NASCAR America: Richard Childress: It’s been ‘quite a ride’ to reach Hall of Fame

Richard Childress became the first owner to win three titles in all three NASCAR national series. He talks about how special it is to be inducted into the Hall of Fame and his special connection to Dale Earnhardt.

Hall of Fame selection ensures Benny Parsons’ last remaining wish

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Shortly before he died in 2007, former NASCAR champion and broadcaster Benny Parsons gave his wife a list of 10 things to do.

Some were personal: He wanted her to grow a vineyard, something he had wanted but hadn’t done.

Some were about community: He wanted her to help find a way for racing to return to North Wilkesboro Speedway.

Some were for family that remain private.

She completed those tasks, but for years, the last item on the list haunted Terri Parsons.

“The one that kept throwing me was ‘Don’t let people forget me,’ ’’ she told NBC Sports. “How does one person do that? There is only so much Facebook you can do.’’

Voters for the NASCAR Hall of Fame showed they had not forgotten Wednesday. While it took until the eighth class for one of the remaining inaugural nominees to be selected, Benny Parsons made it after receiving 85 percent of the vote. He’ll be joined by Mark Martin, Rick Hendrick, Richard Childress and Raymond Parks.

Terri Parsons had a feeling that this year would be different from all the times she had come before, hoping the man she loved and fans adored would be inducted.

She had a restless night of sleep. She was nervous on the drive to the Hall of Fame. Then shortly before the announcement, Hall of Famer Ned Jarrett told her he thought this would be Parsons’ year based on the talk about the 1973 champion among voters.

“When his name was announced, it hit me, this is it,’’ Terri Parsons said. “Nobody is going to forget him. People will know the history of Benny forever.’’

Still, she sat stoically. Jarrett, who spoke to his fellow voters earlier in the day about Parsons’ credentials, reached over and shook Terri Parsons’ wrist. Hall of Famer Bobby Allison turned around and shook her knee.

“I was numb,’’ Terri Parsons said. “I wanted to make sure I heard it right.’’

And then she saw the face of the man she married in 1992 on a video board as the first member of the new Hall of Fame class.

“He’s in,’’ she said to herself.

She later described it as “an awesome moment for me.’’

And for her husband, who became as well known to many fans for his role as broadcaster with NBC and other networks as for his success on the track.

“Somewhere tonight he’s saying fantastic, I’m sure, and we all know the smile he would have on his face,’’ Terri Parsons said.

It’s the smile that will be etched on his pylon when he’s inducted Jan. 20, 2017, into the NASCAR Hall of Fame.

Fastenal signs multi-year extension with Roush Fenway Racing

Roush Fenway Racing announced Wednesday morning that Fastenal has signed a multi-year extension as primary sponsor for Ricky Stenhouse Jr.‘s team. As part of the agreement, Fastenal will increase the number of races it will serve as primary sponsor in 2017.

“We’ve seen a lot of improvement across the board this year,” Ricky Stenhouse Jr. said in a team release. “We are very happy that Fastenal will continue to be a part of the momentum at Roush Fenway. There has been a lot of hard work and effort put into this team and our goal and expectation is to reward Fastenal with a trip to victory lane and the Chase in the near future.”

This is the fifth season Fastenal has served as a primary sponsor for a Roush Fenway Racing Sprint Cup team. This is Fastenal’s second season as the anchor partner on Stenhouse’s car. The announcement did not say how many races Fastenal will serve as the primary sponsor beginning next year. Fastenal has served as the primary sponsor in five of the first 12 points races this season, including the Daytona 500. It also was the primary sponsor for Stenhouse in the Sprint Unlimited.

Stenhouse is 20th in the points entering this weekend’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. He has finished in the top 20 in five of the last six points races.

Joey Logano has chance to earn first All-Star, Coke 600 sweep since 2010

Joey Logano‘s win in the Sprint All-Star Race last Saturday might have been the result of the event’s confusing format, but it was also a result of broader trend.

Logano is kind of good at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Through his first seven seasons in the Sprint Cup Series, Logano made 14 starts at the 1.5-mile track, plus six starts in the All-Star Race.

