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\u201cI think the quality of driver in Cup is really quite outstanding,\u201d Thompson said Friday. \u201cEven though I might be running around with some younger people, they are seasoned. I\u2019ve known some young pilots that were really good pilots and I\u2019ve known some old pilots that were never all that good.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thompson decided to give it one final run in the No. 66 (get it?) Ford and said the Daytona 500 will be his last race in any series.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019m in reasonably good shape and I have other things I\u2019d like to do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thompson is a veteran of the ARCA Series and became the oldest pole winner at Daytona International Speedway at 63 in the series\u2019 season-opening race in 2015. He was 39 when he made his ARCA debut at Daytona in 1991 and won two races in the series over 100 career starts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thompson, thin, fit and looking younger than his years, failed in his attempts to qualify for the 1993 and 1994 Daytona 500. His realistic goal is to finish the race in the Ford he got from Richard Petty Motorsports and to stay out of the way of the leaders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019m good pilot because that\u2019s what I do,\u201d he said. \u201cThese guys are good race-car drivers because that\u2019s what they do. I hope to not to get in anyone\u2019s way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thompson may have a caught a small break for \u201cThe Great American Race\u201d when the entry list featured only the maximum 40 cars. He starts 40th.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI think we maybe would have approached things a little bit differently if we had to get in through the (qualifying) 150s,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I think we would have gotten in anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He doesn\u2019t really know the rest of the drivers in a field that has six drivers under the age of 30 in the first eight spots. Rookie driver William Byron is 20 and Hendrick Motorsports teammate Alex Bowman is 24.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thompson completed only eight of 200 laps in a race at Pocono (at a spry 40) and finished 25 laps in his Cup return last year at Talladega. Thompson\u2019s start in the \u201992 race makes him one of only three drivers \u2014 along with Ryan Newman and Kurt Busch \u2014 in the Daytona 500 field who have raced against Earnhardt. Earnhardt was killed on the last lap of the 2001 race and would have been 66 this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
NASCAR has no age limit. James Hylton is the oldest driver to start a NASCAR race. He was 76 for the 2011 Truck Series race at Pocono.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thompson turns 67 on July 9. Dave Marcis at 60 years, 11 months, 16 days had been the oldest driver to race in the Daytona 500 in 2002. NASCAR Hall of Famer Bobby Allison was 50 when he became the oldest Daytona 500 winner in history in 1988.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before he became interested in racing in the late 1980s, Thompson was an Army helicopter pilot in Vietnam from 1970 to 1972. He declined to discuss his experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThey taught me how to fly,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He founded Phoenix Air, headquartered at the Cartersville-Bartow County Airport in Atlanta, and mostly services the government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Phoenix Air helped with the transport of Ebola virus-infected patients from Monrovia, Liberia, in 2014 and returned imprisoned American student Otto Warmbier from North Korea last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thompson, divorced with two adult children, was caught up in one of the fiery wrecks late in the ARCA opener and is at peace with his decision to retire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhat I really do is I fly,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat these guys do is drive race cars. I\u2019m not a slacker. I\u2019ve done reasonably well, at times.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
he oldest driver in the Daytona 500 field is truly a race veteran. Mark Thompson did a tour of duty in Vietnam that wrapped two decades before his NASCAR debut.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":55472,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":19,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[12,19],"tags":[],"coauthors":[6100],"class_list":["post-27152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-veterans"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"JWNF27AKNVBRZPFFCWFR7G5R54","arc_canonical_url":"\/veterans\/2018\/02\/17\/vietnam-vet-thompson-to-make-daytona-500-start-at-66\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n