CHARLOTTE, N.C. — It was popularity vs. performance in voting for NASCAR’s second Hall of Fame class, a five-member group that likely will be remembered for the exclusion of three-time champions Darrell Waltrip and Cale Yarborough.
David Pearson, the only true “lock” of the group, was the leading vote-getter in Wednesday’s lengthy selection process. A year after the “Silver Fox” surprisingly was left out of the inaugural class, he was on all but three of the 53 ballots cast after two hours of spirited debate.
The 105-race winner received a standing ovation when NASCAR chairman Brian France called his name from the Great Hall of the Hall of Fame.
“I am just proud that many people thought enough to vote for me,” Pearson said, insisting he had never been upset at losing by one vote last year to former NASCAR chairman Bill France Jr. “I really didn’t know if I was going to make it (Wednesday) or not because like I said, I was told last year I was going to get in and I didn’t. Nobody never knows ’til they call it right then.”
Not so for Waltrip, who knew by the time the third name was called that he had not made the cut this year.
Three-time Daytona 500 winner Bobby Allison, whose 84 wins are tied for third on the victory list, was the second inductee announced and was followed by Lee Petty, a 54-race winner and patriarch of a Petty Enterprises organization that dominated NASCAR for more than three decades.
Waltrip looked crestfallen when Petty’s name was announced.
“I knew right there that I was probably not going to make it,” said Waltrip, who had campaigned for a spot. “Five people. Kind of hard to fit. Somebody was going to be the odd man out.”
The remaining two slots went to two-time champion Ned Jarrett, who believed he was selected as much for his racing resume as he was for his post-driving career as a popular broadcaster, and pioneer Bud Moore, who fielded cars for Pearson, Allison, Waltrip, Dale Earnhardt, Buddy Baker and Benny Parsons over 37 seasons.
Many wondered how Waltrip and Yarborough could have been excluded when Allison, a driver with very similar numbers, made the class. Waltrip is tied with Allison with 84 career wins, and Yarborough, who won three straight championships and four Daytona 500s, had 83 career victories.
The answer was politics.
Voters said after the inductees were announced that a great deal of the discussion Wednesday focused more on character and off-track contributions to NASCAR than it did on statistics.
Waltrip was a polarizing figure as a driver and has angered many in the industry with his criticism as a broadcaster for Fox. Yarborough has had very little to do with NASCAR since his 1999 retirement.
“You don’t want to say the most popular people are the ones who are going to be in the hall of fame, that should not be (all of it), but people are human beings,” said longtime race promoter Humpy Wheeler, a member of the voting committee. “I don’t think that there’s a vote anytime, anywhere that personal feelings aren’t involved in it.”
