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Award-winning columnist Tom Archdeacon — an old-school storyteller in a brand-new venue — writes about sports, the city, southwest Ohio and anything else that catches his fancy… or yours.Home > Blogs > Through the Arch > Archives > 2009 > October > 19
Monday, October 19, 2009
Three Questions for NASCAR
When the first five inductees into NASCAR’s Hall of Fame were announced last week — and that quintet includes Bill France and Bill France, Jr., Richard Petty, Junior Johnson and Dale Earnhardt — three questions came to my mind:
Who should have been in that first class?
Who should be the next five enshrinees?
Who of today’s current drivers and owners deserves to land in the Hall one day?
NASCAR’s Hall of Fame opens in Charlotte in May of 2010 — that’s when the five will be officially enshrined — and it will be one of the history houses in sports I’d like to visit one day soon.
I covered a lot of stock car racing in the late 1970s and the 1980s and have done so sporadically since. I’m partial to the era of Richard Petty, David Pearson, the Allison brothers and Cale Yarborough, so I’m sure that will color some of my thinking here, but those were great times for the sport, too.
Anyway, here are the three questions:
Who should have been in that first class?
I agree with Petty, the sports most iconic figure, Johnson, the moonshine legend who was a successful driver and owner and Earnhardt, the seven-time Cup champion. But I think just one the Frances — Bill Sr., the founder and first president of NASCAR — should have been included.
Although his son, Bill Jr., developed his father’s dream ten fold, he should have been put into the next class and The Silver Fox, David Pearson, should have made the first five.
Pearson, quite arguably, is the best driver NASCAR has ever had. He ran partial schedules most of his career and still won 105 races, second most all time to Petty’s 200. To get an idea how he did that, consider he entered just 18 races in 1973 and won 11 of them. He only ran three full seasons and won the championship in each of them.
When Major League Baseball began its Hall of Fame with five enshrinees in 1936, it settled on Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson and Honus Wagner. All the business suits — great as they may have been, guys likes Comiskey and Spalding — had to wait.
Who should be the next five enshrinees?
There are a lot of folks from which to choose. NASCAR initially put out a list of 25 possible candidates, though that collection had a couple of glaring omissions, including Wendell Scott, the first black man ever to win a big-time stock car race. The odds — the racial barriers, the outright prejudice — he overcame were almost insurmountable and he deserves to be included in one of the first few classes enshrined.
With Pearson snubbed this year, he heads my list for the next class. I’d also include Bobby Allison, Cale Yarborough, Darrell Waltrip and either Ned Jarrett or Fireball Roberts. Probably Jarrett, because along with his two driving championships, he was the honey-coated broadcasting voice who introduced much of America to the sport.
To take it just a little father, my third class then would be Fireball Roberts, Lee Petty, Curtis Turner, Joe Weatherly and Wendell Scott.
One woman who belongs in the Hall — and yet is unknown by the casual race fan and not included on that NASCAR list of 25 — is Louise Smith, the hell-raising gal who travelled and raced with Turner, Tiny Lund. the Flock brothers and the rest of the first band of drivers and once hocked her diamonds to bail the whole bunch out of jail so they could go race in the next town.
Finally, question three:
Who of today’s current drivers and owners deserves to land in the Hall one day?
My group would include Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Tony Stewart, Richard Childress and Rick Hendrick.
Gordon’s a four-time champ, whose popularity and marketing skills especially in the late 1990s made him an equal of the superstars of other sports, a recognition stock car drivers always had trouble obtaining
Johnson has won three straight titles — and is well on his way to No. 4.
Stewart — who joins the ranks of A. J. Foyt and Mario Andretti — as the best all-around drivers ever, went from open wheel success — he won the Indy 500 pole — to stock cars and became even greater. He has two Cup Series driving titles and deserves recognition as a team owner and now the driving force of Eldora Speedway, too.
Childress, himself a longtime driver, made an even bigger mark as a team owner, especially in giving Dale Earnhardt the opportunities he did. And Hendrick has been the most successful owner of this era, giving the wheel to everybody from Gordon and Johnson to Kyle Busch.
One final thought: I’ve heard some folks say they think NASCAR might not have enough appropriate candidates to keep filling induction classes for years to come. They think the pool will run dry.
At five slots a year, I think there are more than enough worthy choices to go on for 30 or 40 years — maybe more — without missing a beat. And by then, there’ll be more stars. Besides, in four decades, who knows what kind of cars folks will be driving.
One thing for certain, no one will ever drive them better than guys like Richard Petty, David Pearson or Dale Earnhardt.
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