NASCAR has announced its 2012 Hall of Fame class, and the third group of men to be inducted into that sports Hall of Fame. Before we go any further let us list the five men to be enshrined next January; driver Cale Yarborough, driver Darrell Waltrip, crew chief Dale Inman, modified driver Richie Evans, and owner Glen Wood. It is an interesting class, and finally one that I fully support.
It seems a little ridiculous to me that it took this long for Waltrip to be enshrined. I think he may have hurt his chances with some of his antics during his driving career, but with 84 career wins (tied for third most all time) I think they should have been enshrined him far sooner than this. In fact he probably should have had been in the first class.
Dale Inman won 8 cup titles as a crew chief and is the first crew chief inducted into NASCAR’s hall. At least the first guy known for being a crew chief that is. There was no finer crew chief and he is very deserving of being the first crew chief inducted. This open up an interesting can of worms as there are many crew chiefs with big enough resumes to warrant induction.
I don’t know much about Evans, but he dominated his sport for a number of years and had so much fun doing it never felt the need to move up to a level where he would have been more of a household name. NASCAR deserves a lot of credit for inducting him in just the third Hall of Fame class. Glen Wood has the resume for induction no doubt, and I am very happy he joins Junior Johnson and Bud Moore as guys who made it in primarily for what they did as car owners.
