“Doc,” as he was known to friends and associates, was one of the most respected and admired men in automobile racing. He founded Pocono Raceway in the early 1960s and has been at the helm of Pocono ever since. Under his leadership, the track grew in stature and has hosted 68 Cup Series events. His passion and drive helped Pocono succeed when other tracks fell by the wayside. Pocono is the only remaining family-owned and run track on the Cup schedule.

Mattioli was always concerned that race fans and race car drivers and their families were treated with the utmost respect and constantly upgraded procedures and raceway facilities to meet that goal. He kept his fingers on the pulse of stock-car racing and read everything printed concerning the sport. He was in the office daily, until this past fall, and oversaw all aspects of the track’s operations.

At age 83, Mattioli spearheaded an ambitious solar-energy project. He built a three-megawatt photovoltaic solar energy system on 25 acres at the raceway. It is the world’s largest solar-powered sports facility, making Pocono a leader in the renewable energy and environmental fields.

Mattioli also was well respected in the community. In 2009, he received the Philanthropic Lifetime Achievement Award presented by the Association of Fundraising Professionals for his generous and continuous contributions to local civic organizations, hospitals, schools and charities. He served on the board of directors of numerous organizations and was dedicated to improving the quality of life in northeastern Pennsylvania.

Mattioli served in the Pacific during World War II as a Navy medic. Using the G.I. Bill, he enrolled in the dentistry program at Temple University (where he met his soon to be wife, Rose.) Upon graduation, he developed his dental practice into a very lucrative business by working 12 to 14 hour days, six and sometimes seven days a week. He then began investing in and developing properties in Philadelphia and northeastern Pennsylvania where he became involved in the start-up of Pocono Raceway.

Dr. Mattioli is survived by his wife of 63 years, Dr. Rose Mattioli, daughters Louie and Michele and son Joseph Mattioli III, seven grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. His passing leaves a void in the NASCAR community and especially to his family and extended Pocono Raceway family.

“The entire NASCAR family is saddened by the loss of a true icon in our sport, Dr. Joe Mattioli,” NASCAR chairman Brian France said. “Doc’s relationship with my family reaches three generations, all the way back to my grandfather. His passion for the sport will live on in the hearts of his family and our fans. His contributions to our sport are wide-spread. We have lost a great leader — and a great person. NASCAR offers its deepest condolences to his wife, Rose, and the entire Mattioli family.”

Service srrangements for Mattioli are incomplete at this time.

And from the moment when he first burst on the scene with an ex-Mario Andretti Ford to this October when his ride around the treacherous circuit at Bathurst Australia in a V-8 supercar was seen and enjoyed on YouTube around the world, he entertains us still as the lead analyst for FOX Sports and Speed.

Cale famously nicknamed him Jaws. Boy, is that not the best racing nickname ever, and it was the most appropriate. But tonight, we will call Darrell Waltrip a NASCAR Hall of Famer.

JEFF HAMMOND: Brother, I’ve got your back, even when your back is against the wall. Before we start, I want to congratulate the Evans family, Dale Inman, Mr. Wood, and of course my old buddy Cale. Congratulations.

What each has brought to the sport of NASCAR is immeasurable, and tonight it’s only fitting that you take your rightful place in this Hall of Fame. They really should probably call it the Hall of Heroes because all my heroes are here. But now it’s time to honor the fifth and final member of the class of 2012. So let me set the stage for a few newer fans here in NASCAR.

I worked for that man, Junior Johnson. I worked with that man, Cale Yarborough. I worked with and eventually for that man, Darrell Waltrip. When Cale decided at the end of 1980 season to cut back to a partial schedule, why in the world did it have to be Darrell Waltrip that walked through the door of the shop? Darrell knows this, OK: I didn’t like him, and I didn’t want him to be our driver. Part of it was because he was beating us on the track more frequently, but the other part was, and you’ve heard this before, he would never shut up. He was always running his mouth.

Our sport has never seen the likes of Darrell Waltrip before, both on the track or off the track. I mean, things got off to a rocky start in 1981, with our new driver and our new sponsor Mountain Dew. When Darrell first came in, the first thing he wanted to do was tell us what was wrong with our race cars. Can you believe that? Those race cars had won three straight championships, but here he was wanting to tell us what he wanted changed.

Well, needless to say, things didn’t go over very well. The crew didn’t like him. He didn’t like the crew. And it stayed that way until Junior got fed up with it, and he gave all of us, Darrell included, a lesson in economics. Well, actually it was pretty simple math: The bickering was to stop immediately. Everyone would either find a way to work together or, Darrell included, everyone would find their way to the unemployment line together.

Now, folks, I don’t know about you, but that’s an attention getter, Junior Johnson style. Well, guess what? We started running better. We were, shall we say, motivated. Together we won 12 races and the championship in 1981. In 1982 it was virtually a whole new team with me as the crew chief. We won 12 more races and our second championship. We won again in 1985, making up a huge point deficit and overtaking Bill Elliott.

There is a reason why Darrell was named NASCAR driver of the decade for the ’80s, and the record books don’t lie. Think about it: From 1977 to 1987, Darrell never finished lower than fifth in the points. Now, as much as Darrell would absolutely love — I mean, he would love for me to talk about all the incredible statistics that he has accomplished, but there’s not simply enough time to do it. Sorry, Darrell. I know that really hurts.

Darrell was the bridge from old school NASCAR to the modern era of our sport. The media loved him, very simply because, as he likes to say, there wasn’t a controversy that he couldn’t add to. And this is part that, I can’t believe I wrote this in here, I have to admit, he was good looking, and you never met a camera or a microphone that he didn’t like. But his rapid fire wit off the track was only exceeded by his God-given talent on the track. You’re a pretty incredible guy. You really are.

And he truly was NASCAR’s version of Muhammad Ali. I think Brian France would readily admit that Darrell, with his passion and love for our sport, helped to take NASCAR to another level when it was needed. So buddy, here we are together after all these years. You know, for the last 11 years, we’ve been on a new team, our NASCAR on FOX team, led by our boss David Hill. Mr. Hill, a lot like Junior Johnson, accepts nothing but the best from all of us, including Mike Joy, all of us, each and every race weekend.

One of the coolest things that happened to me was in March of 2007 when Darrell’s business manager, Van Colley, called me on his cell phone, and he said, hey, buddy, I’ve got some great news, DW and you have been nominated for an Emmy for your work on FOX. I said, oh, man, how wonderful is this. So here we were once again all these years later both in our second careers sharing some more success together.

I’d venture to say our sport will never see the likes of Darrell Waltrip ever again. He truly is one to a box. Right now it is my honor on the 20th day of January, 2012, to present you with your inductee ring to officially induct Darrell Waltrip into the NASCAR Hall of Fame.

DARRELL WALTRIP: I’ve got to straighten something out before we can get to any of this other stuff. It wasn’t that I talked that much. Those other guys didn’t talk at all. So it just looked like I was talking a lot. I had to fill in the blanks. If there is something that needed to be explained, DW had to explain it. So it looked like that I talked a lot, but I honestly didn’t. I just want you to know that, for you new fans that have listened to all this stuff tonight.

But Jeff, thank you so much. Hammond and I, we’ve had a great driver-crew chief relationship, and that’s the success in this sport, just like Dale and Richard, Hammond and I, we went through a lot of ups and downs. We won the Daytona 500 together, with Stevie helping us a little bit along the way. We retired from racing together. We started our FOX journey together. Here he is tonight, and he just whispered in my ear, “Don’t kiss me like you did Brian France.” And I can’t get Mike Joy to come out here because he’s afraid I’m going to grab him and start yelling, is this the Hall of Fame.

I left a strong impression on both of them. This is a red letter night. You have to admit. Bobby Allison said I deserved to be in the Hall of Fame. Does anybody in here know how big that is? That’s big. And he swore to me that they weren’t holding a gun to him or anything, he did it right out of the goodness of his heart. So thank you, Bobby.

Richie Evans, I want to congratulate the Richie Evans family, great job tonight. I watched Richie win race after race after race at Martinsville, and in my world, it’s what I call a wheel man, and Richie Evans was the best wheel man I ever saw, and when he raced at Martinsville — guys, old guys particularly, is there not a race car — is there not a first race car that we ever painted that we didn’t have to go get the paint from somewhere, or mix up a whole bunch of spare cans of paint, mix them all together and see what the heck we’re going to get? I know somewhere in Rome, New York, I saw these guys, there’s a men’s shop missing a whole bunch of orange ties. Just like that street department is missing a whole bunch of orange paint.

