Johnny McCool, a former Dirt Late Model racer and father of well-known driver Bub McCool, died Friday night in a highway accident. He was 64.

According to reports, McCool, of Vicksburg, Miss., was traveling in a Hummer on Highway 80 near his home just before 8 p.m. Friday when he swerved to avoid a car making a U-turn and his right-side wheels slipped over a steep embankment, causing his vehicle to overturn several times.

A Mississippi native, McCool began his Dirt Late Model driving career in 1985 and was a stalwart at tracks in his home state and across the Mid-South region for a decade before cutting back his schedule to only a handful of starts per season from 1996-2005. In 1992 he began several years of competing alongside his teenage son Bub, who says his most memorable moment in the sport came a week before his 15th birthday in ’92 when he won his first feature “while my dad was still racing.”

McCool operated his business, McCool Logging, for four decades and from the late 2000s through the mid-2010s fielded a Dirt Late Model effort for Bub, whose stint in family-owned equipment after a nearly decade-long absence from racing following a highway accident included capturing the 2012 World of Outlaws Craftsman Late Model Series Rookie of the Year award.

“He loved dirt track racing more than anyone I’ve ever met,” McCool’s daughter, Amanda, told DirtonDirt.com.

McCool is survived by his wife, Judy; son Bub; daughters Amanda and Lindsey; and five grandchildren.

Visitation was held on Monday afternoon. In lieu of flowers, donations in McCool’s name can be made to Blair E. Batson Children’s Hospital, 2500 North State St., Jackson MS 29205.