Odo, Marriott two forgotten names from inaugural Daytona 500

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla.

Richard Petty would have better days in NASCAR, but the only two drivers he beat in the inaugural Daytona 500 never raced in the series' top division again.

Larry Odo and Ken Marriott are footnotes in a race that celebrates its 50th running today.

Petty finished 57th in the 1959 race because of a blown engine. The same problem afflicted Odo, who finished 58th, and Marriott, who ran one lap and placed last. Each earned $100.

While Petty won 200 NASCAR races and signed countless autographs, Odo returned to Chicago and Marriott to Baltimore to race. But who were they? Were they the equivalent of today's dreamers, Carl Long and Stanton Barrett?

Not exactly.

Marriott, known as "Bones" because of his lanky physique, won NASCAR's 1957 modified championship. Born a year after World War I's end - then known as Armistice Day - his middle name was Armistice. He died in 1998 at age 78.

He began racing while in his early 20s, competing at tracks in Maryland, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

World War II interrupted his racing. He served more than three years, spending 2-1/2 years with an artillery unit in the South Pacific. His son, John, recalls seeing a photo of his father holding a shell that "looks 3 feet long."

After the war, Marriott returned to racing. He stayed mainly in the Mid-Atlantic. The inaugural Daytona 500 was his fifth and last race in NASCAR's top series. Quiet off the track, he was courteous on it. Beating him often meant winning the race.

That's how Rex White scored his first modified victory in the early 1950s. Marriott ran out of fuel while leading in the final laps. White, the 1960 NASCAR champion, still has the trophy he won.

"I would have never beaten him if he hadn't run out of fuel," White said.

Odo was different from Marriott. Odo grew up in a tough Southside Chicago neighborhood that's produced five Chicago mayors, including Richard J. Daley and his son Richard M. Daley.

Odo, who died in 1969 at age 46, finished third in NASCAR's convertible series in 1956. The inaugural Daytona 500 was his second and last race in what is now known as the Sprint Cup series. He often raced at Chicago's Soldier

Field.

"Larry Odo was a fierce competitor," said "Tiger" Tom Pistone, who ran 130 Cup races from 1955-68. " We got into a few scraps. You had to be plenty strong at Soldier Field. If you didn't have enough guys with you, you couldn't survive."

Odo had a different personality off the track, says Sal Tovella, a Chicago racer who competed in five Daytona 500s and finished a career-best 14th there in 1961. Tovella recalls Odo as a "nice guy.

"How could you forget Larry Odo? Easy name."

It's there in the 1959 Daytona 500 results, just after Petty and ahead of Marriott.