Dale Inman, I tell Dale this all the time, and I’m serious, if I got into a little run-in with Richard, all Richard ever really did, he just poked me in the chest with — it looked like ET’s finger, so I knew he’d go away. But Dale on the other hand, if I had a problem and Dale remembered I had a little problem with Richard one race at Richmond, I wasn’t looking for Richard to apologize, I was looking for Dale to apologize because Dale Inman would hurt you.

Mr. Wood, Leonard and Glen and David Pearson, my great hero friend David Pearson, when I came into this sport, not a lot of people warmed up to my style. I couldn’t understand why; charming, nice, friendly, very conversational, but a lot of guys didn’t seem to warm up to that. But David Pearson did, and if I had a problem, if I needed help, I could go to Leonard Wood and David Pearson. If I had a problem with my car, Leonard was there. If I had something I needed to know about driving, David was there, and I always appreciated that very much.

This is hard for you to believe, I know, but when Cale said he was going to cut back on his schedule in 1980, he came to me and told me before he told anyone else. He knew that Junior liked my style – thank you, Junior. He liked my style until he hired me, and then he thought maybe I needed to work on it a little bit. Cale has been one of my best friends through the years. He gave me a great tip to go drive for Junior, and how many of you guys in here have had another driver give you a nickname as great as Jaws? I mean, that’s a buddy right there.

You know, this night, these men and the people in this room, they’re what inspire me. They are what inspired me to be a race car driver. They are what inspired me to — Cale said he climbed a ladder. I feel like I climbed a lot of mountains, and the climbing was rough. But these men in this room inspired me to be successful and to be good, and they gave me great examples of how to do that for every one of them from all the inductees from the prior hall classes, Richard, Bobby, David, thank you very much for being patient with me and helping me when I needed it.

You know, before the night started and I was talking to Stevie, and I said, boy, honey, I just hope I don’t get emotional and break down somewhere along the way and tear up, and she said, “DW, when you talk about something you’re passionate about, you’re going to get a little emotional.” Well, I’m passionate about a lot of things. I’m passionate about what I’ve done. I’m passionate about my career, but I’m most passionate about my family.

My mom, sitting right up here on the front row in her wheelchair, Momma, thank you for being here tonight. What an effort it took for her to be here. I called mom and I said, “Mom, are you going to be okay? It’s a long evening. Do you think you can hang in there?” She said, “Son, I’ve been with you all the way. I’m not going to miss this for anything in the world.” So Mom, thank you for being here.

I can tell you a quick story about mom. When I started racing, we started racing go-karts. We had a little storage room that we worked on the go-kart in. It wasn’t even a garage. So in order to build the engines for the go-kart, we needed a place to work on them. So it always ended up being in the kitchen, in mom’s kitchen. Daddy would wash the parts in the sink. I know now why that fried chicken always tasted like gasoline, by the way. We’d wash the parts in the sink and then we’d take the parts over to the kitchen table. You ever see one of those yellow formica kitchen tables back in the 60s? We chipped it one time, and that just about ended my go-kart career, messing up mom’s kitchen table.

But you know, she let me follow my passion, and she was there for me, her and dad, and they did a lot. They went to every race. But the other part of my family is my brothers and sisters. Five kids, dad drove a Pepsi truck, mom worked at the IGA and we didn’t have a lot of extra cash. So it took a lot to keep me in business. It took a lot for me to be able to race my go-kart and pursue my dream, and my brothers and sister, Caroline who’s worked for me for 30 years, Bob Wall who helped me start the race team in 91, my sweet sister Connie. And by the way, Michael and I, we’re the only two brothers that have ever won the Daytona 500, so I appreciated him for that.

And then it’s been the most important people in my life are right here on the front row. This has been a big week for DW. Not just tonight. I mean, this is huge for my career, but in my family life, we found out that Fausto and Jessica, my oldest daughter and her husband, are expecting their first child. So I’ll be a grandfather. And if you ever want to see DW speechless, my Sarah, who was on a mission trip in the Philippines, as early as Wednesday, we talked to her earlier in the week, Dad, I wish I could be there, I know it’s a big night, I’m sorry I can’t make it. When I checked into the hotel room last night and I opened the door, my Sarah was there. She flew 25 hours to be here tonight, and she’s got to turn around Sunday and fly 25 hours back to the Philippines. That’s sweet. That means a lot to an old dad, trust me.

And then there’s the redhead. If there was a Hall of Fame for drivers’ wives, Stevie would be in the first class. We’ve been married 42 years, and like a lot of drivers and people in racing, it was tough back in the day. I mean, it was just one week to the next. What you won one week, you paid enough bills so you could make it to the next week. I’ll drop this in right here, Cale: You said about starting your own team. Well, I started my own team, as you well know, but I was eating those black eyed peas before I was in the business very long, like you said.

But the funny thing about Stevie is when she came to the sport in 1972, I know you’re going to find this hard to believe, but there could be no women in the pits. You could have no women in the pits, in the garage. There just was kind of a — it was men only.

I didn’t like that, Stevie didn’t like that. So I talked to I think the competition director was Bill Gaswin. I said, what do I got to do. He said, you can have car owners and crew members, and that’s it. The next week, Stevie was the car owner and she was a crew member.

Now, to say it went smooth would be an understatement. My very first race in the Daytona 500, we had only run short tracks all over the country, a lot of short tracks. Hundred lappers were about as long a race as we’d ever run. We get in the Daytona 500 and it’s not going very well. I’m getting slower and slower, and Jake Elder was there, and Jake said what’s wrong with him, and Stevie said, “I think he’s hungry,” and Jake said, “He’s hungry?” She said, “Yeah, he’s never driven a race this long, I’m pretty sure he’s hungry.”

So Jake kind of blew that off and went about his business, and Stevie figured she’d better run to the truck and make me a sandwich. So she ran to the truck, got some ham and cheese, made a sandwich, ran back out to the pit, and when I came in the pit to make my green flag pit stop, guess who came over the wall. Stevie Waltrip handed me a ham and cheese sandwich.

Now, can anybody in here top that? Handed me a ham and cheese sandwich. Jake and them are changing tires and I take this sandwich, and I look at her, and about that time the jack dropped and I knew I had to go, so I just threw the thing out the window, and as I drove away they said Stevie was standing there shaking her head going, I thought he liked ham and cheese.

But this is the best one yet: So Jake Elder, who was old school like Herb and like Leonard and some of them, he kept saying, we’re never going to win a race as long as that woman is in the pit. I said, really? You can’t have a woman in the pit.

I said, all right, let me put it to you this way, Jake: We get 4.2 miles to the gallon of gas. This is a two-and-a-half-mile track, and it’s a 500-mile race. How many miles can we go on a tank of fuel? Go get that woman.

You know, Stevie says this all the time, not so much anymore, but she likes to say she’s been married to two men with the same name. For you folks who are maybe new to the sport, I hope you feel the same way. I have had two lives, and I’ve had two careers. When I came onto the scene, I was not a nice guy. I was an antagonist. It just seemed to work for me. Nobody else seemed to — I always thought that a lot of people say they take the path of least resistance. I took the path I couldn’t resist. You know why? There ain’t nobody on it. So a lot of times I was off on my own.

But through a lot of hard work, and Richard Petty, you may never remember this, but he put his arm around me one day and he wasn’t even mad at me, and he said, “Boy, keep going like you are, you’re going to have a hard time finding a sponsor.” Does any of this sound familiar? Antagonist, hard time to find a sponsor, a little trouble on the track? If it doesn’t, it should. And I took that to heart, because Richard Petty, he gave you good advice. When he told you something, you take it to the bank.

So I worked hard on changing my image, and by golly, in 1989 and 1990 I was able to win the most popular driver of this sport, and that’s one of the biggest awards in my whole career.

A lot of people have been with me on this amazing journey. Junior, I could have never — I wouldn’t be standing here tonight. I was just some big-mouthed driver from Tennessee that Junior calmed me down and taught me how to win a lot of races and how to win championships. He gave me some good advice, too, when I started my own team. Somebody asked him about it, and he said, yeah, well, he’s finally got an owner as smart as the driver.

