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seasoned enough to have won twenty eight feature events, still it wasn't enough. Just before Christmas of 1963 Bobby married Patsy Ann Story which was the perfect lead in to a new year and brighter career opportunities.

After several years of racing full time Isaac made the jump to the Grand National division by joining the Dodge team in 1964, a relationship that would make the two synonymous with each other for better than a decade. It was such a good year in fact Bobby edged out "King" Richard Petty and Jimmy Pardue at the Daytona 500's second qualifying race. He went on to round out the year with seven top ten finishes with a pair of second place finishes at the Atlanta 500 and Firecracker 500. Still it was going to be awhile before the spotlight was all his. Winning the championship in 1970 behind the wheel of a Dodge Charger, Isaac had finally made the mark he was seeking. In November he and his legendary crew chief took that Charger to Talladega and set the closed course speed record at 201.104 mph. Setting speed records is something he would become known for as time marched on.

All told during his NASCAR career he took the checkered flag thirty seven times, eleven of those wins coming in his championship season of 1970. He also had a propensity for sitting the pole position taking it fifty times, twenty of those in the 1969 season alone. Given the current NASCAR season has only thirty six races Isaac's record twenty poles in a season may never be broken or even approached. Although Isaac says he once heard a voice speak to him in his car to retire or he would be killed he kept racing and even upped the ante.

What he may be best known for to the laymen are his world speed records. In September of 1971 he and his crew chief Harry Hyde heeded the call to go west. Landing in Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats he commenced to set the speed barrier on it's ear by setting an amazing twenty eight stock car speed records. The most coveted were the flying mile and kilometer records which were clocked at 216.946 mph and 217.368 mph respectively. Booby would have gone for even more records but his sponsor decided they had enough to feed the publicity machine and was content to stop. Several of his records still stand over thirty five years later.

While it has been widely reported and accepted as truth that Bobby could neither read nor write it is not true. The fact is he could do both and while not to the level some may deem as highly proficient he was certainly better than functional. He went to great pains to encourage education and in 1971 made the statement; "I've made it, but I may have made it faster if I had finished my formal education." It was a subject he wasn't fond of talking about that seemed to be a bit of a point of embarrassment to him, however he never shied away from touting the value of an education. He went to great pains to always point out that while it didn't hinder him he was lucky and not everyone without a proper education would be so fortunate.

In an almost fitting manner Bobby died, or at least began to, doing what he loved which was racing. During a 1977 race at Hickory Motor Speedway he pulled off the course with twenty five laps to go citing he didn't feel well. He then died of a heart attack on that fourteenth day of August at about the age of forty five. For the final time the knuckles tattooed with the word love released the wheel. The sport lost a legend, a family lost a loved one, and the world lost a gentleman.

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