Hoss Ellington

He finished 24th in points despite running a partial schedule.

In Lorenzen's first start with the team, at Darlington, he finished 29th due to an engine failure.

Lorenzen would later gather two top 5s and 3 top 10s, plus another top 5 finish for Junie Donlavey.

Charles Everett "Hoss" Ellington (May 12, 1935 – May 31, 2014) was an American NASCAR driver and team owner.

He married Betty Frances Hunt on April 17, 1959, at the Mount Pleasant Methodist Parsonage.

They had three daughters: Monica Dale Ellington, Trellace Hunt Ellington, and Charla Frances Ellington.

He ended up 61st in points.

He made 31 starts as a driver between 1968 and 1970 in the Grand National Series, finishing in the top 10 four times, all in 1969.

He later became a successful team owner, with five wins, four of them by Donnie Allison and the other one by David Pearson.

His team also collected 52 top fives and 92 top ten finishes.

He fielded cars for drivers such as Pearson, Fred Lorenzen, Cale Yarborough, A. J. Foyt, Donnie Allison, Kyle Petty, and Dale Jarrett, among others.

Born in Raleigh, North Carolina, Ellington made his NASCAR Grand National debut at the 1968 Dixie 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway while driving his self-owned #61 Mercury; he finished in 31st place after suffering suspension failure after only 80 laps.

In 1969, he made his first start of the season at Rockingham, scoring his first career top ten with a tenth-place finish.

In 1970, he made three more starts, at Charlotte, Darlington, and Rockingham, with a best finish of 13th that year.

He then retired as a driver after the 1970 American 500 race in order to focus on being a team owner.

In 1972, Ellington began fielding cars as an owner for Fred Lorenzen.

The car was numbered 28.

Lorenzen ran seven races with the team.

In 1973, Ellington hired Ramo Stott, Charlie Glotzbach, and Gordon Johncock to drive for him, and the team again ran 11 races between the three drivers, but only scored one Top 5 and Top 10, with Johncock finishing fourth at the Firecracker 400 at Daytona.

1974 was much better for the team, with A. J. Foyt, Charlie Glotzbach, Bobby Isaac, and Sam McQuagg splitting up 15 races.

Foyt and Glotzbach both scored a single top 5, Isaac finished in the top 10 three times with the team, and McQuagg scored two top tens.

The team scored 2 top 5s and 7 top 10s in 15 races.

1975 was when Donnie Allison made his first start with the team.

He ran two races with Ellington, finishing third at Talladega in his first race with the team.

A. J. Foyt ran seven races with Ellington, scoring an additional top five finish.

Glotzbach, Isaac, and Johncock both returned for one race each, but the only top ten was with Glotzbach at Lowes Motor Speedway.

The team competed in 12 races, and scored 2 top 5s and 3 top 10s.

In 1976, Allison scored Ellington's first win as a team owner at Lowes Motor Speedway in the #1 car, a second team, as A. J. Foyt drove the familiar 28 in that race.

Foyt also scored the first pole for the team in that year.

For 1977, Allison was hired as the sole driver for the team, with the main car renumbered #1.

Allison repaid Ellington with three pole positions, as well as two wins and 10 top 10s in 17 starts.

1978 was another successful year, with Allison winning at Atlanta and finishing 25th in points, again despite running a part-time schedule.

The Atlanta win would be his last career win.

Allison did not win at all in 1979, but he became a part of NASCAR history when he and Cale Yarborough crashed while racing for the lead on the last lap of the Daytona 500, when, after the wreck, Allison, Yarborough, and Allison's brother Bobby got into a fistfight in the grass infield in front of what was then the largest televised audience for a NASCAR race.

Donnie Allison only drove 3 races for the team in 1980 before he left to join Kennie Childers's team.

David Pearson ran 9 races that year, winning once.

Later in the season, Ellington had Cale Yarborough run three races in the Ellington car, earning two top 10s, and John Sears ran one race for the team, finishing 5th.

Between the three drivers, the team competed in 11 races, scoring 3 top 5s and 6 top 10 finishes.

He competed in 15 races, finishing in the top ten four times, including two career-best 7th-place finishes.

He competed at two other races that year, at Darlington Raceway and Lowes Motor Speedway, finishing 17th and 34th, respectively.