But one of his favorite things to do to me, he inspired me a lot, he called me Cale a lot. When I first started driving for him, he’d come on the radio and he’d say, “Pit next time by, Cale.” I’d say, “Dadgummit, Junior, my name ain’t Cale.” “10-4, Cale.” I loved driving for Junior Johnson. He taught me a lot. It was fun to work for him, and of course went on and did other things. But it’s kind of interesting that I drove — I rode on that Pepsi-Cola truck with my dad selling Pepsis and Mountain Dew, and by golly we had Mountain Dew and Pepsi for a sponsor. I always just thought that was such a cool deal, from a little boy on a Pepsi truck to them sponsoring my race car.

And I had Rick Hendrick, and Rick told me, DW, if we get the right people we’ll build the right cars, and Richard Petty was a big people person and he gave me some good advice. He said, always remember this: You can be multi-rich but you can’t be multi-broke. Think about that.

He’s not here so I can tell you this. I tell David Hill all the time, and if you don’t know David Hill, I wish we could have a meet and greet tonight and you could meet him. This man is a genius, not because he hired me, that was just a stroke of luck, I think. But he gave me a chance for a second career, and it’s something I’m equally as passionate about. Working on television keeps me in the sport, and it lets me share my passion with all the great fans that we get to tune in every week on NASCAR on FOX.

I’ve got the greatest team. I tell the guys all the time on the NASCAR on FOX team, and most of them are here tonight, and thank all of you for coming, this is the best race team I’ve ever been on. They do the best job week in and week out, and they like me, and I think it’s contagious. Larry, who is a passionate crew chief, Jeff, who is a passionate crew chief, I’m a passionate driver, and I think that enthusiasm and the love for this sport is contagious, and it shows every week when we go on television, so thank all my NASCAR on FOX buddies for the great job that y’all do.

I’ve got a little mafia back here, a little posse, the Nashville posse, John and Ed and Melvin and Gordon, these are people that have been my friends. They flew over for this tonight. Thank y’all for coming.

I’ve got to mention Floss because Floss took good care of Stevie and I and gave us a place to lay our head down a lot of nights when we didn’t have somewhere to go, so thank you, Floss.

Joe Carver, my good buddy from Nashville taught me a lot about how to do interviews and how to work with media, and thank you, Joe.

Bill France, Jr., one of my biggest honors ever was the night I got the Bill France Award of Excellence, and Bill in 2000 when he was so sick came all the way to New York sitting in his wheelchair right there to see me accept that award. That was a huge, huge deal for me. We started our careers together in 1972. It was kind of known as the modern era.

They always told me, if you’re going to dream, dream as big as you possibly can because you know what, it might just come true. And tonight, I’m living proof of that.

I do want to point out one thing real quick. Stevie’s sister and her family are all over here, Carol and the kids. They went to the races with us all the time. I’m glad they’re here tonight.

I wanted to mention my grandmother who took me to races when I was a little boy, seven years old. I got bit by the bug. G.C. Spencer was her hero, he became my hero, and I told granny one Sunday when we were standing in victory circle with G.C. Spencer, I said, “Granny, someday I’m going to do that,” and she said, “Boy, that’s impossible.” I took that word and I broke it down, I’m possible, I’m possible, and I took that with me everywhere I ever went.

The picture that’s up there is the 1975 race, my first win, and guess who was in victory circle with me, my granny. My grandmother was there, Jake has got his arm around her. Robert G. is over here, he’s on the right, that’s Dale, Jr.’s grandfather, Stevie up there, and that’s my grandmother and grandfather, my mom and dad are back there, and that was on Mother’s Day weekend in 1975, and by golly, that’s where the dream started, and here’s where it ends tonight.

’85 was a great year, ’82, man, we dominated everything in ’82 as Jeff said. ’85, we didn’t dominate but we were able to turn the heat up on Bill a little bit and we were able to win the 1985 championship. That year we made up 206 points after the Southern 500 to win that ’85 championship.

When Junior Johnson, when he turned up the wick, like Hammond said, when he said get it done, we all went to work and got it done, and that was the motivation that I had, one thing when I drove for Junior, I never wanted to disappoint him. I always wanted to do the best I could. In 1987 I went with Rick Hendrick in the tide ride and everybody said, finally a sponsor that will clean up his act, and by golly, they were right. And on my 17th try driving car No. 17 and the purse was $1.7 million and I got 17 letters in my name and my 17 handicap is 17, so on and so on, and in my 17th try I won the Great American Race, the Daytona 500.

I started my own team, and not too sure that was a good idea, but kind of hard-headed, had to try it. Rick Hendrick always told me if I would have stayed with him — like Cale said if he would have stayed with Junior, if I would have stayed with Rick Hendrick he said I would have won 100 races and ten championships. Based on he’s doing and how I did, I’m inclined to agree with him. I think he’s probably right.

It all comes down to this, folks: I’ve had a marvelous career. My faith is important to me. One of my biggest accomplishments that I never get a chance to talk about is Motor Racing Outreach. Our president is here tonight, Billy Malden. I had a lot of things out of order, and my priorities were one of them. I loved racing. It’s all I cared about. I didn’t care about anything else, and it bit me. After a while it got me, and I finally realized that I had my priorities wrong. It was God, family and racing, and when I got that straight, I became a much better man, and I actually ended up being NASCAR’s most popular driver. I was blessed; I was given a second chance.

In closing I’ll say this: It’s not about me. It’s not about what I’ve done. It’s not about wins, statistics or anything else. Tonight it’s about family, thank the good Lord that they’re all here. It’s about all my friends who came from miles away to be here, and it’s about all the fans that are back there that have supported me all through the years, and it’s about NASCAR and what they’ve been able to do with it sport, and I’m just glad I was able to be a part of it.

I’m probably running a little bit long but I’ve got to tell you this quick story. Just one more story, I promise. You see this ring right here? In 1982, I won the championship, and Bill France — in ’81 I won the championship and they gave me a ring and it was a little rinky-dink ring. I didn’t think it was very pretty and it wasn’t very big, and I thought, man, that’s really not very indicative of how hard you have to work to get this thing. So in ’82 Bill France called me up and he said if you win the championship again this year, you can pick the ring. So I picked this ring, and if any of the champions here have got their ring on tonight, it started in 1982.

I’ve worn it every day since I got it, but tonight I’m taking it off and I’m putting on the Hall of Fame ring because this is the greatest thing that has ever happened to me.

Thank you very much.

An Interview With Darrell Waltrip

THE MODERATOR: Darrell Waltrip is here with us. Darrell, certainly quite a passionate speech you made here tonight. I know you speak from the heart and are very passionate about this. When you found out that day that you had been — you were going into the Hall of Fame, what did that mean to you?

DARRELL WALTRIP: Well, it was one of the things I didn’t get to talk about, unfortunately, but it’s — when you drive, when you race, every week you try to win the race, and every year you try to win a championship. And so that’s a — I call it a mountain. Every year you’ve got to climb that mountain, and every year you’ve got to do it all over again and do it all over again. This is the last mountain you have to climb. You’re at the pinnacle. You’ve made it to the top.

As far as I know, they won’t kick you out. You don’t have to go through any inspection or anything. That’s all been done before you got here. So this is the last mountain to climb. This is the top. Cale said he climbed the ladder. I feel like I’ve just had to climb a lot of mountains. They got higher and tougher every year, and looking back, though, this is the — this is it. You don’t have to do it again.

That was the first thing I thought of. It’s not about one race, one championship. I said it from day one; it’s about your body of work. And what made me the proudest and what makes me the proudest is you’re voted on by your peers. It’s not a popularity contest, thank goodness. It’s basically 50 guys that you’ve worked with, raced against, raced with, whatever the situation may be, and they recognize what you’ve done, and they reward you by nominating you and inducting you into the Hall of Fame. And that speaks volumes to me.

Q. Could you ever have imagined coming up that everybody you’ve accomplished and where you’re at in your life, sometimes do you just pinch yourself and wonder if it’s real?

DARRELL WALTRIP: It’s funny you ask that because Colley and I and Jeff were just talking, I look at my life, not just my career, I look at my life, and I am a blessed man. I have a wonderful wife that’s stood by me for 42 years, and we have two beautiful daughters. One of them just came home from Brazil, went down with her husband, she’s been married about a year now, went to Brazil to visit his parents, and they returned on Wednesday night and said, Dad, you’re going to be a grandfather. I mean, I cried like a baby.

Then Sarah was in — she was in Manila, outside of Manila in the Philippines Tuesday, and I talked to her over the weekend, and she said, dad, it really — I hate I can’t be there. I know how important this is and how big a deal this is. And I’d give anything if I could be there, but it’s just not possible. And I said, I understand, Honey, you’re doing what you do, and don’t worry about it. I checked into the hotel room yesterday, opened the door, and she was standing there. Of all the things that have ever happened to me in my life, I never had anything affect me the way that did, that little 19 year old kid flew 25 hours to be here with her dad tonight. That’s huge. That’s about as good of a compliment as a dad can get, that she would do that.

