White was born on August 17, 1929, in Taylorsville, North Carolina, and grew up during the Great Depression. He contracted polio as a young boy, leaving one leg permanently withered, but approached the experience as a lesson in overcoming fear rather than a limitation. He learned to drive at the age of six, piloting a neighbor's truck in the fields near his home. By the time he was eight, he was working on the family's Model T. He died in Taylorsville on July 18, 2025, at age 95, having been NASCAR's oldest living champion in his final decade.
White entered his first race in the Sportsman division at West Lanham Speedway in Maryland. Despite dropping out with engine problems in his debut, he went on to win the Sportsman championship at the track by season's end. After acquiring a 1937 Ford for $600 with help from a relative of his wife's in 1954, he began making enough money at tracks to sustain himself as a racer. He started competing in NASCAR's premier Grand National division in 1956, making 24 starts and collecting 14 top-ten finishes.
A turning point came when White relocated from Washington to Spartanburg, South Carolina, to join forces with Louis Clements, his friend, partner, and chief mechanic. The two had previously met while working for Chevrolet's factory racing team, which had withdrawn from racing in June 1957. Together they built their first late-model Chevrolet and returned to the circuit as a self-funded operation. White won his first NASCAR race at Champion Speedway in Fayetteville, North Carolina, at the 1958 season opener. By 1959 he had won five times in 23 starts, with five poles, 11 top-fives, and 13 top-tens.
White's definitive season came in 1960. He won six races in 40 starts and finished outside the top ten only five times — a consistency that yielded the Grand National championship with a $13,000 prize check. His path to the title was aided at the inaugural World 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, where chief rivals including Richard Petty, Junior Johnson, and Lee Petty were disqualified for improper pit road entry; White finished sixth. He also won the Most Popular Driver Award and the Driver of the Year award that season.
In 1961 White won seven races and finished second in the overall standings. The 1962 season produced eight victories — a career best — including a win at Atlanta that he singled out as his finest performance: he tracked down Marvin Panch in the closing laps when both were managing fuel, then took the lead when Panch ran dry with two laps remaining.
From 1959 through 1963, White won more Grand National races than any other driver — 28 victories — surpassing contemporaries including Lee and Richard Petty, Ned Jarrett, Fireball Roberts, Junior Johnson, and Curtis Turner. He did so without substantial sponsorship backing, relying primarily on the self-funded operation he shared with Clements. He finished in the top ten of the overall points standings in six of his nine Grand National seasons and retired in 1964 with 233 career starts.
White's career top-ten rate of approximately 70 percent across 233 races remains one of the most extraordinary consistency records in NASCAR history; only Tim Flock's numbers approach it. He was named one of NASCAR's 50 Greatest Drivers in 1998 and inducted into the National Motorsports Press Association Hall of Fame in 1974. In January 2015 he was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame, at which time he was recognised as NASCAR's oldest living champion at 85. He held that distinction until his death. White also authored an autobiography titled Gold Thunder and co-wrote a second book, All Around The Track, covering memoirs of past and present NASCAR figures.