Working On My Redneck ™ » nascar hall of fame inductees

Who Will Be In The Second HOF Class?

Leon — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 14:25:44 +0000

(photo courtesy NASCAR)

Very possibly two of the three combatants in the above photo could be elected into this year’s class of NASCAR Hall of Fame inductees. The photo above is from the very famous 1979 Daytona 500. That race was the very first race telecast from green flag to checkered flag on network TV.

The “readers digest” version of the race goes like this. With one lap to go Donnie Allison and Cale Yarborough were side by side, and had been banging doors for the lead for several laps. Coming out of turn number 2 Allison and Yarborbough really got to door banging each other and wrecked down the back straight, coming to a stop in turn number 3. As their cars came to a stop, they both got out of their race cars and began arguing. From the arguing, name calling, and heritage discussions, a fight broke out on national TV! After the checkered flag flew Donnie’s brother, Bobby, stopped his race car and joined the fracas, in a brotherly free-for-all!

So much for the picture description! The race was won by Richard Petty with Darrell Waltrip right on his bumper!

The time for the NASCAR Hall of Fame to announce the second class of inductees from the list of 25 individuals nominated for the class of 2010 is at hand, and will be announced October 13th. First and foremost, WOMR believes the NASCAR erred in a significantly huge way in limiting the number of inductees to just a maximum of five individuals per year! That will never allow all the richly deserving pioneers to take their place in the Hall of Fame. As time moves on, people will forget those who so rightly deserved to be recognized by NASCAR!

But nevertheless it’s stuck on five inductees per year, and now the question is who should the next five be? We’ll know Oct. 13. Meanwhile here are WOMR’s choices to join already-inducted Dale Earnhardt, Junior Johnson, Richard Petty and the Frances, Bill Junior and Senior:

David Pearson. How could NASCAR have a Hall of Fame without the Silver Fox?

Darrell Waltrip: One of the sport’s most significant figures, both on and off the track.

Cale Yarborough: As good as there was, with more in the tank when he walked away.

Bobby Allison: Few were better, none sacrificed greater.

Those four are, or should be, a no-brainer for induction! The fifth spot is harder to run with. There are three people that could be voted in for this year’s class. WOMR believes that it will be between Lee Petty, Ned Jarrett, and quite possibly Raymond Parks.

Petty had more success on the track and was one of the sport’s greatest pioneers. But it could be argued that Jarrett’s off-track contributions were greater as he extended his career into broadcasting.

Raymond Parks, who just passed away this summer at the age of 90 something, was the owner of the very first NASCAR champion’s car. Additionally, Parks was a very successful businessman, and moonshiner in the Atlanta area in the early NASCAR years!

If you want to bring in the pioneers of the sport, then either of these three should get the vote. In fact, it is WOMR’s opinion that all 25 of the nominees for this year’s class should be voted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame! The NASCAR Hall of Fame committee should open up the doors for the first 3-5 years to induct all of the pioneers of the sport and enshrine those who were the backbone and responsible for getting NASCAR where it is today!

The Hall should have opened with a big, positive feel-good bang last year with 15-20 inductees. A second wave of 15-20 on Oct. 13 would at least cover the most obvious and deserving.

Afterwards, a class of 10 a year still wouldn’t be too many. WOMR could come up with 100 deserving individuals right now – drivers, team owners, mechanics, officials, marketing persons and media personalities – who made vital and lasting contributions to the sport. Even at 10 per class it would take a decade to induct the most deserving.

What is your view of the NASCAR Hall of Fame rules regarding induction? Who are your choices for this year’s inductee class?

TIL NEXT TIME, I AM STILL WORKING ON MY REDNECK!

Bill France,Sr The #1 Inductee

Leon — Wed, 12 May 2010 18:43:58 +0000

Bill France,Sr. was a visionary, a pioneer, and a natural born leader. France was the guiding light for NASCAR from its inception in 1948 until he transferred power to his son in 1972.

France built the sport, shaped the sport, and grew the sport almost single-handed. From his early days as a race car driver, “Big Bill”, as he was called, realized that there needed to be a single sanctioning body that could help the drivers, control unscrupulous promoters and guarantee the fans a great show. After all, it was always about “the show”!

His idea for building his first superspeedway, The Daytona International Speedway, came from the old board tracks of the 20′s and 30′s, as well as his first impressions from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Mr. France want to build the first 180MPH speedway!

Through much hard work and leveraging the family to the hilt, the speedway was built. In 1959 the very first Daytona 500 became history, and in true Bill France magical mystery, the finish was so close it took 3 days to declare a winner. To France and NASCAR’s credit that additional press coverage “was just what the doctor ordered”! A racing tradition was started!

Bill France,Sr.’s defining moment

Having established Bill France,Sr.’s claim to fame, his defining moment was the inaugural race at his brand new superspeedway, the 1969 Talledega 500. Because of the larger track at Talladega, the speeds were significant higher and the tires that Goodyear brought to the track were having a high rate of failure.

The race car drivers united and decided to boycott the first race after two days of practice. France told the drivers that he was going have race Sunday. The big names of NASCAR packed up their cars and headed home. However, France did in fact stage his race on Sunday without all the big names of NASCAR in the field!

