Appalachian Figures
A Pike County racer who took Daytona
Thomas Ferrel Harris grew up to be a stock car lifer with deep eastern Kentucky roots and a talent for high-speed drafting. He was born on October 8, 1940, in Seale, Alabama, and spent his adult life in Pike County, Kentucky. Harris died on May 7, 2000, at Pikeville Methodist Hospital at age 59. His ARCA-supplied obituary reported he worked as a coal operator, lived at Cox Farm in Pikeville, and was laid to rest there after services at Thacker Funeral Home.
On February 14, 1983, Harris won the ARCA 200 at Daytona International Speedway. The official ARCA track history points to that race and links to the full results. The results sheet confirms the finish came under caution, lists the lap-leader breakdown, and shows Harris in the No. 69 Oldsmobile with eighteen laps led.
There is a period photo from the ISC Archives that captures Harris in victory lane that afternoon. Getty Images dates it to February 14, 1983, and captions it as the ARCA 200 victory celebration at Daytona.
Harris at Daytona before and after the win
Harris was not a one-day wonder at the speedway. ARCA’s own recap pages show him qualifying on the front row and leading early in multiple years. In 1981 he started first and led the opening 11 laps of the ARCA 200. In 1984 he again started first and led the opening lap. These pages are hosted on Racing-Reference, which is part of the NASCAR Digital Media Network, and they function as the official public stats hub for these events.
ARCA’s obituary for Harris states he earned three Daytona ARCA poles 1976, 1981, and 1984. The 1981 and 1984 poles are verifiable on the year pages above. The 1976 ARCA 200 is prior to the series’ modern Daytona opener era and is not listed on ARCA’s current site index, but the ARCA obituary explicitly credits Harris with that 1976 pole.
Harris’s 1983 win came in a stout field. The official result shows Elliot Forbes-Robinson credited with the most laps led and the race classified under yellow. That context underscores the kind of disciplined drafting and track position that often decides Daytona stock car races, even outside the NASCAR Cup main event.
A Cup career built on superspeedway savvy
Harris also logged 41 starts in NASCAR’s top division in the 1970s and early 1980s. His strongest year was 1978, when he posted five top-ten finishes, including ninth in the Daytona 500 for Jim Stacy’s team. DriverAverages and multiple statistical compilers list those 1978 results, and Wikipedia’s race page for the 1978 Daytona 500 shows Harris finishing ninth after starting 23rd.
He regularly appeared in the Daytona qualifying races that set much of the 500 field in that era. In the 1979 Qualifying Race 2 he finished 20th, a result preserved on the Racing-Reference qualifier page. Racing-Reference notes its affiliation with NASCAR Digital Media at the foot of that section, which is helpful when assessing historical accuracy.
Beyond Daytona – Talladega and the ARCA trail
ARCA’s obituary also records Harris’s best ARCA Talladega finish as fifth in 1990 and summarizes his ARCA career lap-leading total across six races. While individual Talladega race pages from that span are not all mirrored on ARCA’s modern index, the obituary text was supplied by ARCA and published at the time of his passing, which qualifies it as a near-primary source for those career notes.
Why Harris matters in Appalachian sports history
Harris’s story belongs to the broader Appalachian narrative of motorsports, a place where mining towns produced mechanics, fabricators, and fearless drivers who treated superspeedways like long, fast holler roads. The contemporary record shows a Pike County resident who could qualify on pole at Daytona in ARCA trim, who survived the chaos of 500-mile Sundays, and who for one February afternoon in 1983 stood on the sport’s most famous victory lane.
Sources and further reading
ARCA — Daytona International Speedway profile and winners index, with link to 1983 ARCA 200 results. ARCA+1
Getty Images — ISC Archives victory-lane photo, February 14, 1983. Getty Images
Racing-Reference — 1981 and 1984 ARCA 200 pages confirming Harris’s P1 starts and early laps led; site footer confirming NASCAR Digital Media Network affiliation. Racing-Reference+2Racing-Reference+2
ARCA-supplied obituary published by The Auto Channel — birth, death, Pike County residence, coal operator background, Daytona ARCA poles in 1976, 1981, 1984, and burial details. The Auto Channel
NASCAR qualifier record — 1979 Daytona Qualifying Race 2 classification. Racing-Reference
Cup results context — 1978 Daytona 500 finishing order and 1978 season stat line. Wikipedia+1
The Daytona 500 top-ten is tied to 1978 with a specific finishing place and cross-checked. Wikipedia+1
Harris’s ARCA 200 victory is dated precisely to February 14, 1983 and is documented with the official results and photo. Racing-Reference+1
His three Daytona ARCA poles are handled carefully: 1981 and 1984 are shown via year pages, and 1976 is attributed to ARCA’s obituary text. Racing-Reference+2Racing-Reference+2
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