Logano’s win last weekend was his second visit to victory lane in Charlotte in as many races, including his win last year in the October points race.

Based on his results in the 14 point races, Logano now owns the best average finish at Charlotte among active Cup drivers with an average of 9.57. NASCAR’s totals for the stat date back to the 2005 season, which was four years before Logano’s first full-time campaign.

In his last seven Charlotte starts, Logano has three top five and four top-10 finishes. If Logano were to win Sunday, he would be the first driver since Kurt Busch in 2010 with Team Penske to sweep the All-Star Race and the Coke 600.

Behind Logano in the avg finish category is defending Coca-Cola 600 winner Carl Edwards, with an avg of 10.5. Edwards has seven top five and 15 top-10 finishes at Charlotte since he broke into the Cup series in 2005. Last’s year’s Coke 600 was his first win in 22 Charlotte starts.

“Last year’s win at the Coca-Cola 600 was huge for us,” Edwards said in a press release. “It was a turning point in our season and it’s still sinking in that our 19 team are the defending champions of the Coca-Cola 600.”

Edwards’ win was his first with Joe Gibbs Racing.

“The track changes a lot as we go into the night and you have to stay on top of it and regardless of how long it is,” Edward said. “A lot of it is you have to be on your game at the end and those have been some long nights and I think that at the end of the day that does wear on you and you have to be prepared for it.”

Not among the top drivers in avg finish is a surprising name – Jimmie Johnson. While the six-time Sprint Cup champion is has the best driver rating at Charlotte since 2005 (109.0), his avg finish in that time is 14.9, which trails drivers like Logano, Edwards, Kevin Harvick (13.9), Denny Hamlin (12.8), Kasey Kahne (12.0) and Kyle Busch (13.5).

Since 2005, Johnson has won four of his record seven Charlotte races. His sweep in 2005 was part of four wins in a row for the No. 48 team. His two wins since 2005 came in the 2009 fall race and the 2014 Coke 600.

“Last weekend’s All-Star event was in essence a ‘test’ for this weekend,” said Johnson’s crew chief, Chad Knaus, in a press release. “We learned some important things about tire fall off even though we didn’t get a ton of practice. The 600-miler is a tough, tough race and it takes a lot of patience and some endurance on everyone’s part to be there at the end.”

In his 22 Charlotte starts over the last 10 seasons, Johnson has nine top fives, 11 top-10 finishes and four DNFs.

Since 2013, he has one win, but in the four races he hasn’t finished in the top five, he has failed to finish better than 17th.

NASCAR on NBC podcast, Episode XVIII: Roger Penske

Venerable team owner Roger Penske, who turned 79 in February, made a visit to the infield hospital last week at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

This wasn’t a checkup to determine if Penske, who remains as spry as ever with his racing organization in its 50th year, was at risk of slowing down as he nears his ninth decade.

This was to ensure he could speed up, hammering the accelerator of the 2017 SS Camaro pace car that will lead the field to green Sunday in the 100th running of the Indianapolis 500.

“I guess before you can drive on this racetrack, you need to have a physical,” Penske said with a chuckle during the Wednesday episode of the NASCAR on NBC podcast. “So the good news is I passed my physical, so I guess I’ll now be able to drive the car on race day.”

There was a time when he would have been racing it.

Though he has become synonymous with success in fielding cars – his teams have won a record 16 Indy 500s – Penske started his legendary career in racing as a driver and was named Driver of the Year in 1961 by Sports Illustrated and in 1962 by the New York Times.

Though he hung up his helmet for good in 1965 to focus on his automotive empire, Penske once won a NASCAR race at Riverside International Raceway in 1963, and he discusses those memories from his driving career during the podcast – including another NASCAR race he nearly won at Indianapolis Raceway Park.

“I was leading with about 10 laps to go and lost the rear end and then went out and won the race at Riverside,” he said, laughing. “When I came back (to Indianapolis), they didn’t want to let me in the Speedway because I’d driven a NASCAR car.”