And here’s the other thing: She’s got to go back. She’s leaving Sunday and going back to her group that she’s with on her mission trip that she’s on, and she’ll be in the Philippines where the flood wiped out a large part of a town there, and that’s where she is, volunteering and helping with whatever she can do.

I have two great kids. I have a great son-in-law. Fausto is the sweetest guy in the world. I’ve got great friends. I’ve had two careers. I can’t imagine. I couldn’t do anything else.

People always say, would you change anything. I said, I can’t. If you change anything, it changes everything. And I can’t do that.

Q. How impatient did you get over the last three years to be able to have this night come, and how hard was that to wait?

DARRELL WALTRIP: Yeah, you know, people kept saying, oh, you know you’ll get in sooner or later, and I said, well, if it’s all right with you, I’d like for it to be sooner. You never know how — it could go on for a long time. One of the things with me is I’m still so visible. I didn’t quite driving and go home never to be heard of again. Whether it’s my fault or the people I work with’s fault, you don’t have to look up my record. We talk about it every week. Every time we go to Bristol and do a race on television, we talk about the winningest driver.

I worried a little bit that less is more sometimes, and I was afraid that people were going to get the impression — and as a matter of fact, a lot of people, some I think in this room say, well, he’s not old enough to be in the Hall of Fame. I say, well, wait a minute, how old do you got to be? I’ll be 65 February 5th coming up, and that’s — so anyway, I was relieved. It’s a big relief. If I compare statistics to statistics, I’m about where I should be, I think.

Q. You were a bridge from one era to the next. Can you explain a little bit what you saw in the changing times of these eras in NASCAR?

DARRELL WALTRIP: Mostly — not so much at the track. Racing has pretty much been green-white checkered. It’s been pretty simple, what we do on Sunday. But it’s what’s happened away from the racetrack, the number of people, the technology, the shops, the amount of money. When I started my team in 1991, I had 12 people working for me, and we won two races and finished fourth or fifth in the points. The next year I added three people, and I was — in 1995, I had gone from 12 people, 15 people to 55 people on a single-car team, and that’s about what these teams have on them today.

Here’s the difference: Every man I hired was what I called a generalist. He could do everything. Today every man you hire is a specialist. I heard a — a new specialist. I don’t know if any of you watch the speed coverage or not, but they now have an interior specialist. I said, an interior specialist? What the heck is that? He’s the guy that takes care of the inside of the car, the pedals, the seat, the mirror, creature comforts for the driver. They don’t call him the seat boy anymore. He’s the interior specialist. And of course with the title specialist comes a very nice salary in most cases.

So that’s the thing that’s changed the most. Certainly with the car we’re racing now, technology, safety is — I say this, and I don’t mean to sound dramatic, but I’m just telling you the truth, okay. When I bolted myself down in that race car and I put those seatbelts on and I drove off down pit road and I looked back at my wife was waving goodbye, I didn’t know if I’d see her again or not. I didn’t think that way, but as I look back on my career and the era in which I raced, you didn’t — there was no guarantee that you’d come back.

I think these guys today, and I’m not diminishing the fact that it’s still a very dangerous sport and the cars can hurt you, but that’s the difference; they can hurt you, not kill you.

Q. (Indiscernible.)

DARRELL WALTRIP: Well, see, I’m a detail freak, and every race car I ever had or had anything to do with was perfect. It may not run perfect and it may not drive perfect, but it was detailed out. I grew up in Owensboro working for a car dealer, and I worked in the detail department, and we cleaned up the cars and got them ready to go out on the lot.

And so I’d clean the corners to get all the dirt out of the corner of the dash or I’d be sure that the carpet was perfectly clean, not just where you — but all — so I was always a detail freak. So when I went to Junior’s, what Junior Johnson had was an engine. Junior didn’t care about that car, that car was just something to carry his engine in. The car wasn’t necessarily as neat as it could have been. It wasn’t as slick as it could have been. They didn’t paint the inside white with epoxy paint like I liked. They painted it with a spray bomb.

But here’s where we compromised: I said, Junior, the car is ugly, we’ve got to make the car look better. We want it to run good, but we want it to look good, too. The thing about painting the inside of the car with a spray bomb, there was a method to his madness. He didn’t do it because he didn’t have the money. That little light coat of black spray paint they put on there every week, it didn’t weigh anything. Epoxy paint, when you did a car with the white epoxy the way they do them now, roll bars, chassis and everything weighed 30 pounds. Junior said, we’re not going to put 30 pounds on this race car.

And a lot of the things — that’s a lot of things I learned. But where we compromised was we also learned to do it Junior’s way but it do it a little bit nicer Junior’s way. And I think every team, and Jeff will tell you, when I went to work somewhere with somebody, I was all in, and I wanted you to be all in. I didn’t want you to be slacking off on me. I’m going to do 100 percent, and I want you to do 100 percent, and if you give me two, I’ll give you two and we’ll end up with five, and that was my theory.

Q. I remember a race at Darlington, and this is sort of along the same lines, the engine blew up in the car, and you jumped out screaming bloody murder and you suggested someone might be working somewhere else the next week. Was that kind of stuff sort of spur of the moment for you? Was it calculated? How much, I guess, pre-thought went into what you were doing trying to make a team better?

DARRELL WALTRIP: Well, that’s just a passion you have. And by the way, that guy was working somewhere the next week. It was uncalled — if something happened — racing is unpredictable and anything can happen, and I can accept that. But when something is preventable or you have a problem over and over again, same guy, same problem, you’ve got to fix that. And I always felt like — Junior taught me this: If one link of the chain breaks, we’ll fix that one, and when the next link breaks, we’ll fix that one, until you have a chain so strong it won’t break. And that’s how I looked at things.

If the engine is blowing up, we’ve got to fix the engine; if a car won’t handle, we’ve got to get somebody to make it handle. If the crew is no good, you have to fix whatever is keeping you from being successful. And that’s really all I ever — I was hard. I was hard on the guys. By golly, I ain’t going to let you down, don’t you let me down.

And that’s not to say that every week I was perfect. I made some mistakes. I took it like a man. I manned up and said, hey, I screwed up, and I can handle that. But don’t keep messing us up week after week after week. We’ve got — a driver’s career, even though it seems long, you’ve only got a small window of opportunity. I say this all the time, if you look at drivers 25 to 35, that’s your window. If you’re going to win a lot of races and a lot of championships, you’re going to do it from 25 to 35. You’re going to learn and then you’re going to accelerate and then you’re going to stay up there for a little while and then you’re going to start sliding down the other side, and it’s usually that ten-year period, if you look at every driver I’ve ever raced with, we’ve all had ten unbelievable years, pretty good before, okay after, but ten good ones.

THE MODERATOR: Darrell, congratulations again, and certainly a great honor for you, and we thank you all for everything you do for NASCAR. Appreciate it.

KEN SQUIER: Thank you very much. Cale Yarborough. He was always about believing in oneself, self-reliance, and the imagination to test it and test it completely. Dream big. That was Cale.

Now, that was a gift that Julian and his mother, Anna Mae, they provided their three sons down there on that small farm in Timmonsville, South Carolina, and for Cale it became his strongest suit.

When he was a pup, his dad took him to a stock car race, just a couple of guys getting a little dusty. On a Thursday night it might have been in Columbia, on Friday it would have been Florence, but Saturday was Sumter. And he was imagining, just imagining that he would be out there someday, just ten years old, and for him that’s still unforgettable.

Cale was sure, sure that his dad was going to be a racer. And then there was that plane crash. His number one guy, with whom he sat by his radio on the farm and listened to that first Darlington 500 and had told Cale that the next year they’d be 17 miles from Timmonsville for sure on Labor Day to see that race. Farm folk, resilient, risk takers. Cale just elected to take his risks a little different from the family and the neighbors.

But talk about determination and self-reliance. Hard times? You bet. Dead broke? Started racing at 15, often.

His mother later in a television broadcast, they did an interview with her, and she remembered saying to Cale, “Cale, why do you do it?” Said the same thing when he took up boxing when he was 13, said the same thing when he took up skydiving, said the same thing when he got into the business of parachuting, one time missed the target by two miles. And then there was the Cale Yarborough aerial and auto stunt show, three acts. “Cale, why do you do it?”

