NASCAR Hall of Fame announces its 2018 class

Photos courtesy NASCAR Hall of Fame.

Each year, a panel of NASCAR luminaries (including officials, retired drivers, track owners, and the current Monster Energy series champion), media, manufacturers’ representatives and fans vote on candidates to be inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame. From a list of 20 nominees, just five are selected, and for 2018 that distinguished list includes a pair of standout drivers; a crew chief and an engine builder who later dabbled in team ownership; and a broadcaster who coined the phrase “The Great American Race” for the Daytona 500.

Red Byron began his racing career in the prewar years, but served as a flight engineer and tail gunner aboard a B-24 during World War II. During his 58th mission, his plane was struck by shrapnel, leaving Byron with a serious leg injury that doctors struggled to repair. Told he may not walk again, let alone race, Byron proved them wrong by winning the very first race sanctioned by NASCAR, held on the sands of Daytona Beach, Florida, in February 1948. He’d earn a series championship in the Modified division that year as well, before shifting to the Strictly Stock division for 1949. There, Byron won two of the six races he entered, earning a top-five finish in two others, enough to capture a second NASCAR championship, despite being hampered by a cumbersome leg brace. Though he stepped away from NASCAR during the 1951 season, Byron competed in sports car events as late as 1956, and worked (with Briggs Cunningham and others) to develop an American car capable of winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans. He died of a heart attack in 1960, at the age of 45, while managing a team running in Sports Car Club of America competition.

Ray Evernham rose to fame as Jeff Gordon’s crew chief, helping the “Rainbow Warrior” team amass 47 NASCAR Cup series wins and three series championships, in 1995, 1997 and 1998. Credited with revolutionizing the pit stop by incorporating athletes (instead of mechanics) trained for one specific task, his methods reduced the average duration of a tire change from 20 seconds to less than 15. As a team owner, Evernham helped Dodge return to NASCAR, guiding his drivers to 13 wins before selling his majority in the team in 2007. After serving as a race analyst for ESPN and ABC, Evernham joined Hendrick Motorsport as a consultant in 2014.

Ken Squier began his on-the-air work at age 12, in his father’s Waterbury, Vermont, radio station, WDEV. A passion for motorsports soon saw him calling the action at local dirt track races, and in 1970, he co-founded the Motor Racing Network (the “Voice of NASCAR”) with NASCAR founder Bill France, Sr. In 1972, he joined CBS Sports, but it took until 1979 to convince the network to air the Daytona 500, pitched as the “Great American Race,” in its flag-to-flag entirety. Through 1997, Squires was the primary NASCAR announcer on a variety of networks, and it’s no exaggeration to say his passion and enthusiasm for the sport of stock car racing helped to grow its popularity among television viewers.

Robert Yates began his motorsport career racing dragsters while still in high school. After graduating from North Carolina’s Wilson Technical College in 1964, with a degree in mechanical engineering, Yates later found work with Holman-Moody Racing. In 1971, he joined Junior Johnson & Associates, where his prowess at building engines contributed to the success of Cale Yarborough, who earned three consecutive NASCAR Cup championships in 1976-’78. In 1983, his work helped Bobby Allison (a former Junior Johnson teammate), capture the title with DiGard Racing. In 1988, Yates became a team owner, and in 1992, his driver Davey Allison won the Daytona 500 on the way to a third-place finish in season points. In 1996, Yates Racing expanded to a two-car effort with drivers Dale Jarrett and Ernie Irvin, and in 1999 Jarrett captured the team’s sole championship.

Ron Hornaday, Jr. began his career racing motorcycles and go karts before moving on to stock cars. In 1992, at age 34, he won his first Southwest Series championship, an accomplishment he repeated the following year. His first Winston Cup start came in 1992 as well, but his big break came in 1995 after Dale Earnhardt hired him to drive in the then-new Craftsman Truck Series. In his first season, he finished third in points, but captured the series championship in his sophomore year. He’d go on to earn three more championships (in 1998, 2007 and 2009), winning five consecutive races during the 2009 season. His number of Truck Series championships is a record, as is his number of top-five and top-10 finishes (158 and 234, respectively).

Jim France, son of NASCAR founder Bill France Sr., executive vice president of NASCAR, chairman of International Speedway Corporation, and founder of  the Grand-Am Road Racing series (merged with the American Le Mans Series in 2012 to form the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship), received the 2018 NASCAR Hall of Fame Landmark Award.