Tom Higgins' Scuffs

NASCAR Hall committee got first 25 right

Commendation is due to members of the new NASCAR Hall of Fame’s nominating committee.

They did an admirable job, in my opinion, of naming the 25 original nominees for the hall that’s scheduled to open in Charlotte in May of 2010.

A voting committee will elect the five inaugural inductees from this list in September, and their names will be announced in October.

What an honor simply to be among the first 25, considering NASCAR’s long and colorful history, which dates to 1949, when actual competition began on the tracks.

The ultimate tribute, of course, is to be one of those five men who will become the “first class” enshrined next spring.

Many were deserving of inclusion on the list of first nominees. And I’m sure there is disappointment among those that weren’t named, as it is among their fans, families and friends.

However, to have gone beyond 25 undoubtedly would have proven cumbersome and complicated the nominating and voting process.

So who should be among the next group of nominees?

My thoughts, in no particular order:

Rusty Wallace, 55 victories on NASCAR’s major circuit and the 1989 series champion.

Bill Elliott, 44 victories, the ’88 champion and multiple-time winner of the Most Popular Driver Award, now named in his honor. Elliott also holds the record for NASCAR’s alltime fastest qualifying speed, 212.809 mph, set at Talladega Superspeedway in 1987.

The late Bobby Isaac, 37 victories, the 1970 champion and winner of 49 pole positions.

Terry Labonte, 22 victories and championships in 1984 and ’96.

Dale Jarrett, 32 victories, the 1999 championship and three victories in the Daytona 500.

Rex White, 28 victories and 38 poles in just 233 starts, plus the 1960 series title.

Ricky Rudd, 23 triumphs in a whopping 906 starts.

Dave Marcis, five victories during 883 starts, mostly in cars he built and fielded himself. Marcis started every Daytona 500 from 1968-99, an incredible streak.

Harry Gant, a winner 18 times. Four of those victories came consecutively in the fall of 1991 when Gant was 51 years old.

Jack Roush, a team owner with 97 victories and Cup titles with drivers Matt Kenseth and Kurt Busch.

Jack Ingram, five times the champion of what’s now known as the Nationwide Series. Ingram ran so many races each season to get his titles that he became nicknamed “The Ironman.”

Jerry Cook, who won six NASCAR Modified Division titles, including four in a row during the 1970s.

Dale Inman, a crew chief who led his teams to seven championships, six with Richard Petty and one with Terry Labonte.

The late Clay Earles, who built his Martinsville Speedway in Virginia in 1947, the year before NASCAR was formed. Perhaps the fan-friendliest track owner/promoter ever, he upgraded his facility, smallest on the big-time NASCAR tour, every year until his death in 1999.

The late Enoch Staley, one of NASCAR’s founding fathers at the sanctioning body’s organizational meeting in 1948 at the Streamline Motel in Daytona Beach, Fla. Staley was president of North Wilkesboro Speedway until he passed away in 1995.

Bruton Smith, founder of what’s now known as Lowe’s Motor Speedway. As head of Speedway Motorsports Inc., Smith oversees operations at other major tracks and is credited with spearheading the drive that’s led to tremendous upgrading of all the Sprint Cup Series facilities.

Humpy Wheeler, who during a 34-year tenure as president of the Lowe’s Speedway reigned as the premier promoter in the sport, noted for creating pre-race shows and special events that enthralled spectators.

And finally, driver Buddy Baker, winner of 19 races, 18 of them on superspeedways. He won at all the premier big tracks of his time—Atlanta, Charlotte, Daytona, Michigan, Talladega. Buddy continues to hold the record for the fastest average speed in the Daytona 500, 177.602 mph, set in 1980.

Speaking of Buddy, his late father, Buck, is among the 25 original nominees for the new hall of fame, well into construction in Charlotte.

I’m aware that you can’t please everyone, and Buck was one of those singled out for criticism when the inaugural list was divulged last week.

One writer termed Buck a “second tier driver.”

Second tier?

Obviously, this fellow never saw Buck Baker drive. Nor did he thoroughly check Buck’s record. The elder Baker won 46 races and took season-long championships in 1956 and ’57. He won the Southern 500 at Darlington, the toughest race of all, in 1953, 1960 and, remarkably, again in 1964 when he was 45 years old, far beyond retirement age for drivers in that era. And he did this without the power steering and air-conditioning gear drivers employ nowadays.

The rising Hall of Fame’s nominating committee is due praise for its diligence in selecting the original 25 candidates. Buck Baker stands out among the reasons why.

Petty and the president

It was a day during which a county commissioner upstaged the President of The United States.

   The date was July 4, 1984.

   The county commissioner was Richard Petty.

   The president was Ronald Reagan.

   How did Petty, the “King” of  NASCAR,  do it?

   By winning the Pepsi 400 at Daytona International Speedway while Reagan, the first sitting chief executive ever to attend an auto race, was among the awe-struck throng looking on.

It was Petty's 200th victory on NASCAR's major circuit, an astounding accomplishment.

As I grow older, approaching age 72, I sometimes can’t recall everything that happened the day before.

   But I vividly remember that Independence Day dating back 25 years, more than a quarter of life expectancy for most of us.