And then there was the alligator wrestling. Once was enough. He went where the chances so often were slim to none, and he always did it against the biggest odds. Persistent? Oh, you bet. He pushed and prodded until the Timmonsville Flash became a name to be reckoned with.

Early days in those Southern Carolina short tracks, he drove hard, he drove so hard, they would claim after race after race that he would come in and get sick to his stomach. The first time he won a major race, that was the Atlanta 500 for the Wood Brothers, he got out of that race car, and he said he threw up two quarts of Valvoline.

Driving for Junior Johnson, childhood hero, he heard the command from Junior that really defined his style. Four words, with which he really chimed. Junior Johnson ordered, “Go to the front.” Good enough for him. Fit his style. It was a style that made a very famous American author William Neeley, Bill Neeley, later write in one of his books, “There is no doubt that Cale Yarborough will go down in history as the hardest charger who ever lived, the most aggressive of them all.”

Richard Petty, he said it differently. He said, “If Cale is just keeping up, you know he’s doing as best as he can on that day. Otherwise he’d be in front of you.” He was and still is today the real deal. Sports followers of all stripes recognized it. February, 1983. When that race was over, J.J. O’Malley, lead line in the National Speed Sport News said, “Cale Yarborough took 25 million people for a Sunday afternoon ride to victory lane in the silver anniversary Daytona.”

That was when he carried that CBS camera and the audio in that Waddell Wilson prepared Pontiac, No. 28, and let me add something here that wasn’t talked about in the script and so on. But prior to that race, CBS had those big meetings up in New York about how they were going to make it different. Shoot, they’d been doing the Daytona 500 since 1979. What are we going to do differently?

The idea was brought forth that perhaps the thing to do would be to talk to the driver during the race. For heaven’s sakes, what are you talking about? You can’t talk to the drivers while they’re in the race; they’re risking their lives. What is all that about? Well, maybe we could talk to them while they’re under caution.

Well, that’s the worst idea we’ve ever heard. Can we make one phone call? Just one. So I called Cale, and I laid out the deal, and there was dead silence. There wasn’t a word. And then Cale said, “I’ll tell you what, I’ll do it on one condition: If you let me, from inside my car, describe what it feels like to come down to start the Daytona 500.” Jesus God, there is a Lord. Oh, my heart. And he did it, and he set the table for that broadcast in 1983.

Six cautions, last caution came with 33 laps to go. Went under caution, Cale is running fourth and hanging in there. And the world is watching and listening to him at that time talk about what he could do with this. And it reminded me in later years of those great moments that come in sport, those very special moments when a great athlete tells you what he’s going to do and he goes out and does it.

So Cale, you’re running fourth, you’ve got the giant, Buddy Baker, fastest 500 to date in history, 1980, up in front. You’ve got Joe Ruttman running in second, driving the finest performance of Joe Ruttman’s life, and you’ve got the kid from the Dawsonville Pool Hall there, the new kid on the block, he’s running pretty good, too, Bill Elliott. Cale is tagging along. So what are you going to do, Cale, if you’re going to win this 500? And he told us what he was going to do, that he was going to run back there, try to stay with those leaders, but when it came to the last lap, he was going to go for it, and he would be there.

That story was done 80 years before in the World Series in Chicago. The Yankee Clipper, Joe Louis, it’s one of the most remembered stories in the history of baseball. Ruth gets up to bat against the Cubs, takes that bat, didn’t like at all the pitcher on the other side, Root, and he waved that bat at him, then waved it up at center field. Root reared back, he let her fling, and the babe ran that rascal right up over the fence. It’s one of those moments that’s not forgotten.

And Cale replicated that. He duplicated that in ’83. Gets down to it, and those last laps, the final 11 laps of that race, knows the tale. He was giving America the most dramatic sense of what this sport was all about.

That big ol’ car swishing around out there and him holding on, guiding that thing through those corners, white flag, one lap to go, he mashes the throttle, he looked like a rattlesnake striking, down to the inside, came around through 2 into the back stretch, and there was a moment as he slipped by Elliott, slipped by Ruttman, pulls alongside Baker, oh, my heart, here comes ’79 all over again, the two of them start down the back stretch, and then Baker pulled away and he won that race. This was Cale’s time, and in that moment he came through, just like that babe Ruth story from 80 years past this year.

He called the shot and showed America how it was done, but more important, with that aggressive charge, he told us so much about the style that was the sport, and he said so much about the racer. So hear it again. You’ve heard it all night. But hear it once again. Cale Yarborough, with a faithful and trusting woman by him every step of the way, became three-time, first time in NASCAR history, consecutive champion of the most competitive racing series in the world, four-time winner of the Great American Race. And recognized throughout the game, three-time winner, always trying to get him two more, ladies and gentlemen, it is a great pleasure and indeed biggest honor I’ve had that on this 20th day of January, the year 2012, to present the Hall of Fame inductee ring and the official induction into the NASCAR Hall of Fame to Cale Yarborough.

CALE YARBOROUGH: Thank you, Ken. You know, tonight as far as I’m concerned is a thank you night for so many people that have made it possible for me to be here tonight. You know, racing is kind of like a big, tall ladder. When you begin, you start off on the bottom step of that ladder, and it’s a long, hard climb to the top. But I feel like tonight I’m finally standing on the top step. It’s been tough, a lot of ups and downs, a lot of hard times, but there are five of us here tonight, and I congratulate each one of them, and thank you, Donnie, for doing the video for me.

But the first one I want to thank is my wife, Betty Jo, of almost 53 years of putting up with me and sticking with me throughout some awful hard times, I’m going to tell you. She should be standing right here with me tonight. I didn’t get here tonight. I had help, and she was my biggest help.

I would like to tell a little story about when we first moved to Charlotte in the early 60s, John Holman gave me a job at Holman & Moody’s sweeping the floor for $1.25 an hour, and Betty Jo and Julie and I, she was our only little girl at the time, we moved to Charlotte. And lived in a little old cabin that John Holman let us live in except he charged us rent. We had to pay for it. But the only thing that I owned to my name was my wife and my daughter. We were flat broke when we got here.

A few weeks ago I was out in my farm shop, and the telephone rang, and I knew Betty Jo had gone to parts, I think, and I knew she wasn’t going to answer, so I picked it up and answered it, and it was a lady from Columbia, South Carolina, that owns a very, very high-priced women’s dress store. And she says, “Would you please tell Betty Jo that her outfit for the induction banquet is in.” I says, “Okay, I’ll tell her.” I knew this was going to hurt.

Anyway, after I hung up, I got to thinking about the hard times that we went through, and she stuck with me through some awful hard times. We had a budget we could go by, just had to stick with it. And we’d go to the grocery store on Saturday night to buy enough groceries to last out the week. We were there one Saturday night and we had our grocery cart filled with everything we thought we could afford. We had to keep a count of everything that we bought so we could pay for it when we got to the checkout counter.

Well, we were coming down the last aisle heading toward the checkout counter and happened to come upon a pallet of cans of black eyed peas that were on sale for 10 cents a can. A big can, too. So we talked about it, and she agreed. We went back and put all the stuff that we bought back everywhere it was supposed to be, went back to that black eyed peas pallet and bought every can of black eyed peas that we could afford to buy. We had black eyed peas for breakfast, we had black eyed peas for dinner, we had black eyed peas for supper, a long time.

Well, honey, I’m glad you went and bought that outfit because you look good in it, and I’m glad we could afford it. But needless to say, this coming week we’re going to be looking for another black eyed pea sale.

I’ve got to thank my daughters, three daughters, Julie, Kelly and B.J., all my grandkids, they’re all here tonight, thank goodness.

And I’ve got to thank my mother. Yeah, she did say, why did you do it, why do you do it, but she stuck with me throughout my whole racing career. And thank you, Momma. And she may get mad for telling this, but her next birthday she’ll be 91 years old, and she’s going strong, let me tell you. And she looks like she’s 60. I wish I was in that good a shape. And I’ve got two brothers, Jared and J.C., they’re both here with me tonight, and thank you for coming.

As I said, this is a thank-you night for me. All I can do is thank the people that made it possible for me to climb that long, tough ladder. And I have one that’s here with me tonight that gave me my first full-time ride as I was a young teenager on the short dirt tracks of South Carolina, and he’s here as my guest tonight, J.N. Wilson. Thank you, J.N., for getting me started. That’s been a long time ago, too.

