Nascar Blog

The voting is over and the first five inductees to the Nascar hall of Fame have been decided. They are:
Bill France Sr.
Bill France Jr.
Richard Petty
Dale Earnhardt
Junior Johnson

There has been some little uproar because David Pearson did not make it in, and he should have, but when you limit the first round to five, there are bound to be some hurt feelings for someone. My question is, why only five? This is the first year for the Hall of Fame, you would think they would want more stuff in it to look at, I mean, I have no idea what it looks like, but come on, five people? Why couldn’t they induct ten people in the first round and then do less every year after that. How can a driver who won 105 races, almost 20% of the races he competed in, and 3 championships not be a founding member?

They should have voted in more than 5. Big mistake on their part, and I’m sure some hurt feelings for Pearson and all his fans.

Here is a video of the announcement:

I just finished reading this article on Nascar.com called Petty: ‘07 Chase would be better with different duel where Richard Petty says this years Chase would be better if it were different drivers, since Johnson and Gordon are from the same organization, there is no one for the fans who don’t like Hendrick cars to root for. He said if it was Earnhardt Jr with one of them, or Bowyer still had a shot, they could root for them against the Hendrick driver.

“It’s not good for the sport, no,” Petty said. “It’s too cut-and-dried. You’ve got no [real] competition. You’ve got competition between two teams within the same team. That don’t get it done as far as the general public.

“If one of these drivers happened to be [Dale] Earnhardt [Jr.], it might be a little different. When you get Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson, they’re the same. They’ve just got different names.”

But Petty, who is tied with the late Dale Earnhardt for the all-time lead with seven driving championships and owns a record 200 wins at the equivalent of the Cup level, said the closeness of the current Chase race isn’t compelling enough. He insisted that it is so because Johnson and Gordon have similar personalities and drive for the same owner, Rick Hendrick of Hendrick Motorsports, making it difficult for the average fan to get very excited. Source: Petty: ‘07 Chase would be better with different duel

I guess it just depends on who you are. I am a Jeff Gordon fan, so if you ask me, the race is too damn close, especially considering that Gordon would be 400 points ahead when using the old points system. I think it has been very exciting, and I am certainly happy that Gordon has a shot to win his fifth championship, and, while I don’t hate Jimmie Johnson, I know plenty of Gordon fans who do, and plenty of them root for him to crash and have trouble every week, lol. He is probably right about Dale Earnhardt Jr. fans, etc, they have no one to root for, but I bet they still watch every week, just like they probably did when he won by 722 points in 1975. Okay, I know, 1975’s Nascar is a lot different than today’s, but I think you know what I mean.

I am sure the championship he won in 1979 was a lot more exciting because he only won it by 11 points, when compared to the 1975 championship, and under the old points system, Gordon would be winning by over 400 points, I think, compared to being behind by 30 points under the new system. The King does say at the end that there will always be cycles, one guy always winning or another and that there will be other people to challenge these two, because that’s life, just the way it is.

I wonder if he realizes that Gordon would be knocking on his door a lot sooner under the old system than today’s, as Jeff would’ve already locked up his sixth championship at last weeks race in Texas and would be looking for number seven next year…