.
And here’s a piece of trivia you can win a bar bet with: The last time the No. 75 competed in the NASCAR Premier Series points-paying race was in 2005, when Wayne Anderson drove the Robert Rinaldi-owned Dodge to a 43rd-place finish in the Chase race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. It was Anderson’s first and last race in NASCAR’s top division.
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