Marion Cox, who gave me a lot of good rides early in my career, and I learned a lot from him. Julian Buesink, who brought a car to Darlington and Daytona for me a few times during my early days, and he helped me an awful lot. Then I teamed up with Herman Beam for the first full-time ride on the Grand National circuit, which is the Western Cook now, but back then it was called the Grand National.

And then a man by the name of Jacques Passino. He was head of racing for Ford Motor Company, helped me an awful lot, parts, helping me get started, and I can tell you, if it hadn’t been for Jacques Passino, I’m sure I wouldn’t be here tonight. Thank you, Jacques.

John Holman, who gave me my first job here at Holman & Moody’s sweeping the floors. I was glad to have it, a dollar and 25 cents an hour, but that’s where it all started. Ralph Moody, who taught me an awful lot about this sport. Then there was Kenny Myler, who we had a good run with. We were running a year-old car that Ford was letting us run, 1964 Ford, 1965. Kenny gave me my first win in Valdosta, Georgia, on a half-mile dirt track in 1965. That dirt track racing was tough back then.

Then I went with Banjo Matthews. Banjo taught me a lot. He caught me to run those 500-mile races. He taught me how to do it.

And then of course Glen Wood. You can’t say enough about the Wood Brothers. They really put me in a top-notch car, and we won races. And I’ll tell you this: I am so honored and so pleased to be inducted in the same class with Glen Wood. It’s just great — turned out just right. Then there was Leonard Wood. Leonard, you won’t be far behind us, bud. You deserve every bit of it.

Then there’s Ronald Bolstad who gave me my first ride at the Indianapolis 500, drove two years for him there. And then Gene White, signed me a two-year contract to drive his IndyCars on the whole Indy circuit for two years. And I did, because Ford had pulled out of racing and we didn’t know what was going to happen the next years. I had so many bills to pay, I had to know where a few dollars was coming in, and signed with Gene White. I ran for Gene White for two years, and then I wanted to come back to NASCAR, wanted to come back to stock car racing, and as you heard, Junior was looking for a driver, and I was looking for a ride, and boy, we hooked up, and we had a good ride for sure. Good ride. Three championships, consecutive championships, my first championship, Junior’s first championship. Junior, can’t thank you enough, man. We had a good ride.

And then I decided for some reason — Richard Petty, you don’t know how many championships we might have won. You might not have even been in the picture. (Laughter.)

But anyway, I wanted to spend more time with my family, so I decided I’d cut my schedule back, would like to run about 15 or 16 races, and that’s what I did. I told Junior that I was going to back off some. So I signed up with M.C. Anderson, a three-year contract to run 16 races a year. We won so many races in the first two years, in the third year he wanted to run for the championship. I said, M.C., that’s not what the contract says. I said, I’m going to run a limited schedule.

So I left M.C. and went to Harry Ranier, and of course Waddell Wilson. And we did things that is almost unbelievable. We had a great run. I had so many good crew chiefs that helped me out so much throughout the years, and not only the crew chiefs, I had a lot of good crewmen, too.

But let me tell you, after I got through with Harry Ranier, I formed my own team like Harry did and Buddy did and a lot of us did, and I’ll tell you, that was a big mistake. And I drove part-time and I had different drivers and I got Dale Jarrett started and all. I never could win a race in my car. I could win in everybody else’s car but never did win in my car.

The only race I won as a team owner was with John Andretti. We won the Firecracker 400 in what year was it, I forgot. We won that one year. And John Andretti is here tonight, it’s good to see him.

But once again, I just want to thank my family. I want to thank my friends. I want to thank my fans. I want to thank the people that voted for me. I want to thank NASCAR. But most of all, thank you, Lord.

An Interview With Cale Yarborough

THE MODERATOR: Cale Yarborough has joined us. He was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame tonight. Listening to your remarks tonight, you talked about that you felt like it was being on a ladder, NASCAR racing was on a ladder, now you’re at the top. Just talk about maybe as you reflect back now that you got the Hall of Fame jacket on and what you’re going to take away maybe from this weekend when you go back to South Carolina.

CALE YARBOROUGH: I’m going to remember that this was one of the best days of my life. This is what I have — I didn’t know I was working for it, but I’ve worked for all of my life, and it just happened tonight. I’m just so proud to be a part of it and been so blessed to climb that long ladder from the bottom step, now I’m standing on that top step. Can’t go any higher, but can’t nobody push me off, either.

Q. If you would, talk about how you got into IndyCar racing and what got your start there and what made you want to come back to NASCAR.

CALE YARBOROUGH: When I was running for the Wood Brothers, I ran two years, 1966 and ’67 for Ronald Bolstad. He was a car owner out of Portland, Oregon, and I could do it because we were going to run on the superspeedways, and at the time it didn’t interfere with the Wood Brothers.

But then, Gene White, after Ford pulled out of racing, I didn’t know what was going to happen, and I went with Gene White. He offered me a two-year contract to run nothing but IndyCars all over the world wherever they were racing. And I did. I enjoyed it. I didn’t have the kind of equipment to run with, but I ran tenth at Indy my last time up there.

But I was anxious to get back to the stock cars and NASCAR. It was very, very blessed again to fall in with Junior Johnson.

Q. You spoke very kindly of the Wood Brothers when you were giving your speech. How important was it in terms of shaping your career to get the opportunity to drive for them when you did?

CALE YARBOROUGH: Biggest opportunity of my life at the time. Of course Ford had a lot to do with that, the guy named Jacques Passino who had been watching me and helping me and thought that I had the potential of being the kind of race driver that they were looking for their teams. They helped me an awful lot, but when they put me with the Wood Brothers, I felt like I had died and gone to heaven really because that was the best place you could be at the time.

Q. How much was the dress that your wife purchased, because I know you like to keep your money close at hand.

CALE YARBOROUGH: Too much, but we’re going to get some of those black-eyed peas on sale next week.

No, listen. The black-eyed pea story is a true story. But I was kidding her about that. She deserves better than what she got, I’ll tell you that.

Q. You were talking about this being a night for thank yous. Did you feel like this is the first time you had a chance to thank the people in NASCAR for everything you had? You had Darrell up there, he’s still a part of the sport, and you haven’t really been a part.

CALE YARBOROUGH: Yeah, it was a big moment for me because most of the people I thanked tonight played a major role in me being able to be on that stage tonight. Any one of them that could have not done what they did for me coming up could have sidetracked me all together. I was very grateful to be able to thank them tonight.

Q. When you retired out, you were essentially at the top of your game. Did you ever want to come back?

CALE YARBOROUGH: No, never considered coming back, even though I knew I could still get the job done, and had a lot of people that tried to get me to come back. But I had made up my mind what the rest of my life was going to be like, and I stuck with it.

Q. I have a question when you had all the success in NASCAR racing, you never played with the idea that you would set up a team? And the second question is concerning your history in long distance racing. Maybe I’m wrong, but I think you also went to Le Mans one year to do the 24 hours; is this correct?

CALE YARBOROUGH: Yeah, yeah, I drove for Billy Hagan, who drove a Camaro over there one time and ran real good until the brakes went out on it. We were the most popular car in that race one year. You could hear that thing coming all the way around that racetrack. We had a lot of fans there. We were running good, but something happened to the brakes, put us out.

Q. Growing up in the hot summers farming in South Carolina and racing, did you ever think your career was going to take the route that it did? And also, what does tonight really mean to you?

CALE YARBOROUGH: Well, I sure hoped I was going to get to this point because working in the back of the fields in that hot sun would take you want to do something else, I’ll tell you that. I always dreamed of doing what — ending up where I have ended up tonight. Very blessed.

THE MODERATOR: Cale, congratulations on being inducted into the Hall of Fame.

When it was a little quiet, I said, Richie, I don’t know much about aerodynamics, but I know that isn’t going to create a whole lot of downforce; why is it there? He looks around and nobody is near us, and he leans in and he says, “Because when they all walk by looking at that, they’re not looking somewhere else.”

And to this day, 25, 26 years after his passing, everybody in modified racing will tell you that there is not one of those drivers that raced by the grace of God in 600 horsepower near as good as the Rapid Roman, Richie Evans.

BILLY NACEWICZ: I hope everyone is having a good time tonight. I would like to take a moment and congratulate this year’s inductees. Together these five men have won 24 NASCAR championships and close to 1,000 races. What an incredible feat by an outstanding class.

Richie’s induction into the Hall of Fame represents the first driver inductee from outside of NASCAR’s top series. As you’ve heard, Rickie was a nine-time champion, including eight in a row, in NASCAR’s oldest division, the modifieds.

