We always greeted each other as Mr. Latford and Mr. Myers. I don't recall why. We were acquainted nearly 40 years. I am as humble as dirt and there was nothing formal about Bob Latford. In fact, Latford had requested before his passing in July that the dress code for his final visitation and rites to be casual, because that's the way he would be dressed. The request was respectfully and gratefully honored. That was Latford, always thinking of the other guy.
Bob Latford was in or around racing for 55 of his almost 68 years, before NASCAR was born. He wasn't a big wheel or a star. They won't build a statue or name a street in his honor. I didn't see a NASCAR representative at his funeral.
"No one will ever buy a ticket to see me," Latford told me in 1989.
Latford's simple passion was to be a part of racing. His part in building the foundation of big-league stock car racing and its rocket to national prominence is huge and beyond measure, worthy of all the motorsports halls of fame. He was a part of, or associated with, most of the major events in NASCAR his-tory. Latford, tall and distinguished by a goatee and a smartly waxed handlebar mustache, firmly believed that he was put here to give far more than he received.
Latford has known or touched indirectly practically every Winston Cup driver, car owner, and team since NASCAR's inception. Because of his work in public relations, much of it innovative, and his encyclopedic knowledge of NASCAR history, every member of the media who has covered a NASCAR event is in some way indebted to him.
Latford's legacy, however, is designing the current points system, used since 1975 to determine the champion in Winston Cup and other NASCAR divisions. In 1974, when Latford was public relations director of Atlanta Motor Speedway, Bill France Jr., who had succeeded his founding father as NASCAR president two years earlier, asked Latford to structure a new points system. The system in use was so cumbersome and complicated that the competitors didn't understand it, much less the fans.
Of three or four versions, the final sketch was drafted on a napkin in the Boot Hill Saloon, still a popular hoot on Main Street in Daytona Beach, Florida. The system awards 175 points to a race winner, and then drops by five, four, and three by positions in the finishing order. Five points were given for leading a lap and five more to the leader of the most laps. Latford tested his system against results of the three previous years until he was satisfied that it worked. It has survived 29 years. NASCAR has refused to tamper with it in spite of criticism as competition became keener and the championship fund swelled to this year's record $17 million, $4.25 million to the winner.
Latford agreed a decade ago that the race winner should receive an additional 10 to 15 points and perhaps five for the pole winner, given the increase in the number of teams capable of winning since the system was adopted. I think he was simply being polite to critics, because he defended the essence of his system-consistency. It's not based on how well you perform in races you win; it's how well you do in the races you don't win. To some extent, winning the championship has become more important than winning races, but that's because of money, not the system.
Matt Kenseth, the Winston Cup points leader for 17 straight races through the first 20 events this season, and his Roush Racing Ford team, were prime examples of how Latford's system is supposed to work. Kenseth had only one victory, but he had logged a circuit-leading 15 Top-10 finishes, 18 in the Top 15, had finished 20th or worse only twice, didn't have a DNF, and compiled a series low 7.75 average finish. If Kenseth can maintain such consistency, he's a cinch to win his and car owner Jack Roush's first championship and the historic last sponsored by Winston.