OBITUARIES / PASSINGS / Jack McCoy

Jack McCoy, 72, a stock-car driver who won a record 54 races in the 1960s and ‘70s in NASCAR’s West Coast regional series, died Tuesday, the racing body announced.

McCoy’s family told the Modesto Bee that he died in a Modesto hospital, but they declined to release a cause of death.

In 1966 and 1973, McCoy won series championships in the minor circuit known over the years as Winston West and Grand National West. He finished second in 1969, ’70 and ’71.

Known for driving Dodges, usually painted purple, McCoy retired from racing in 1974. He was inducted into the West Coast Stock Car Hall of Fame in 2002, a year after he wrote about his exploits in a book titled “Racing’s Real McCoy.”

One of the colorful stories he told was about racing from New York to California in the illegal Cannonball Baker Memorial Sea to Shining Sea Trophy Dash in 1975.

McCoy balanced his racing with his work at his tire shop in Modesto.

Born March 29, 1937, in Los Angeles, McCoy moved with his family to the Central Valley. He went to work in his father’s tire shop before opening his own business.

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Nate Dolin, former Cleveland Indians vice president and part-owner of the baseball team from 1949 to 1962, died of pneumonia Sunday in Rancho Mirage, where he spent winters. He was 95.