   Me and my media buddies were up early to go to the track.  We anticipated, correctly, that traffic would be snarled more than usual because of heightened security associated with Reagan’s visit.

   We were right.

    After finally getting parked, we found long lines at the gates into the grandstands and press box.  Everyone entering had to go through metal detectors manned by Secret Service agents and local law enforcement.

   Still more metal detectors waited inside the fence.

   Finally, we reached the foot of the steps leading to the press box.  A husky Secret Service agent was standing there.

   “Okay, guys, take ‘em apart,” he said, pointing to our computers and offering a small screwdriver.

   I panicked.

   “Sir,” I said, “it’s all I can do to turn this durn thing on and off.  I’ll never get it apart and back together.”

   “I sympathize,” he said.  “But I can’t let you up there to the box until you show me what’s inside the computer.  There could be a bomb in that thing, and the President is going to be sitting in a nearby suite.”

   Somehow, I managed to remove the cover from the bulky, early-model computer, called a Port-A-Bubble.  And I got it back on.

   President Reagan wasn’t present for the 400’s green flag, but he was en route to the famed 2.5-mile Florida track, where the Coke Zero 400 is scheduled this weekend.  Reagan memorably gave the command to start engines by phone from Air Force One high above either South Carolina or Georgia.

   In an incredible moment of luck, a photographer snapped an iconic picture of the president’s plane landing at the Daytona Beach airport just as Petty sped down the backstretch, which is parallel to the runway.  It appeared Petty’s Pontiac was under the left wing of the beautiful aircraft.

   Terry Labonte, Bobby Allison, Dale Earnhardt, Harry Gant, Petty and pole-winner Cale Yarborough took turns leading during the first half of the 160-lap race.

   As the finish neared, it was Petty and Yarborough far ahead at the front, leading Gant by about a half-lap.

   Starting the 157th lap, rookie driver Doug Heveron lost control just past the start/finish line and flipped into the grass separating the racing surface and pit road.  The accident forced a yellow flag.

   Since Petty and Yarborough had passed the line, both knew whoever got back first under caution would win the race.  NASCAR did not freeze the field the first moment of yellow as it does now.  Racing back was permitted.

   Petty was the leader in his famed red, white and blue No. 43 Pontiac.  Yarborough right behind in an orange and white No. 28 Chevrolet.

   Down the backstretch Yarborough pulled an aerodynamic slingshot pass to forge ahead.  Petty drew alongside coming off the fourth turn for a dash through the homestretch trioval to the flag.

   Yarborough was on the outside,  Petty the inside.

   Their cars scraped sheet metal hard enough to send sparks and smoke spewing.

   At the line Petty was ahead by less than a foot.  Although two laps were left to go, King Richard had won his 200th race!

   Me and other media members could see President Reagan next door in the VIP Suite owned by NASCAR’s ruling France Family.  Like everyone else at the speedway, he appeared astonished in breathless excitement and was holding his chest.

   As the field slowly circled the track on Lap 159, Yarborough drove onto pit road, only to be frantically waved back out by his crew.

   One more lap and it was over.  Richard Petty had claimed a 200th triumph in NASCAR’s big-time, a seemingly unachievable plateau.  

   Richard didn’t go to Victory Lane.  Instead, he parked the car that was destined to be enshrined in the Smithsonian Institute on the start/finish line and was met by a jubilant Buddy Parrott-led pit crew.

   Petty then was ushered up the steps to meet Reagan, who had been interviewed on TV by former driving champion Ned Jarrett just before the dramatic finish unfolded.

   Reagan exuberantly shook hands in the France suite with Petty, a fellow Republican and member of the governing local commission in Randolph County, N.C.  Petty and fellow NASCAR star Bobby Allison had arranged for Reagan’s visit to the Daytona speedway on Independence Day.

   “The president said it blowed his mind that me and Cale would touch fenders going almost 200 miles an hour,” said a grinning Petty.  “He couldn’t understand how we kept control of the cars.

   “We touched fairly hard three or four times.  The last ‘bam’ sort of squirted me out ahead.  When the cars came apart, it seemed to give me the slightest edge.”

   Proclaimed Reagan: “I feel the patriots of years ago would feel right at home in this atmosphere.  Our founding fathers were gutsy like you, and we better not forget that.  Patrick Henry, from what I read about him, would have been out in one of those cars in the race.”

   Of his premature roll onto pit road, Yaborough said, “I guess in the excitement my brain blew up.  I just flat messed up.”

   Yarborough’s error set up one of the greatest trivia questions in NASCAR history: “Who finished second in the 1984 Pepsi 400 at Daytona?”

   Most answer that it was Yarborough, because of a famous photo showing he and Petty side-by-side racing to the checkered flag.

   However, the answer is Harry Gant.  Yarborough’s dive onto pit road cost him second place.  Cale finished third.

   Yarborough praised his rival Petty.

   “Richard drove a heck of a race,” said Cale.  “I’m glad to see him get his 200th.  Now he can work on 300.”

   It wasn’t to be.

   Although Petty continued to race through the 1992 season, he never triumphed as a driver again.
   I don’t view this as a negative.

   Two-hundred is an impressive round number in terms of stock car racing victories, especially when the final triumph outshined the President of The United States.   

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