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Ralph Moody (racing driver)

American racing driver (1917–2004)

Field	Value
name	Ralph Moody
image	Ralph_Moody_USAC_circa_1957.jpg
caption	Moody, circa 1957
birth_name	Ralph Alphonso Moody, Jr.
birth_date
birth_place	Dighton, Massachusetts, U.S.
death_date
death_place	Mooresville, North Carolina, U.S.
{{Infobox NASCAR driver	embed	yes
Total_Cup_Races	47
Years_In_Cup	4
Best_Cup_Pos	8th (1956)
First_Cup_Race	1956 Race 6 (Daytona Beach)
Last_Cup_Race	1962 Richmond 250 (Richmond)
First_Cup_Win	1956 Race 25 (LeHi)
Last_Cup_Win	1957 Race 6 (Wilson Speedway)
Cup_Wins	5
Cup_Top_Tens	27
Cup_Poles	5

Ralph Alphonso Moody, Jr. (September 10, 1917 – June 9, 2004) was an American racing driver and team owner. After a brief career racing, including in NASCAR and USAC sanctioned stock car competition, he retired to become a team co-owner of Holman-Moody.

Background

Moody built his first Model T Ford race car in 1935, and ran it on nights and weekends. He served in the U.S. Army in World War II, and drove a tank under the command of General George S. Patton. He married his wife Mitzi in 1949, and they moved to Florida so that he could race all year.

After the Second World War while still living in Massachusetts, Moody was an active midget chauffeur in the now-defunct Bay State Midget Racing Association.

Stock car career

Moody won four NASCAR races in 1956 for owner Pete DePaolo, winner of the 1925 Indianapolis 500. Moody finished eighth in points, with 21 top-ten finishes in 35 races.

Moody raced the first third of 1957 until Ford and the other American automobile manufacturers pulled out of racing.

Partnership with John Holman

Main article: Holman-Moody

Moody immediately took out a loan against an airplane he owned, and along with John Holman, paid $12,000 to buy the shop and equipment that had been Ford's Charlotte-based racing operation (https://web.archive.org/web/20050921153947/http://www.thatsracin.com/mld/thatsracin/archives/8881437.htm).

Holman-Moody began as a racecar owner operation but became more famous for their racecar building operation. Holman-Moody chassis featured improvements such as tube shocks, square tubing frames, and rear ends with floater housings (https://web.archive.org/web/20071007063952/http://www.near1.com/HALL-OF-FAME/2000/Moody_Ralph.htm). They built around 50 race cars a year until Moody sold his portion of the company after the 1971 season. They had won 92 NASCAR Grand National races.

Ralph Moody, Inc.

Moody then opened Ralph Moody Inc. in Charlotte. He built race engines and race cars and did research and development of high mileage automobiles at that site for several years.

List of Halls of Fame inductions

NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2025
North Carolina Auto Racing Hall of Fame in 2003
National Motorsports Press Association Stock Car Racing Hall of Fame in 1990
International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1994
Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in 2005
New England Auto Racers Hall of Fame in 2000
Drag Racing Hall of Fame
Old Timers Hall of Fame

References

[http://www.mshf.com/hall-of-fame/inductees/holman-and-moody.html Ralph Moody] at the [[Motorsports Hall of Fame of America]]

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

1917-births 2004-deaths united-states-army-personnel-of-world-war-ii nascar-drivers nascar-team-owners sportspeople-from-taunton,-massachusetts racing-drivers-from-massachusetts usac-stock-car-drivers people-from-dighton,-massachusetts nascar-hall-of-fame-inductees southern-500-drivers

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