Growing up on his parents’ farm in upstate New York, Richie left the farm to work and eventually owned his own service stations. It was there that he began his racing career.

Building hotrods to drag race at local tracks, Richie lined his service station walls with trophies. I remember his last drag car, a 427 ’54 Ford that was nearly unbeatable. A friend suggested that he try stock car racing at the newly build Utica Rome Speedway where he could race for money instead of just trophies. Taking his advice, he and his friends cut up that old drag car and made a stock car.

Now, having watched him race the first couple years at Utica Rome, I remember mentioning to his friends, it’s too bad he cut that drag car up because he’s never going to take it in stock car racing. Well, we can see where that came out. With hard work and perseverance Richie began winning races.

In 1973, he was noticed by a man who would become his long-time sponsor and friend, Gene DeWitt. Gene would later say that in Richie he saw a diamond in the rough. With Gene’s help, Richie was able to showcase his talents, his diversity, by winning on NASCAR’s biggest tracks like Daytona and Pocono to its smallest ones like Islip, Long Island, and North Carolina’s own Bowman Gray Stadium.

Richie loved the modifieds. With the respect of his competitors and promoters, he became the face of the division. Richie was a person that if you ever met him, he would have left a lasting impression.

As Richie’s crew chief for 11 years, he left me with two lifelong lessons, one, a hard work ethic, and two, to enjoy whatever you’re doing, because he would later say, we’re all just passing through. It is now my honor on this 20th day of January, 2012, to present the Hall of Fame inductee ring and officially induct NASCAR’s greatest modified driver into the Hall of Fame. Accepting his induction, please welcome Richie’s wife, Lynn Evans.

LYNN EVANS: Good evening. Rich, I’ve had to do a lot of things for you over the years, but this time I wish you could be here to accept this honor.

I know you’re here in spirit as the No. 61 appears often in my life, even as I checked into the hotel, the number 61 came up. I’d like to congratulate Dale Inman, Cale Yarborough, Glen Wood and Darrell Waltrip at being inducted in NASCAR’s Hall of Fame class 2012 with Rich. Rich would be so honored and humbled to be included with the inductees, past, present and future. What a great honor.

I’d also like to thank the nominating committee for including Rich. With so many deserving people the task must have been difficult. I’d especially like to thank the Hall of Fame voting panel for stepping outside the box and making Rich the first driver inductee not to have raced in NASCAR’s top series full-time. You have now given hope to thousands of NASCAR competitors throughout the country to maybe someday reach their dream.

I’d like to thank NASCAR for providing a stage for competitors to showcase their talents and for the media for bringing that stage to millions of fans. Every champion driver has a championship team. Rich started with the late Gene DeWitt, his longtime sponsor and friend, who along with the family, Byron, Linda and Jamie, helped fulfill his dream. I’d like to thank them along with crew chief BILLY NACEWICZ and all of Richie’s crews over the years, many whom are here tonight.

Last but not least, I’d like to say thanks to all of his fans who have kept his memory alive. Racing four or five times a week enabled Rich to build a huge fan following. Rich liked nothing better than to share a story with his friends after a race. One of the things he was most proud of was being voted most popular driver nine times while still enjoying success on the track. Thank you again for honoring Rich.

An Interview With Lynn Evans and Billy Nacewicz

THE MODERATOR: We have two special people up here that are representing a very unique inductee, and that is the late Richie Evans. We have Lynn Evans, his wife, and his crew chief, Billy Nacewicz. Congratulations, and thank you for joining us here tonight. Lynn, you gave quite an eloquent talk up there this evening talking about Rich and maybe what he might be thinking from above. Just talk about maybe your thoughts here today and the last few days, having seen the culmination of him being able to come into the NASCAR Hall of Fame. What’s your thoughts about that?

LYNN EVANS: I mean, we’re just — I’m speechless. Not that he didn’t work hard, not that he shouldn’t be here, but it just happened so soon. There’s so many other greats that we figured maybe sometime down the road he definitely would, but not this soon, and we’re just thrilled and honored. He worked hard. He would be so proud of himself. And I thank, as I said in my speech tonight, news media, you helped so much, favorably quite about him, and he loved it. He was the first to pick up that magazine or the newspaper and read about himself. So I want to thank you all.

THE MODERATOR: Billy, I know you were very close to him and worked as his crew chief for 11 years. What are some of the things as you look back being able to work alongside now a Hall of Famer? What are some of the things that you remember most working with Richie Evans?

BILLY NACEWICZ: One of the things is as he would say in his previous video that he was at the shop just about every minute that his guys were there working at it. He was that dedicated. He wasn’t one to stay home and come in three or four hours later or leave early. He was there from when the shop opened until the shop closed at night. Like he said, if I can do that, my guys will be dedicated and they’ll try to — that’s where I learned that work ethic, from him.

It was a pleasure working with him. You could learn a lot. He was a very practical — had a lot of common sense, which some people seem to lack, especially in our government, sometimes. He was one that had a lot of common sense, and you could learn from him if you just listened.

Q. For Lynn, you went out of your way in your speech and kind of stepped outside the box. When you first heard about this NASCAR Hall of Fame, before today it had been so much directed towards the national series. Did you think Richie would have an opportunity to be a part of it?

LYNN EVANS: You can only hope and pray. I hoped that someday he would. He certainly deserved to be, accomplished nine championships and nine most popular drivers, numerous track championships, so I thought that maybe someday down the road he would, but I never expected it to be this soon. In fact, we often talked, and I thought, I’d be in my grave — in fact, I told my children, your dad may get in someday but I may not be here to see it, so you’re going to have to step up to the plate and accept his award.

Q. This is for Billy. As you’re sitting there tonight listening to them talk about Dale Inman, the winningest crew chief of all time on the Cup side with 193 wins, just what was it like to be racing that much to be as dominant as you guys were?

BILLY NACEWICZ: It was a lot of fun, for one thing. It’s always fun when you’re winning. When you get to the top of your profession, which Richie was at that point, things seem to go a little easier for you, you’re not struggling as much, so it can become a fun time.

Winning is always fun. I was with him probably for, I don’t know, close to 400 wins, somewhere in the 350 to 400 range of those wins. You know, it’s tough to lose. I don’t know how other to explain it, but it was a very enjoyable time.

Q. Did having him behind the wheel help overcome some of the times when the car wasn’t that fast?

BILLY NACEWICZ: Yeah, he was a driver’s driver, and if we happened to miss the setup, he was somebody that could make up for it, to a certain degree. I drove the car once in a test session, and just to be out there all by myself, I thought, you’ve got to be kidding me. These guys — Richie started like 24th or 18th because they did reverse starts up north, and you got 30 laps or 50 laps to get to the front with 25, 30 other drivers out there. I says, you’ve got to be kidding me; how do they do this? It’s incredible. I was out there by myself and couldn’t hardly keep it on the track.

Q. Can you talk a little bit about your local fans and all the support they’ve brought over the years to you?

LYNN EVANS: Well, of course, I met Rich in 1970. I kind of laugh because I actually kind of was into motorcycles, and so when he told me or I had heard that he was a race car driver, I just thought, from Rome, New York? I think he did have a following then. They were very proud of him. He was racing Utica Rome speedway on Fulton, and those people are here tonight, that small group of people are here tonight. Charily Houseman, we used to go over Sunday night and play cards with he and his wife and about three or four other couples before Richie’s racing schedule got so busy, so we’ve been friends a long time.

THE MODERATOR: Lynn and Billy, thank you so much for being here, and again, congratulations on this honor, and all the best of rest of this year.

I think half of Patrick County is here tonight to honor the pride of Stuart, Virginia, Glen Wood.

LEONARD WOOD: Good evening, everyone. I’d just like to — what a night this is. I mean, we’ve got like must be half of Patrick County here. I would just like to say, this is one awesome Hall of Fame. They’ve done such a great job of recognizing all the competitors, and there’s so much to be seen in this place that it’s well worth the tour. I’d like to congratulate all the inductees. All very deserving.

I was highly honored when Glen asked me to induct him into the NASCAR Hall of Fame, and I told him I’d be more than happy to do so. Glen has always been my big brother, and he still is. Glen started racing 61 years ago. Glen and his partner, Chris Williams and I, were riding down the road. Chris says, what we’ve got to do is get some fame, and I’ll have to say, this is as good as it gets.

