Owens earned the nickname "King of the Modifieds" by claiming over 200 feature wins, including the prestigious Gulf Coast championship race.
As Cotton transitioned to NASCAR's Grand National "Stock Car" division, he cemented his place among the sport's elite drivers building and driving Pontiacs wearing his now-signature red and white color scheme and infamous #6.
Owens put his Pontiac on Pole for the 1960 Daytona 500 and also shattered the qualifying record at Darlington with a 126.146 mph average speed.
Owens mentioned to Gail Porter that Chrysler had a powerplant in the old Hemi engines of the 1950s and suggested that they convert them for modern racing.
In 1963, Cotton would sign with Dodge as a factory team, fielding a stable of race cars for notable drivers including David Pearson, Billy Wade, Bobby Isaac, Jim Paschal, and G.C.
Pearson would go on to finish 3rd in the Grand National Championship standings, setting the stage for a partnership that would see continued success in the years to come.
With Owens' mechanical aptitude and the Hemi engine powering the COG Dodges, their successful partnership made hometown Spartanburg proud.
Other notable drivers who climbed behind the wheel for Owens in 1966–67 included Buddy Baker, Bobby Isaac, Bobby Allison, Darel Dieringer, Ray Hendrick, Sam McQuagg, and open-wheel Hotshoe Mario Andretti, who came South for the big race at Daytona and looked to Cotton to put him in a ride capable of winning, which was becoming commonplace at Cotton Owens Garage during its heyday of the mid-1960s.
Drivers of this era include "Leadfoot" Buddy Baker, Chargin' Charlie Glotzbach, Sam Posey, open-wheel star Al Unser, and fellow Spartanburg native James Hylton.
On the Saturday night before the annual Labor Day classic, Owens was inducted into the Hall of Fame by the National Motorsports Press Association.
Buddy's all-out style would cost him several notable races, including the 1969 Texas 500, but it served him well as he piloted the Chrysler Engineering blue Daytona #88 to a new closed-course record of better than 200 mph at Talladega on March 24, 1970.
The dawn of the 1970s saw the Cotton Owens Garage switch from Dodge to Plymouth, as Chrysler wanted to resurrect the marque by giving it more of a performance edge.
The dominance of the Dodge Daytona and Hemi combination gave NASCAR no choice but to outlaw both the car and the engine, requiring new restrictor plates on the superspeedways.
For the 1971 season, Cotton Owens teamed up with Pete Hamilton, who piloted his '71 Plymouth Roadrunner to victory lane at the 1971 Daytona 500 qualifier.
During this era, the same car was often re-bodied as either a Plymouth Roadrunner or a Dodge Charger, utilizing the same chassis and drivetrain but updated to keep up with NASCAR rule changes or factory dictates.
His cars were built and maintained by Cotton Owens up until he died in 1982, although he did drive Buicks for Junior Johnson shortly at the end of his career.
Drivers for Cotton Owens included many legends: David Pearson, Buddy Baker, Pete Hamilton, Marty Robbins, Ralph Earnhardt, Bobby Isaac, Junior Johnson, Benny Parsons, Fireball Roberts, Mario Andretti, Charlie Glotzbach, and Al Unser.
Seven years after being diagnosed with lung cancer, Owens died on June 7, 2012, at the age of 88, just a few weeks after it was announced he would be inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame's 2013 class.