| 250px | |
| Nationality |  American
|
| Born | 9 July 1937 |
| New York City, New York, United States | |
| World Stock Car Championship | |
|---|---|
| 0 races run over 33 season(s). | |
| Rookie Season | 1955 |
| Team(s) | Stafford Race Engineering Thompson Brothers Racing |
| Championships | 0 |
| Pole Positions | 0 |
| Wins | 0 |
| Podiums | 0 |
| Top 5s | 0 |
| Top 10s | 0 |
| Best Finish | |
| WSCC Canon Driver | |
Arthur Robert Stafford (born 9 July 1937) is a retired American stock car driver who raced from 1955 until 1987 in the National Stock Car Series (later known as the World Stock Car Championship), most notably driving the number 28 Pontiac/Buick for Stafford Race Engineering. He remains active in the sport as a team owner (Stafford Race Engineering) and operator of Stafford Garage, a car restoration and modification shop, in Brooklyn, New York.
Stafford is the second son of Jimmy Stafford, also a race car driver who competed in the early days of stock car racing. Jimmy and his brother, Peter Stafford (Arthur's uncle) founded Stafford Race Engineering; Arthur began managing the team in 1985.
Stafford's older brother, P.J. Stafford raced sporadically from 1955 until 1961, when an injury at Daytona took him out of the car permanently.
Early Life[edit | edit source]
Racing Career[edit | edit source]
1950's[edit | edit source]
1960's[edit | edit source]
Stafford began 1969 with a surprising decision: he left his family's team to run for the Thompson Brothers. Stafford Race Engineering had announced its departure from the series late in 1968, citing the National Stock Car Series schedule reforms and "lack of support for non-Chrysler teams" (a reference to the controversial Plymouth Superbird and Dodge Charger Daytona entries of 1969) as the main reasons for its defection to the upstart American Stock Car Tour. Arthur, for his part, was quiet about the issue, choosing only years later to explain his reasons:
I wasn't going to risk my career in some upstart series that was more focused on preserving the past than moving stock car racing forward. The ASCT was at the same time something new and more of the same. I knew in my heart that it wouldn't last long, and I was not going to throw away years of progress to get some easy wins against a bunch of teams that couldn't hack it on the national stage. Our issues were entirely self-inflicted; we chose to stick with Pontiac in 1967 in the hopes that they would be able to compete with Ford and Chrysler, but we saw what happened in '68. We could have gotten out of that contract with GM in 1969 and signed with Ford or Chrysler - both of whom were interested in having us run for them - but the team chose to take its toys and go beat up on people in a smaller series...the whole thing just felt cheap and forced, and I wanted no part of it. I saw no shame in running for a "rival" team.
Stafford would run for the Thompson Brothers from 1969 through 1976.
1970's[edit | edit source]
1980's[edit | edit source]
Team Ownership[edit | edit source]
Life After Racing[edit | edit source]
Personal Life[edit | edit source]
Stafford married Loraine Connolly on September 29, 1956. She died at the family home in Brooklyn, New York, on October 19, 2017 after a four-year battle with stomach cancer. The pair had four children - Ray Stafford, Kyle Stafford, Sandra Stafford, and James Michael Stafford. His two oldest sons, Ray and Kyle, both followed him into motorsports; Ray became a prolific stock car driver in his own right, and Kyle ran several seasons in Formula A before moving to Champ Car, where he won the 1990 running of the Indianapolis 500 driving for Scuderia Benedetti.
His grandsons, Frank Stafford, Ray Stafford, Jr., and his granddaughters Kristen Stafford and Olivia Stafford have all entered motorsports, with Frank currently running in the World Stock Car Championship, Ray Jr. in the North American Stock Car Tour, Kristen in drag racing, and Olivia joining the Stock Car E-Series.