Published: Monday, July 6, 2009
Commentary: Petty will lead pack into NASCAR Hall
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AP Photo/Chuck Burton
This is a June 11, 2008 file photo showing Richard Petty (right) speaking as NASCAR CEO Brian France (left) looks on during a news conference at Lowe's Motor Speedway in Concord, N.C.
Bill France Sr. and his willing partners -- some more willing than others -- created NASCAR in an art deco inn right across the highway from Daytona Beach's surf.
When they left the Streamline Hotel that December day in 1947, the makeshift masters of stock-car racing didn't own a map nor possess certainty that the unpaved road would lead to anywhere special.
The loosely arranged sport needed rules. The ambitious France concluded that racing needed a ruler to impose a tire-iron grip on maverick promoters and the rowdy cowboys slinging their souped-up street cars around the South's dirty curves.
The France gang started NASCAR history. Some 62 years later, as NASCAR prepares to capture the echoes and trinkets of that history in a $195 million Charlotte museum financed by hotel taxes, the candidates for the first Hall of Fame class are heading into the fourth turn. The five winners will take the checkered flag in October and reach Victory Lane when the museum opens next May.
Naturally, the list of 25 nominees encourages a passionate debate inside the garage and outside the track, where emotions can run hotter than a 1956 radiator.
No. 1 is automatic: "The King."
Richard Petty came from a royal racing family. Father Lee Petty won the first Daytona 500 and became the sport's first three-time champion. Young Richard, a kid mechanic, didn't envision himself as a driver until finishing high school. In Richard's 1958 NASCAR debut, Lee knocked him out of the race and snatched the trophy.
Richard learned and thrived. He won 200 races, 95 more than anyone else. He won seven championships, a record that Dale Earnhardt matched in 1994. Petty also became NASCAR's broadly recognized front man, with his wrap-around shades, cowboy hat, mustache and irrepressible smile. Even today, after selling the family business and putting his marketable name on George Gillett's team, "The King" remains an adored ambassador who -- in his words -- keeps "doing the Richard Petty thing."
No. 2 is preordained: Dale Earnhardt. His share of the championship record (six titles came under formidable nominee Richard Childress) merits inclusion. Fame entails more than statistics, however.
Earnhardt ranks seventh in victories with 76, which seems to invite competing claims from Bobby Allison and Darrell Waltrip (84 wins each) and Cale Yarborough (83, with three consecutive championships). But Earnhardt ranks first in stuff that builds legends: a beguiling smirk under his thick mustache, a devilish twinkle in his eyes, an insatiable thirst for reinforcing his "Intimidator" image.
The sport revolved around Earnhardt's personality and the wildly disparate emotions he triggered. Despite commercial successes since he died in Daytona's last turn eight years ago, racing hasn't been the same since.
No. 3 should be automatic: David Pearson.
The "Silver Fox" from Spartanburg, S.C., ranks second to Petty in wins (105) and poles (113). Their rivalry carried the sport in the 1960s, when Pearson bagged three championships. He developed a reputation for slyly riding along in the pack and avoiding trouble until attacking late in the race.
Pearson discovered a method for conquering Darlington's quirky egg shape and won 10 times there. The walls tend to sneak up on drivers, leaving cars with right-side scrapes called the Darlington Stripe. Years ago, before white cement walls replaced highway-style steel guardrails in the turns, Pearson mastered the secret art of bouncing off the guardrails and accelerating.
No. 4 might as well be automatic: Bill France Sr.
He will make the cut regardless of how anyone frames the debate because this is NASCAR's Hall of Fame. France started the league and ran it through 1971, his choices promoting survival during shaky years near the beginning and end of his reign.
France, according to company history, helped lay out Daytona's first beach course in the 1930s and drove there. He built the current Daytona track, the home base for the family-controlled International Speedway Corp., and he built the Talladega track, where airborne cars still fly into the catch fence, jeopardizing spectators.
If France's son and successor, Bill Jr., also makes the inaugural group, the Hall of Fame will look like an inside job. Bill Jr., who transferred power to son Brian in 2003 and died in 2007, deserves recognition more than any administrator other than the founding father, but two spots out of five could paint the rulers as dictators.
The selections will be made by 47 people and a fan vote that collectively will count as one person. The electorate includes seven NASCAR officials, two from ISC and two from the Hall of Fame. The rest: 14 from the media; nine retired drivers, owners and crew chiefs; four car manufacturers; and nine reps from current and former tracks.
No. 5 is the toughest choice, particularly with active driver Jeff Gordon ineligible until three years after retirement. Junior Johnson's life story makes it easier.
Johnson would qualify as a finalist for the fifth spot purely on the basis of his records as a driver (50 wins, tied for 10th) and owner (139 wins, plus six championships divided equally between Yarborough and Waltrip).
He never won the championship behind the wheel. That could tilt the balance toward the three-wide chargers (Allison-Waltrip-Yarborough) or toward owner-driver Lee Petty.
Johnson, though, stands alone as the symbol of the sport's evolution from moonshiner (which landed him in federal prison) to corporation-attracting magnet. On top of that, the oil-stained young star in the white T-shirt from Wilkes County uncovered the aerodynamic miracle of drafting while wheeling an inferior car to victory at the second Daytona 500 in 1960.
