Name Jocko Maggiacomo | Role Race car driver | |
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Born November 30, 1947 (age 76) Poughkeepsie, New York ( 1947-11-30 ) Awards 1976 SCCA Trans Am Category 1 Champion Best finish 60th - 1977 (Winston Cup) First race 1977 Coca-Cola 500 (Pocono) Last race 1988 The Budweiser At The Glen (Watkins Glen) | ||
Phone Interview with a retired NASCAR driver.
Chauncey T. Maggiacomo Jr. (born November 30, 1947) known as "Jocko" or, in high school, as "Chant," was a racing car driver from Poughkeepsie, New York. He is infamous for T-boning Bobby Allison, all but ending both careers, although most people agree that the accident was not Maggiacomo's fault.
His father Chauncey T. Maggiacomo (also nicknamed Jocko) was a famous modified stock car racer in the northeast. Jocko Sr. won 31 feature races and multiple championships at Riverside Park Speedway in Agawam, Mass., and won the track's biggest event, the Riverside 500. He is eighth on the track's all-time win list. He is a member of the New England Auto Racers Hall of Fame.
Jocko Jr., followed a different path, racing sportscars with the SCCA. He rose to the professional ranks, winning the 1976 SCCA Trans Am Series championship driving an ex-Roger Penske/Mark Donohue AMC Javelin.
Moving to NASCAR, Maggiacomo started 23 Winston Cup races in 10 seasons, primarily in the Northeastern United States.
Unable to avoid a spinning Bobby Allison in the 1988 Miller High Life 500 at Pocono, the T-bone crash with Maggiacomo ended Allison's driving career. According to Maggiacomo's autobiography, he chose to end his career too out of post-trauma stress disorder and guilt of hitting Allison.
