NASCAR Hall of Fame Thoughts
Written by Marc Boland · March 1, 2006
With reports of Charlotte being all but assured of being the “winner” in the NASCAR Hall of Fame bidding process some have turned their eyes towards thoughts of who should be among the first to be enshrined.
Mark Zeske of Sport Illustrated has a piece up on the first Hall of Fame inductees. When this process first started in June ‘05 I posted my selections and soon found it’s not an easy task. With 50 plus years of NASCAR history to wade through, and so many that have made a lasting mark on the sport, a inaugural class of 25-30 would still leave some waiting for enterence to the Hall.
Everyone has their own thoughts and Zeske is no different, some of his selections I have on my list, but would also agree with those of his that are not. But he brings up a couple points I didn’t think of.
First is the cars themselves. It’s his belief, and I agree, the NHoF should have an exhibit of the cars that provided the means for NASCAR legends to become “legendary” and as he puts it, “showcasing the cars in essence puts the visitors on pit row.” The only problem I see would be some of the cars deserving at place in the Hall have long since been used to wrap the contents or your tuna fish lunch and many others are on display in other museums. Two solutions would be to have replicas built for those that are gone and follow the practice of art museums and rotate one of a kind original cars through the various Halls of Fame that exist.
His second point is to make the Hall interactive. To be honest, (and it goes without saying but I will anyway), if the NASCAR Hall doesn’t have hands on pit stop simulators and actual race car simulators for fans to enjoy they are living in the digital dark ages of Pong.
Zeske’s most intriguing suggestion is probably not feasible, at least not without one hell of a lot of prior planning and land acquisition, but is an excellent idea.
Put the museum in the middle of a test track.Let every team have 10 free tests at the track during the year. That way, on every visit the fan will be right in the middle of one of his or her driving heroes in action.
Far and away this is his best suggestion and I have no idea whether the location Charlotte has aquired would facilitate it but it has a lot of merit. A suggestion I would add is to have NASCAR, Goodyear and the ARCA Series all contribute to the tracks construction.
Why ARCA? Simple, it has become the defacto development series (along with the BGN and NCTS Series’) for the multi-car NASCAR teams. And with Goodyear hand picking drivers this year for tire testing, and in the process giving certain teams a testing advantage over others, they could take a portion of the ten testing days for their own use and allow all teams to tire test on certain days.
Be on the look-out for a post in the next few days of my top ten cars that should be on display in the NASCAR Hall. I can almost count ten without thinking, just as the first drivers/owners/broadcasters, the legendary cars may far exceed what a “short list” can contain.
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