Buddy Baker, a Nascar driver who won the 1980 Daytona 500 and was the first to exceed 200 miles per hour on a closed course before becoming a racing broadcaster, died on Monday. He was 74.
The cause was lung cancer, said SiriusXM Nascar Radio, where Baker had been a host of “The Late Shift.” The station did not say where he died. He left his radio job last month after announcing that he had an inoperable lung tumor.
Baker, who at 6 feet 6 was known as Nascar’s Gentle Giant, rode for more than 30 years and was honored as one of Nascar’s 50 greatest drivers in 1998.