Other topics covered by Penske:

–His first visit to Indy as a 14-year-old in 1951;

–His team’s success since combining its IndyCar and NASCAR operations under one roof;

–His potential future plans for returning to sports cars;

–Why he believes “anything you want, you can get it.”

–What he believes the future holds for IndyCar, NASCAR and auto racing.

You can listen to the podcast by clicking below or download and subscribe to it on iTunes by clicking here. The free subscription will provide automatic downloads of new episodes to your smartphone. It also is available on Stitcher

Here are times cues for easy referencing while listening to the episode:

Ray Evernham hopes for Hall of Fame: ‘Your place in history is determined by other people’

In the Hendrick Motorsports shop where he won three NASCAR titles with Jeff Gordon, Ray Evernham hung a famous sign on the wall with a list of six boxes.

Nobody. Upstart. Contender. Winner. Champion. Dynasty.

Only the first five descriptors were checked – though you could make a case the sixth is why Evernham is on the ballot for the second consecutive year in Wednesday’s NASCAR Hall of Fame voting.

But the former crew chief and team owner said whether he built a dynasty worthy of stock-car immorality is for 57 voters (including an online fan poll) to decide.

“Your place in history really is determined by other people,” Evernham, also an NBCSN analyst, said in a Tuesday phone interview. “We’d get asked all the time about our checklist, ‘When are you going to put that dynasty checkmark up?’ That’s not really one for us to put up. That’s for the sportswriters and fans to decide. I don’t know that’s not our checkmark to make.

“I think the Hall of Fame is really like that. Are you Hall of Fame material? Everyone is going to say, ‘Hell yeah, I am.’  But you really don’t know until the other people vote for you.”

The results for Evernham and 19 other candidates won’t be known until 5 p.m. when the five inductees of the Class of 2017 will be revealed as joining the previous 35 members of the Hall of Fame.

After attending the announcement in Uptown Charlotte last year, Evernham will be monitoring the results from Indiana (he and his family will be attending the 100th running of the Indianapolis 500).

Though the wait isn’t agonizing, the potential honor will be on his mind.

“Some guys will tell you they don’t think about it, and it happens when it happens,” he said. “But you still think about it. I do think about it. You’re being considered for what I consider the highest honor you can be given in a sport. So it’s extremely important. If you’re fortunate to get elected to the Hall of Fame, it puts a period on a career. It’s the highlight of a career.

“So for me, three championships and a couple of Daytona 500 wins and three (Brickyard 400s wins) is great, but to be elected to the Hall of Fame would be the crowning jewel of that career.”

Of the 35 previous inductees, there have been only four full-time mechanics, which might lessen the odds for Evernham (who did receive a vote last year from this voter).

Voted the best crew chief of all time in a 2006 media poll, the New Jersey native watched last year as Jerry Cook, Bobby Isaac, Terry Labtone, O. Bruton Smith and Curtis Turner were voted into the stock-car shrine.

Evernham said it was with the mixed emotions of being honored to make the ballot (which was reduced from 25 to 20 nominees three years ago) but also the competitive disappointment of failing to achieve enshrinement.

“Certainly, I agreed with all the picks that went in there, but you can’t say oh my God, you’re so happy for everybody else that you’re not let down,” he said. “It’s as simple as that. And you should be. Who wouldn’t be?

“You’re amazed when you do get in, and I hope that as people are voting they consider the things I’ve done in the sport, and hopefully it’s worthy enough to get in this year, and if not, I’ll keep waiting and hopefully someday, I get a turn.”

The top three vote-getters who didn’t make the Hall of Fame last year were inaugural NASCAR champion Red Byron, 1973 champion and broadcaster Benny Parsons and Rick Hendrick, the owner whose teams have won a record 11 Cup championships – three with Evernham.

“I’m hoping and pretty confident that he gets in this year,” Evernham said of Hendrick. “I think a lot of people pass him up because he’s still active. But when you look at the numbers of what he’s done in the sport, how can he be denied? He’s made such a huge impact in NASCAR since the mid-80s.”

Evernham has been close to other recent inductees, too, such as Cook, a former Modified champion, and 2015 inductee Bill Elliott, who drove for Evernham from 2001-03.

