Legendary Racer "Cotton" Owens Dies at 88

An Upstate NASCAR legend died Thursday after a long battle with cancer.

Everett "Cotton" Owens of Spartanburg, who had just been named to the 2013 class of the NASCAR Hall of Fame in May, died at the age of 88. Owens is one of 20 men who have been named to the Hall of Fame, which was started in 2010.

According to the Spartanburg Herald-Journal, Owens, a native of Union, S.C., won races, built winning race cars and ran championship teams in a career spanning more than three decades.

"He was always an honest, hard-working individual, and everybody always saw him as that," Owens' grandson Brandon Davis said at the Hall of Fame ceremony last month.

Legendary driver David Pearson drove for Owens and won the 1966 championship in an Owens' built car. Over the years, the two became good friends and spent a lot of time together.

"He was a good fella," Pearson said. "I went to see him about every day, especially after his wife died. We will miss him. We had a lot of good times together."

Pearson said that Owens had suffered a stroke and that his health had deteriorated since the death of his wife, Dot, in April.

Pearson said Owens was a hard-working man and that the safety of his driver was always his biggest concern.

"Safety was always a top priority," Pearson said. "I was always after him to make the car lighter, but he wasn't going to do anything that would be dangerous.

"When they told them to put one bar in the door, he'd put two. If they told them to add two, he'd add three," Pearson laughed.

Pearson said a lot of times, or at least until Owens' health had gotten so bad, the two would go out to eat together on Sunday afternoons. He said he would always consider Owens one of his heroes. Pearson had been one of Owens' biggest backers into his being elected to the Hall of Fame.

"Cotton was good to me," Pearson said. "He was good man. A good fella to work for. It's a shame that he didn't live long enough to be inducted."

Owens, along with four others, will be officially inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame next year.

In his career, Owens won nine times as a driver and had 38 NASCAR victories as a car owner.

Owens was named one of the sport's top 50 drivers in 1998.