Ramo Stott, pole-sitter for 1976 Daytona 500, dies at 87

Part-time driver throughout 1960s and 1970s earned pole for Great American Race after two stars were disqualified.

Ramo Stott, a part-time NASCAR driver throughout the 1960s and 1970s whose crowning achievement was winning the pole for the 1976 Daytona 500, died Thursday at the University of Iowa hospital following a long battle with cancer. He was 87.

A corn and bean farmer who hailed from Keokuk, Iowa, Stott competed in stock cars at the professional level from the 1960s until 1990, with his primary success coming in what is now the ARCA Menards Series. Stott won two ARCA championships in a row in 1970 and 1971, and also won the 1975 championship in USAC Stock Car competition. Stott also entered the NASCAR Cup Series in 1967, racing primary on the circuit's fastest tracks of Daytona International Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway.

In 1976, Stott's greatest achievement came in highly unusual fashion. In time trials for the Daytona 500, Stott qualified fourth behind star drivers A.J. Foyt, Darrell Waltrip, and Dave Marcis, only for Foyt, Waltrip, and Marcis to all have their times disallowed due to the use of non-approved equipment. As a result, Stott inherited the pole for the Daytona 500, the first and only pole of his Cup career.

"I've probably had more publicity out of this than anything else that's ever happened to me," Stott said at the time. "The newspapers have really played it up here and my wife Judy, who keeps a scrap book of my career, is running all around the place buying up papers for the press clippings."

While Stott would only finish 26th after losing an engine past the halfway point, he would have modest success in the Daytona 500 throughout his career, scoring two Top 5s and four Top 10s in The Great American Race with a best finish of third in 1974. Stott scored five Top 5s and 17 Top 10s in 35 career Cup races in all, with a best finish of second at Talladega in 1972.

In the years after his retirement from driving, Stott worked for a time as a NASCAR Cup Series official, and had duties that included driving the pace car. Stott was also an accomplished dirt late model racer, and in 2011 was inducted into the National Dirt Late Model Hall of Fame. He was also followed into the racing industry by sons Corrie and Lance, and Corrie would go on to own a team that raced in NASCAR from 2008 to 2012.

In July, although he was too ill to attend, Stott was honored among a group of Iowa natives to have won the ARCA Menards Series Championship during the series' race at Iowa Speedway in Newton.

Ramo Stott is survived by Judy Stott, his wife of 66 years, four children, eight grandchildren, 21 great grandchildren, and three great-great grandchildren. Funeral arrangements for Stott are being handled by DeJong-Greaves-Printy Funeral Home in Keokuk.