Anyone who can travel from high-branch coon hunting to highbrow physics in one career and keep going 50 more years has earned his perch.
E-mail Lenox Rawlings at lrawlings(at)wsjournal.com.
When they left the Streamline Hotel that December day in 1947, the makeshift masters of stock-car racing didn't own a map nor possess certainty that the unpaved road would lead to anywhere special.
The loosely arranged sport needed rules. The ambitious France concluded that racing needed a ruler to impose a tire-iron grip on maverick promoters and the rowdy cowboys slinging their souped-up street cars around the South's dirty curves.
The France gang started NASCAR history. Some 62 years later, as NASCAR prepares to capture the echoes and trinkets of that history in a $195 million Charlotte museum financed by hotel taxes, the candidates for the first Hall of Fame class are heading into the fourth turn. The five winners will take the checkered flag in October and reach Victory Lane when the museum opens next May.
Naturally, the list of 25 nominees encourages a passionate debate inside the garage and outside the track, where emotions can run hotter than a 1956 radiator.
No. 1 is automatic: "The King."
Richard Petty came from a royal racing family. Father Lee Petty won the first Daytona 500 and became the sport's first three-time champion. Young Richard, a kid mechanic, didn't envision himself as a driver until finishing high school. In Richard's 1958 NASCAR debut, Lee knocked him out of the race and snatched the trophy.
Richard learned and thrived. He won 200 races, 95 more than anyone else. He won seven championships, a record that Dale Earnhardt matched in 1994. Petty also became NASCAR's broadly recognized front man, with his wrap-around shades, cowboy hat, mustache and irrepressible smile. Even today, after selling the family business and putting his marketable name on George Gillett's team, "The King" remains an adored ambassador who -- in his words -- keeps "doing the Richard Petty thing."
No. 2 is preordained: Dale Earnhardt. His share of the championship record (six titles came under formidable nominee Richard Childress) merits inclusion. Fame entails more than statistics, however.
Earnhardt ranks seventh in victories with 76, which seems to invite competing claims from Bobby Allison and Darrell Waltrip (84 wins each) and Cale Yarborough (83, with three consecutive championships). But Earnhardt ranks first in stuff that builds legends: a beguiling smirk under his thick mustache, a devilish twinkle in his eyes, an insatiable thirst for reinforcing his "Intimidator" image.
The sport revolved around Earnhardt's personality and the wildly disparate emotions he triggered. Despite commercial successes since he died in Daytona's last turn eight years ago, racing hasn't been the same since.
No. 3 should be automatic: David Pearson.
The "Silver Fox" from Spartanburg, S.C., ranks second to Petty in wins (105) and poles (113). Their rivalry carried the sport in the 1960s, when Pearson bagged three championships. He developed a reputation for slyly riding along in the pack and avoiding trouble until attacking late in the race.
Pearson discovered a method for conquering Darlington's quirky egg shape and won 10 times there. The walls tend to sneak up on drivers, leaving cars with right-side scrapes called the Darlington Stripe. Years ago, before white cement walls replaced highway-style steel guardrails in the turns, Pearson mastered the secret art of bouncing off the guardrails and accelerating.
No. 4 might as well be automatic: Bill France Sr.
He will make the cut regardless of how anyone frames the debate because this is NASCAR's Hall of Fame. France started the league and ran it through 1971, his choices promoting survival during shaky years near the beginning and end of his reign.
France, according to company history, helped lay out Daytona's first beach course in the 1930s and drove there. He built the current Daytona track, the home base for the family-controlled International Speedway Corp., and he built the Talladega track, where airborne cars still fly into the catch fence, jeopardizing spectators.
If France's son and successor, Bill Jr., also makes the inaugural group, the Hall of Fame will look like an inside job. Bill Jr., who transferred power to son Brian in 2003 and died in 2007, deserves recognition more than any administrator other than the founding father, but two spots out of five could paint the rulers as dictators.
The selections will be made by 47 people and a fan vote that collectively will count as one person. The electorate includes seven NASCAR officials, two from ISC and two from the Hall of Fame. The rest: 14 from the media; nine retired drivers, owners and crew chiefs; four car manufacturers; and nine reps from current and former tracks.
No. 5 is the toughest choice, particularly with active driver Jeff Gordon ineligible until three years after retirement. Junior Johnson's life story makes it easier.
Johnson would qualify as a finalist for the fifth spot purely on the basis of his records as a driver (50 wins, tied for 10th) and owner (139 wins, plus six championships divided equally between Yarborough and Waltrip).
He never won the championship behind the wheel. That could tilt the balance toward the three-wide chargers (Allison-Waltrip-Yarborough) or toward owner-driver Lee Petty.
Johnson, though, stands alone as the symbol of the sport's evolution from moonshiner (which landed him in federal prison) to corporation-attracting magnet. On top of that, the oil-stained young star in the white T-shirt from Wilkes County uncovered the aerodynamic miracle of drafting while wheeling an inferior car to victory at the second Daytona 500 in 1960.
Anyone who can travel from high-branch coon hunting to highbrow physics in one career and keep going 50 more years has earned his perch.
E-mail Lenox Rawlings at lrawlings(at)wsjournal.com.
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