Former NASCAR driver Chuck Bown and his wife, Debbie Bown, have avoided the public spotlight. In 2023, the couple celebrated their 50th anniversary.
Bown would undoubtedly consider himself lucky to celebrate a long and healthy marriage with Debbie.
His horrific crash at Pocono Raceway in 1994 gave him serious injuries, which luckily didn’t translate to any long-term injuries.
Coming from a racing family, Bown was used to speed and racetracks. He started competing at 17, debuting at Winston Western 500 in 1972.
Chuck’s father, Richard ‘Dick‘ Bown, was a Portland NASCAR star and competed in the 21 NASCAR Cup Series.
Richard mainly drove Plymouth Cars, and Chuck followed in his footsteps, driving his first race in one of his father’s Plymouth Cars.
In his 27-year-long racing career, Chuck competed in several races and was the 1990 NASCAR Busch Series Champion.
Since retiring in 1999, the former racer has kept himself away from mainstream media. But in 2024, he appeared in a podcast and talked a bit about his present-day life with his wife, Debbie.
Chuck Bown And His Wife, Debbie Bown, Share A Passion For Building
In his March 2024 interview with The Scene Valut, Chuck talked about his retired life with his wife, Debbie Bown.
In his interview, Chuck said that after retiring, he started showing interest in building homes and doing more with wood than metal. The NASCAR driver said:
We love to build stuff–more houses than cars. I’d rather work with wood than metal and so we decided to a build a speck house and we built it right close to where we live.
via: YouTube
Chuck revealed that his wife, Debbie, has a commercial contractor’s license and a nursing degree.
In the interview, Chuck said his wife has retired, but on Debbie’s Facebook handle, she stated that she works as a registered nurse at Randolph Health.
Chuck and Debbie became husband and wife in January 1973 in Oregon. The couple was only 18 at the time.
Their marriage and love have certainly stood the test of time.
In May 2023, Debbie shared a photo of her and Chuck celebrating their milestone on Facebook.
She wrote, “We celebrated 50 years of marriage in January. This is our travel year.”
Several of her and Chuck’s close friends congratulated them, and some of her curious friends asked where they were celebrating the big occasion.
Debbie replied they were starting the celebration at the Panama Canal with their family members.
Along with sharing photos with her husband, Debbie has also shared several pictures of her other family members, including her grandkids and great-grandchildren.
Like Her Husband, Debbie Bown Comes From A Racing Family
Debbie wasn’t introduced to racetracks after her marriage with Chuck.
Debbie’s dad, Hershel McGriff, is a former racer and was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2023.
McGriff started 85 races in parts of 28 NASCAR Cup Series seasons, but the legendary driver is fondly remembered as one of the best drivers in the history of the ARCA Menards Series West.
Hershel competed in parts of 35 seasons and won 37 races. In 1986, he won the series title, part of a string of ten consecutive seasons, with finishes in the top 10 of championship points.
In 2018, at age 90, Hershel competed in a NASCAR-sanctioned event, driving 94 laps in Toyota for Bill McAnally Racing.
Hershel got to share this momentous occasion with his son and Debbie’s brother, McGriff Jr, and his daughter, Mariah.
The father-daughter duo of McGriff Jr and Mariah drove in separate races at the track.
Debbie and Chuck are parents to two girls, Lori Brown Stone and Cristi Bown Auman, who have built their careers away from racetracks.
Like her mom, Lori works with Randolph County and is the mother of twin sons, Dakota and Dustin Brandy.
In Case You Didn’t Know
- In 1973, Chuck Bown at Winston Western 500 raced alongside his father, Richard ‘Dick ‘ Bown, his father-in-law, Hershel McGriff, and brother-in-law Doug McGriff.
- Even after his serious injury at Pocono Raceway, Chuck Bown showed up to race the next weekend but couldn’t compete.