The 1969 Talladega 500 was “Big Bill” France’s defining moment!

TIL NEXT TIME, I AM STILL WORKING ON MY REDNCK!

NASCAR Hall of Fame Opens

Leon — Tue, 11 May 2010 23:45:09 +0000

(photo courtesy NASCAR)

This morning NASCAR celebrated the opening of their brand, new state of the art, Hall of Fame. Many of the living legends of NASCAR assembled for the grand opening ceremonies. The official opening ceremonies was briefly “interupted” by the loud rumbling of Richard Petty rolling up the stage in his Petty Enterprise Blue and Day-Glo Red #43 STP Dodge! Junior Johnson followed close in a 1940 Ford. That stirred the emotions of the crowd to a rousing and standing ovation!

After the hour long festivities, several of the living legends of NASCAR assembled to simultaneously insert their NASCAR ID’s into a card reader to open up the doors of the Hall of Fame to the public.

On May 23rd the Hall will formally induct the initial class of five NASCAR “Hall of Famers”. That first class consists of: Bill France,Sr., Bill France,Jr., Richard Petty, Junior Johnson, and Dale Earnhardt,Sr.

So if or when you get close to Charlotte, NC, it would behoove you to take some time to visit NASCAR’s newest innovation.

TIL NEXT TIME, I AM STILL WORKING ON MY REDNECK!

Who Will Be Left Out of the Hall of Fame in 2010?

Leon — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 15:09:19 +0000

The inductees for the very class of the NASCAR Hall of Fame, the class of 2009, has been announced. The list fo inductees produced a surprise or two this year. Looking at all the pioneers that were not selected this year leaves the selection committee with a very daunting task! With only a maximum of 5 inductees per year, the list of people who should be in the Hall of Fame becomes overwhelming and creates a major bottleneck!

Consider these comments from Ed Hinton of ESPN.com:

David Pearson won’t be — can’t be — left out next year. He shouldn’t have been left out Wednesday. That was the greatest travesty of NASCAR’s landmark day.

Who’s next?

• Pearson, simply the best driver ever in NASCAR, got the sixth-most votes Wednesday. On championships, he batted 1.000 — three full seasons run, three titles won. What’s so great about a guy who ran partial schedules? Take 1973, when he entered 18 races and won 11. And of course there’s the matter of his 105 wins, second only to Petty’s 200.

• Bobby Allison, another near miss Wednesday and the leading vote-getter among fans, understandably because he has given not only his life and health but much of his family to racing — sons Clifford and Davey are dead, Clifford in a NASCAR crash and Davey of a helicopter crash at Talladega. Not to mention Allison’s being tied for third on the all-time wins list with 84.

• Cale Yarborough, Wednesday’s other near miss, the little bulldog, the most tenacious of them all, the first three-peat champion, who never let up, even when two, three, four laps down, and often made them up to win on his way to 83 career victories.

But beyond those three, another bottleneck looms for 2010.

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Kevin C. Cox/Getty ImagesRaymond Parks — a founding father of NASCAR — will get into the Hall of Fame, but will he be passed over again in 2010?

Raymond Parks shouldn’t be, but probably will be, left out again next year. It is as safe to say there would be no NASCAR without Parks as it is to say it of Bill France Sr., the putative solo founder, the first inductee named to the first class.

The idea of a classy operation, of racing clean, brightly painted cars in good repair, was Parks’ before it was France’s. He showed France how it ought to be done. Parks was the first first-class team owner. France had the dream, but Parks had the money and the spirit to follow through.

It wasn’t France who came up with the name National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing and the acronym NASCAR; it was Parks’ chief mechanic, Red Vogt. And it was Parks’ cars that, driven by Red Byron, won the first championship, in 1949, of what would become the Sprint Cup division.

Figure Parks is passed over again, make Pearson, Allison and Yarborough locks, and you still have at least eight entirely worthy candidates for the remaining two spots of next year’s round.

• Buck Baker, the salty pioneer who in 1956-57 became the first driver to win consecutive championships.

• Byron, the wound-crippled World War II veteran who came home to win NASCAR’s very first race, at Daytona in 1948, and the first strictly stock championship in ’49.

• Ned Jarrett, more as a milestone broadcaster who was the face and voice of the boom era than as a two-time champion driver.

• Lee Petty, patriarch of NASCAR’s first lineage of drivers, the first man to treat a racing team as a for-profit business, a three-time champion, a 54-race winner.

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RacingOne/Getty ImagesFireball Roberts was a star in NASCAR before two of the three drivers elected into the Hall of Fame on Wednesday had even made their names in the sport.

• Fireball Roberts, NASCAR’s first national household name and charismatic figure — when his death made the Today show in 1964, America had only barely heard of the budding Richard Petty.

• Curtis Turner, the wild man, the former bootlegger, the lumber magnate, renegade pilot and racer, who once, after a demolition duel with fledgling Bobby Allison, walked up to the youngster, put his arm around him and said, “C’mon, Pops! Let’s go have a drink!” Turner called everybody”Pops” and therefore was himself called “Pops”, and always invited everybody — anybody — for a drink.

