Sam Ard: a racer to remember

It’s hard to tell what Sam Ard remembers of his illustrious racing career.

Ard, who was born Feb. 14, 1939 in Asheboro, suffers from Alzheimer's and Parkinson’s diseases, and friends say he has big gaps in his memory.

It was a short big-time career, but it was one to remember.

Ard and Jack Ingram often raced each other at Hickory Motor Speedway in weekly and championship races in the Late Model Sportsman series, which turned into the Busch Series and is now the Nationwide Series.

In 15 Busch races at Hickory, Ard had an 18^th-place finish and 14 top-fives, including one win (1983) and four second-place finishes. He averaged a 1.9 start and a 4.1 finish.

Ingram says he and Ard weren’t friends, but that wasn’t unusual for Ingram.

“I didn't have no friend as a driver, with the exception of Harry Gant,” Ingram said. “I tolerated them.

“Sam was well-prepared. He was a good race-car driver with a great group of people supporting him. And he had a great sponsor (Thomas Brothers Country Ham) in Late Model Sportsman.”

Over a three-year period in the ’80s, Ard and Ingram won 42 Busch races and three championships, two by Ard (1983 and ’84). Between the two, whoever didn’t win the title finished second, and Ard totaled 22 wins and 24 poles in just three years. His best year was ’83, with 10 wins and 10 poles.

“Sam was a great-race car driver and did a lot for racing,” Ingram said. “Up until he got hurt at the end of ’84, each one of us would win eight or nine races out of the 28 races they had.”

Ingram vividly remembers Ard’s wreck on Oct. 20, 1984 at Rockingham.

“I was right behind him,” Ingram said. “He was on the outside line, either second or leading. I was running third or fourth.”

Ingram says Ard got crowded high into a slick area and applied the brakes. He says that brakes were Ard’s error.

He was flown to a hospital where a neurosurgeon stopped the brain swelling.

Ingram has talked to Ard a few times since the wreck, and he says Ard’s memory reminds him of Bobby Allison’s. Allison, who had a career-ending crash at Pocono in 1988, has since had trouble remembering much of his career.

Apparently it’s been rough for the family, as Ard’s wife, Jo, has a degenerative eye disease, and the family’s yearly medical bills reportedly range into six figures. In the mid-1990s, Ingram heard that Ard was having financial problems, and he decided to help.

“We was in Daytona, and I asked NASCAR if they’d have an auction sale for Sam Ard to raise money,” Ingram said. “I told them we could have a silent auction at Richmond or Darlington,” two tracks owned by NASCAR’s International Speedway Corp. “Richmond was ideal because there are fairgrounds, with buildings we could go into if it rained.

“They asked me what I was going do, and I said I was going to do more than anyone else. I gave them my sponsored ring; (sponsor) U.S. Tobacco gave everybody on the team a ring for winning the (Busch Series) championship in 1985, my wife, myself, the crew and some other people involved with U.S. Tobacco.”

He says that ring drew $4,600 in the auction, while a Tony Stewart uniform was next at $1,200.

The Ards have received other help to battle bills. In 2006, Kevin Harvick and Dale Earnhardt Jr. approached other drivers and collected money for the Sam Ard Care Fund. In 2008, Harvick donated a 2007 Chevrolet van after Jo Ards’ automobile died, and the NASCAR Foundation and Motor Racing Outreach teamed for an online auction to benefit the fund.

The largest donation came in November of 2008 after Kyle Busch tied Ard’s series record with 10 wins. He donated his race winnings of $100,000 to the family.

"Sam Ard is one of the pioneers of this (series), and to be tied with him at 10 wins is something that's pretty spectacular and really, really special to me," Busch said then. "I'm going to try to help him out and see what I can do. It's not much, but it's something that can try to help."

Harvick, Earnhardt, Busch and most of the others don’t remember Ard, of course. Ingram does, and Ard received one of his highest compliments.

“Only two or three people my whole career raced me clean -- Sam, Harry (Gant) and Jimmy Hensley,” he said. “Whether (other drivers) did it from lack of judgment or on purpose, it didn’t matter. Sam didn't do that.”