“I know how much it meant to Jerry; this was the crown jewel for him,” Evernham said. “Bill Elliott is a pretty quiet guy who doesn’t say much, but I can tell you spending time with Bill, getting into that Hall of Fame was really important.

“When Bill and I won the (2002) Brickyard together, I could tell that was important to him because that was one of the things that he didn’t have that he really wanted. When he got elected to the Hall of Fame, it was like a giant sigh of relief or almost peace. The people who do get in, you’ve got a great feeling that your body of work has been recognized and appreciated. In the end, that’s all you get. When you do a lot of things in life, to be appreciated by the sport or the people involved in the sport that you’ve committed your life to, the greatest thing that can happen is that in the end they say that you did a good job. When you get elected to the Hall of Fame, that’s pretty much what they’re saying.”

Evernham, who helped groom a crew chief “tree” that includes Chad Knaus, Steve Letarte, Rodney Childers and Tony Gibson, said he has wondered if he will earn that career-defining validation since he stopped being able to enjoy it on a weekly basis.

“While you’re (racing), you have a measurement all the time in the sport,” he said. “You’re winning, you’re losing, you’re getting better, you’re doing things. But when you’re out of it a while, you’re wondering, ‘Did I make a difference? Was I any good? Where do I stack up in the competition?’ When you’re racing it’s easy to find that out every week. Where your place is in history comes a little bit later.

“I know what I’d like it to feel like, but until it happens, I think only those who have been inducted can tell you. To me it seems more like a quiet sigh of relief that, ‘Yes, I made a difference. Yes, I mattered.’ ”

Poll: Who would you select for next NASCAR Hall of Fame class?

Voters will gather Wednesday in Charlotte, North Carolina, to select the next five-member class to the NASCAR Hall of Fame.

The class will be introduced on NASCAR America at 5 p.m. ET Wednesday on NBCSN. Krista Voda will host and be joined by analysts Steve Letarte and Jeff Burton.

Here are the Hall of Fame candidates followed by a poll for you to make your selection. Which five would you choose?

Buddy Baker, won 19 times in NASCAR’s premier (now Sprint Cup) series, including the Daytona 500 and Southern 500

Red Byron, first NASCAR premier series champion, in 1949

Richard Childress, 11-time car owner champion in NASCAR’s three national series

Ray Evernham, three-time NASCAR premier series championship crew chief

Ray Fox, legendary engine builder, crew chief and car owner

Rick Hendrick, 14-time car owner champion in NASCAR’s three national series

Ron Hornaday Jr., four-time NASCAR Camping World Truck Series champion

Harry Hyde, 1970 NASCAR

Alan Kulwicki, 1992 NASCAR premier series champion

Mark Martin, 96-time race winner in NASCAR national series competition

Hershel McGriff, 1986 NASCAR west series champion

Raymond Parks, NASCAR’s first champion car owner

Benny Parsons, 1973 NASCAR premier series champion

Larry Phillips, five-time NASCAR weekly series national champion

Jack Roush, five-time car owner champion in NASCAR’s three national series

Ricky Rudd, won 23 times in NASCAR’s premier series, including the 1997 Brickyard 400

Ken Squier, legendary radio and television broadcaster; inaugural winner/namesake of Squier-Hall Award for NASCAR Media Excellence

Mike Stefanik, winner of record-tying nine NASCAR championships

Waddell Wilson, won three NASCAR premier series championships as an engine builder

Robert Yates, won NASCAR premier series championship as both an engine builder and owner

Who would you select for the next NASCAR Hall of Fame class? (Pick 5 only)
Buddy Baker
Red Byron
Richard Childress
Ray Evernham
Ray Fox
Rick Hendrick
Ron Hornaday Jr.
Harry Hyde
Alan Kulwicki
Mark Martin
Hershel McGriff
Raymond Parks
Benny Parsons
Larry Phillips
Jack Roush
Ricky Rudd
Ken Squier
Mike Stefanik
Waddell Wilson
Robert Yates

Vote

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