• Darrell Waltrip, the one-man revolution who brought a sweeping new swagger, polish, wit and braggadocio to NASCAR, backed up his mouth with 84 wins and three championships, and remains an institution as a broadcaster.

• Joe Weatherly, “Little Joe”; the pudgy, fearless class clown of his time, who after his championships of ’62 and ’63 hurtled toward what would have been NASCAR’s first three-peat — but then was killed in the very first race of the ’64 season, at Riverside, Calif.

So there you have it for next year: at least a dozen worthy contenders for five spots. And that doesn’t even include some of the 25 on NASCAR’s initial list of nominees this year.

“Workingonmyredneck” believes that NASCAR should have, in the first 5 years, more that 5 inductees per year. Yes the ceremony might be cumbersome, but there are many NASCAR pioneers that are very deserving to be there. Those pioneers were the backbone of the organization in the early years, and therefore need to be enshrined for all to see!

What do you think about the first class of inductees, and more importantly, what about those who failed to make the grade this year?

TIL NEXT TIME, I AM STILL WORKING ON MY REDNECK!

Dale Earnhardt, Sr. Enshrined: What is his legacy?

Leon — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 15:28:24 +0000

(photo by Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images)

Charlotte, N.C. – Several of those who took part in Wednesday’s voting for the inaugural class of the NASCAR Hall of Fame stood up to remind other voters that what they were doing was nothing less than deciding whose faces will appear on the sport’s Mount Rushmore.

If that’s true then it will be Bill France Sr., Richard Petty, Bill France Jr., Dale Earnhardt and Junior Johnson whose faces will be carved into the the NASCAR mountainside.

Those five drivers emerged as the first class of the new Hall of Fame. “This is a big day,” Brian France, chairman and CEO of NASCAR said. Few disagreed. And while not everybody agreed on the outcome of the vote, all respected it. “They’ll all get in, everybody on that list (of nominees),” Petty said.

Wednesday’s vote took place at the Charlotte Convention Center, which adjoins the still-under-construction of the hall in uptown Charlotte.

Now that the first class has been formally introduced to the world, the first five were all deserving individuals. I would like to examine the legacy of just one, Dale Earnhardt, Sr.

It has been 8 1/2 years since the untimely death of “Man in Black” at the Daytona 500, in February 2001. What exactly is Dale Earnhardt, Sr.’s legacy? Is it his record tying seven championships? Is it his 76 victories? Is Dale,Sr.’s legacy his toughness? Could it be that he will best be remembered for his son, Dale ,Jr? Could it be Dale Earnhardt Incorporated, DEI? Any or all of the above mentioned items could, in fact, be his legacy.

There might be a few other things that really may be his legacy to this sport we call NASCAR, and in fact all of auto racing. After his death, NASCAR got very serious about driver safety. Because of ” The Intimidator’s ” death, the HANS device, the head and neck restraining device, was quickly mandated. Additionally, NASCAR accelerated the implementation of the SAFER barriers that buffer the retaining walls at the racetracks. Also NASCAR began to study the need for a new safer car, termed the Car of Tomorrow,which was fully implemented in 2008!

Only time will define what Earnhardt’s true legacy to the sport will be. One thing is for sure, however, now that he has been enshrined in the very first class of inductees to the NASCAR Hall of Fame, he will be immortalized for all time!

What do you think is Dale Earnhardt, Sr.’s legacy to this sport?

TIL NEXT TIME, I AM STILL WORKING ON MY REDNECK!

My NASCAR Hall of Fame Inductees

Leon — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 23:59:19 +0000

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(photo from nascar.com)

NASCAR has decided to leak slowly some of the 25 people who are on the first ballot for the initial induction into NASCAR’s Hall of Fame.

The first individuals to be inducted into the Hall of Fame should be, really, a no brainer for NASCAR! Unfortunately, NASCAR has limited the first class to five inductees, only. The life of NASCAR is now 60 years old and to just select 5 people for the first class is extremely unfair!

To have a 60 year history, and to limit the first class of inductees to just 5 people seems to be self defeating. It would seem that for the first class of inductees, those persons who were the pioneers and the backbone of NASCAR’s early years and growth, should be enshrined in the first class.

Here is my list for the first class to be inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame:

1. Big Bill France for obvious reasons, the founder of NASCAR

2. Bill France, Jr., got R.J. Reynolds on board as title sponsor

3. Lee Petty, Petty Enterprises

4. Richard Petty, 7 championships and 200 victories

5. Junior Johnson, driver,owner, car, and engine builder

6. David Pearson, 104 victories

7. Darrell Waltrip, 84 victories

8. Bobby Allison, 84 victories

9. Cale Yarborough, 83 victories and 3 successive championships

10. Dale Earnhardt, Sr., 76 wins and 7 championships

11. Rick Hendrick, car owner

12. Richard Childress, car owner

I could add a few more that are worthy to honored in the very first class of inductees. However, this is my initial class of inductees to NASCAR’s Hall of Fame.

What is your opinion? What would your initial classs look like?