CUP: Hall of Fame Has Many Good Candidates

Sprint Cup

CUP: Hall of Fame Has Many Good Candidates

SPEED™ will televise a NASCAR Hall of Fame special Thursday at 8 pm ET...

Rick Minter | http://www.RacinToday.com | Posted July 01, 2009 Charlotte, NC

NASCAR legend Junior Johnson looks on prior to the NASCAR Legends UARA Race at Bristol Motor Speedway. (Photo: Getty Images)

As sports go, NASCAR is still relatively young. The first championship-winning car owner, Raymond Parks, is still making the rounds today. Richard Petty, whose race team won two weeks ago at Infineon Raceway, was on hand in 1949, when the first race of the series now known as Sprint Cup was run at Charlotte.

Still, some worry that as the official NASCAR Hall of Fame begins inducting members that some of the pioneers will be overlooked, at least in the early rounds.

Watch NASCAR HoF On SPEED Thu Jul 2 @ 8:00pm ET

Most of them have been inducted into the National Motorsports Press Association’s Stock Car Hall of Fame at Darlington, which until the latest venture came along, was regarded as the official place for deserving NASCAR drivers to be honored.

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As the names of the nominees for the inaugural class of five are released this week, many of them will be familiar ones to today’s fans – Petty, Pearson, Yarborough, Allison, Waltrip, Bill France Sr. and Jr., Dale Earnhardt. Soon, there will be new names to consider – Wallace, Martin, Elliott, Labonte.

Childress, Wood Hof Candidates

But what about the drivers who were the backbone of the sport in the early days? Will they be penalized by the passage of time? Will those who are deceased fare poorly versus those still around to recount their exploits?

Take the late Herb Thomas. He was the sport’s first two-time champion, and had a Jimmie Johnson-like points run, finishing either first or second for four straight years, from 1951 to 1954. He was the first three-time winner of the Southern 500, which in his day was like the Brickyard 400 and the Daytona 500 rolled into one.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rick Minter

RacinToday.com

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