NASCAR Finally Gets a Hall of Fame to Honor Its Greats of the Past

• Six decades after the first Cup race, NASCAR opened the NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte in May of 2010.

• While Charlotte seemed an obvious choice for the Hall of Fame—most NASCAR teams are based in that region—Daytona Beach and Atlanta had been finalists, and Richmond, Kansas City, Detroit, and a site in Alabama had shown interest.

• And, not surprisingly, there was some controversy within the inaugural Class of 2010.

It was a long and winding road, this journey from idea to approval to planning to location to building to opening with great hype and hoopla. The NASCAR Hall of Fame, that is.

More than 61 years passed between the first Cup Series race in June of 1949 to the opening of the NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte in May of 2010. During that time NASCAR sanctioned almost 2,300 races under the Strictly Stock, Grand National, Winston Cup, Nextel Cup, Sprint Cup, Monster Energy, and NASCAR Cup Series banners.

Every other major American sport had built and maintained halls of fame for decades upon decades before NASCAR got around to it. They included pro, college, and high school football halls of fame. Ditto for basketball, baseball, and hockey at almost every level. And halls for open-wheel racing, tennis, golf, boxing, “real” wrestling, swimming, field hockey, track/field, and soccer.