DECADES of RACING

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 By mid-season his first full year on the series, Orr was gaining on the leaders by the time the circuit went to Myrtle Beach in early August.   This was in 1992. 
He was about 30 at the time, coming to the four-wheeled vehicles after several years as a motocross rider. 

The following season Orr was a big hit. After a sponsor went south on him early in the year, the citizens of his Robbinsville, N.C., hometown responded with weekly donations that kept him in tires and motor rebuilds, and their efforts were more than enough to propel him to the 1993 series championship. Original or duplicate copies of every trophy he won he gave to Bobby Brooks to display at Brooks' famous Exxon Center, the local hangout for the local bench racers.

That winter was the happiest of times for Orr and his new bride, Crystal, as they lived and worked around their Palm Coast, Fla., home, where Orr worked with his father, Beacher, in a heavy equipment business. Orr made plans for 1994. He sold his Dash Series equipment and bought a used Winston Cup car. He was one of the fastest, and some said he was the fastest according to unofficial timing, at Daytona that January. But on Feb. 14, 1994, it all came to a gruesome end. Orr was killed in a crash while practicing that morning. Accounts of the crash indicated that his car was picked up by the wind coming off the second turn and was slammed into the retaining wall.

Orr's death was the second at Daytona in three days. On Feb. 11, Neil Bonnett's comeback from retirement met a similar, tragic end.

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