Hornaday belongs no doubt. I hope to see NASCAR include The Winston West series, and the old Busch Grand National North series. Jamie Aube was a top notch driver in that series. I hope the HoF really takes a long hard look at all the NASCAR sanctioned series. They will miss out on a lot of great careers and stories if they don't. If a guy was a multi time champ in any of the touring series, he was way above good. If an avid fan visits the HoF, what new are they going to learn about Petty or Allison? They may find Herb Nabs story quite interesting.
Alan Kulwicki
- Thread starter BradBlaney
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Kulwicki is a Hall of Famer because he proved that an independent underdog could still compete against big teams with stronger backing, and not only win races but also win the championship. That's important because there are a lot of good racers that we'd love to watch who are encouraged by Kulwicki's story. Number of wins is less important, particularly with Kulwicki's career cut short.
KTMLew01
Team Owner
People seem to forget AK won his championship before huge money came in. Next 4-6 years the cost to be competitive probably increased by 4.
Charlie Spencer
Road courses and short tracks.
I think he proved that he caught lightning in a bottle. He didn't prove an independent could still compete, since none after him came close to a championship. It's more like somebody was going to be the last successful independent, and it turned out to be him.
dgbullfrog
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Or maybe he was just the only one with all the skills to do it. Owner, engineer, basically the crew chief from in the car, and driver. I don't think anyone else could do that, no one else was able to do it, and that is why he deserves to be in the HOF.
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sdj
Just a race fan
And on top of this, he allowed drivers like Harvick and a couple others to stay with him and sleep on his couch when they were trying to get going in the sport, he was well deserving of a spot in the HOF.
"People seem to forget AK won his championship before huge money came in. Next 4-6 years the cost to be competitive probably increased by 4."
Relatively huge money had already been in the sport long before 1992.
"I think he proved that he caught lightning in a bottle. He didn't prove an independent could still compete, since none after him came close to a championship. It's more like somebody was going to be the last successful independent, and it turned out to be him."
He didn't get lucky - he worked hard and applied engineering procedures to win. Almost all teams have adopted many of Kulwicki's practices - especially checklists. That other independents haven't been able to duplicate Kulwicki's success only goes to prove how big an accomplishment Kulwicki's championship was.
Relatively huge money had already been in the sport long before 1992.
"I think he proved that he caught lightning in a bottle. He didn't prove an independent could still compete, since none after him came close to a championship. It's more like somebody was going to be the last successful independent, and it turned out to be him."
He didn't get lucky - he worked hard and applied engineering procedures to win. Almost all teams have adopted many of Kulwicki's practices - especially checklists. That other independents haven't been able to duplicate Kulwicki's success only goes to prove how big an accomplishment Kulwicki's championship was.
Bobby seemed to acquire that trait from Carl...just like Alan's dad did. Alan must have carried that with him.
The rules can be changed at will. The whole thing shows everything wrong with having Halls of Fame controlled by partisans.
I was a Geoff Bodine fan growing up. Geoff Bodine had a much better and much greater auto racing career and NASCAR career than Hornaday ever did. Won Daytona, won 18 or so Cup races, finished 3rd in Cup points in I think '91, last driver to win a NASCAR Cup race and lap the field (North Wilkesboro), track record holder at Atlanta, holds a Guinness Book world record for most races won in one year. I will never sit and argue however that he belongs in a NASCAR Hall of Fame.
dgbullfrog
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Thanks for that comprehensive summary of the different categories of HOF'ers.
But not sure I would agree with your assessment of Wallace, after all he is the 9th winningest driver in NASCAR Cup history. He has more wins and a higher winning percentage than everyone below him on that list.
Wallace 55 wins, 7.8%,
Elliot 44 wins, 5%
Martin 40 wins, 4.5%,
Jarrett 32 wins, 4.8%
Labonte 22 wins, 2.5%
Wallace may only have had 1 championship, but so did Elliot and Jarrett, and Martin had 0. I guess you could argue that maybe Labonte did have 2 championships but only 22 wins in his career with a 2.5% winning percentage.
Wallace also finished in top 10 in 49% of his 706 races, only Martin is better at 51%, Labonte 40%, Jarrett and Elliot 39%
In addition, since Harvick's 3 wins in row is in the news, Wallace is also 1 of the 15 driver's on modern era that have won 3 races in a row, which he accomplished 3 times.
There are a lot of angles from which to judge the merits of these driver's careers and you could make a good case for all of these driver's from different perspectives and IMHO they are all deserving, but I personally wouldn't agree that Wallace has weakest case
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downnice
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Kulwicki probably had 12-15 more years left in Nascar and easily could of gotten at least 25 wins as a owner/driver
LewTheShoe
Seeking Skill-based Meritocracy... More HP Less DF
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Getting inducted into any hall of fame based on "coulda woulda shoulda" would be wrong, IMO.
StandOnIt
Farm Truck
, how many years have the oscars or hall of fames, been around and how many years have their been differing opinions on any hall of fame, election by peers, or any contest that had humans and voting involved?
Formerjackman
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When asked about Hall of Fame criteria in a general sense, nearly every person would agree that it should be based on merit, and not become a popularity contest, but then mention a specific person, and many people race to MAKE it a popularity contest. If we are going to put people in the Hall based on potential or what they probably would have accomplished, lets just posthumously put Adam Petty in too. I don't know how many times I've been told Adam was was not only going to be a superstar, but would have been the new king of NASCAR.
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I’m pretty sure everyone knows you don’t want Kulwicki in the hall.
The Adam Petty hyperbole is really not necessary.
The Adam Petty hyperbole is really not necessary.
In the very limited window Alan competed in, he was an over achiever. ROTY to Cup champion in seven years as an independent. We most likely will never see that again. And he did it after turning down what was a top tier ride with Junior Johnson. And who did he beat to win the title? Junior Johnson and Associates with driver Bill Elliot. In my humble opinion Alan gets in based on 1992 alone. That was an incredible feat.