Glen and I worked really well together. We believed in each other, and we was at Bowman Gray practicing, and when he was on the racetrack his brakes would go to the floor. He’d come in the pits, and he’d say, I know you think I’m lying to you, but when he come in the pits he had full pedal, and I said, no, Glen, I know you’re not lying to me.

So the problem was the exhaust was blowing back on the master ceiling heating the fluid. So we just take the exhaust completely off, he goes out and wins the race. And I’ve got to tell you, nobody was better at Bowman Gray than Mr. Glen.

He had great success at Daytona Beach, he went down there three years in a row, he sat on the pole, won his class. In ’58 he sat on the pole and beat the record with 12 miles an hour, beat all the modified, finished first, and then third overall. And then also in ’59 he sat on pole at the new track in a convertible race.

And of course I know you guys have already figured it out that Glen and I both talk slow. We went to Indianapolis, picked Jim Clark. We just learned recently that when they heard us talk, they were talking to theirself, I sure hope they can pit faster than they’re talking.

Glen has been supporting this sport for a long, long time. They were having races on the beach back in 1947 before NASCAR was formed, and he’s been to Daytona every year since. Not only did Glen win 96 races as a driver, but he provided the opportunity for a lot of young drivers to win their first race. 75 drivers have driven for the Wood Brothers, 20 of which were the NASCAR’s 50 greatest drivers. The Wood Brothers feel extremely honored to have all those drivers driving for us, and I would like to point out there’s a lot of former Wood Brothers drivers here tonight, and it’s certainly a pleasure to see them. I would like to have time to tell a story on one or two of them, but as slow as I talk, we’d be here all night.

Glen was always fair, honest, gave good advice, needed no more than a handshake. Glen was a great race car driver, great businessman, proud of his family Eddie, Len, daughter Kim, his wife Bernice, and Glen was so proud of Eddie, Len and Kim for winning this past Daytona 500.

And speaking of this Daytona 500, Richard Petty, I would like to thank you for walking my brother Glen to the winner’s circle, one of the most celebrated winner’s circles ever. And now on behalf of Eddie, Len, Kim, Bernice, the entire Wood Brothers race team and myself, it is now my honor on this, the 20th day of January, 2012, to present the Hall of Fame inductee ring and thus officially inducting one of NASCAR’s 50 greatest drivers, my big brother, Glen Wood.

GLEN WOOD: This is a long way from the cornfield. Thank you, Leonard. First of all, I’d like to thank the voters that voted for me and thank NASCAR and the France family and the Wood Brothers, all the employees at the Wood Brothers and crew members and drivers. We’ve had so many great drivers, but David and Cale were most successful, so I’m proud to join them in the NASCAR Hall of Fame. And 17 other drivers have won races in Wood Brothers cars, starting with Speedy Thompson, Joe Weatherly, Tiny Lund, Marvin Panch. I think he’s here, Dan Gurney, Curtis Turner, Parnelli Jones, A.J. Foyt, Donnie Allison, Neil Bonnett, Buddy Baker, Kyle Petty, Dale Jarrett, Morgan Shepherd, Michael Waltrip, Elliott Sadler and Trevor Bayne, who won the last Daytona 500. There’s others who have driven our car, too, Jim Massey, Junior Johnson, Fred Lorenzen, Fireball Roberts, Ricky Rudd, Ken Schrader, Bill Elliott, Boris Said, Marcos Ambrose and Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. So you see why I had to read that.

And many thanks to Holman-Moody, who has helped me a lot in the old days and all their employees, especially engine builder Tommy Turner and Howard Dehart, and thanks to Jack Roush for his support over the years.

And we couldn’t have done this without sponsors over the years. Purolator with Paul Cameron and Citgo with Larry Britton, and I think he’s here tonight. And our current sponsors, Ford Motor Company, Motorcraft and Quick Lane.

I would like to acknowledge some of the old guys at Ford in the 1960s, Charlie Gray, Don Worman, Jack Pasinow, Mose Nolan, Don Sutherland and Peter DePaulo. And a special thanks to the current leaders at Ford Motor Company, Alan Mullaly, Mark Fields Jim Farlane, Edsel Ford, Jamie Allison and the rest of the Ford racing staff.

Ford gave me a chance in 1956 when they asked me to be a part of the Ford racing team, which has led to this induction into the NASCAR Hall of Fame, and I’m proud to have been with Ford Motor Company for the last 60 years. We started racing in 1950, and I’d like to thank all my friends and fans from the past 60 some years, and especially from Patrick County.

A special thanks to all my brothers, Ray Lee, Clay and Delano and Leonard and my sister Crystal. I’ve said it before, had it not been for Leonard and Ford Motor Company, I wouldn’t have been here today. And to my family, Bernice, Eddie, Len and Kim, and Carol, Nancy and Terry and to my grandchildren John, Kevin and Jordan.

I would like to thank Quinn Collins for use of the biography the other day for all his hard work, and I’d like to thank the guest speakers who had such good words to say about me. And to all the NASCAR Hall of Fame staff here, too. They’ve been pampering me like I’ve never been before.

Now, this is not just about me being inducted in the Hall of Fame. It’s also about the Wood Brothers. And it’s about NASCAR. And I’m proud to have been a NASCAR driver and car owner for the past 60 years, and I’m proud of this great honor, and this is about two families, the Wood family and the Ford family working together, which has resulted in me being here tonight. Thank you.

An Interview with Glen and Leonard Wood

THE MODERATOR: Glen Wood has joined us, inducted tonight in the NASCAR Hall of Fame. The gentleman that inducted him is next to him, and that’s Leonard Wood. Congratulations on this honor here tonight. Certainly what the Wood Brothers has accomplished over the years is just a milestone and a trademark and a benchmark in the sport. Talk about your thoughts about now being in the NASCAR Hall of Fame.

GLEN WOOD: Well, that means as much to me as anybody else, I can tell you that. It’s the greatest honor you can get in this sport. One of the proud things is that two of the ones that are in already have driven our car, Pearson and Yarborough. I just learned today how big this is. It’s as big as it gets.

THE MODERATOR: Leonard, talk about what it was like being able to officially induct Glen in the Hall of Fame tonight.

LEONARD WOOD: Well, you know, Glen and I worked together all these years, and he was the first driver. We worked really well together. To be able to just induct him into the Hall of Fame, I was just very proud of him, and I was very proud to get to do it. Just a big thrill to me, and of course I would like to add that Junior Johnson has also driven our car, and he’s in the Hall of Fame, as well.

GLEN WOOD: Yeah, I forgot about him.

LEONARD WOOD: Yeah, Junior has always been our friend. He likes to pick at us and we like to pick at him. And I think he thinks the world of us, and we think the world of him.

GLEN WOOD: Well, one thing I didn’t mention when I was up there, the very last race I ran in myself, I promoted the race, with Marvin Panch. Junior was there, and he beat me with my tires. I had to loan him my tire, and I knew he’d beat me if I did, but out of the five in the Hall of Fame today which was Junior Johnson, Ned Jarrett and me in third place and David Pearson and Richard had something happen to him and he was back in the field, but five of them are here in the Hall of Fame now.

Q. I have a question regarding the Indy 500. Your pit stop strategy for open wheel racing, was it much different than NASCAR?

LEONARD WOOD: Well, John Colley from Ford Motor Company asked if we’d come up and pit Jim Clark, so we roll into town. We wondered how these people are going to accept us — we don’t know if they’re going to accept us or not. A foreign crew, and we don’t know how it’s going to go over. But they rolled out the red carpet, they welcomed us to be there. So we started putting the car through inspection, and we had this big giant vent in the side of the fuel tank, so that made the outlet come up off of the floor a little bit, and the inspector says, well, how come you got the outlet so far up on the tank, and I said, well, it’s up there, and he says, I’ll bet you $1,000 you can’t pour 20 gallons a minute into that tank. We didn’t bet with him, but we run a trial run that put 58 gallons in in 15 seconds.

And the car, you know, it was such a force of filling it up that when you’re against the car, you can just feel the car swell up, you’re putting so much pressure in there.

But it was one of those times you got the most publicity in the least amount of time than anything we ever done in our life.

Q. Leonard, when you guys started racing, did you assume that Glen would be the driver sort of forever and ever? Was it kind of a surprise when Glen decided he didn’t want to drive?

LEONARD WOOD: No, you know, he started out as like fun, you know, and then he begin winning races and setting track records, and so he was very good. I’m telling you, smooth on the throttle, and on the short tracks, he loves the short tracks, but when it got to the superspeedways he just didn’t like to do that as much. Then in later on years — he loved the beach. He run the beach course. But then we started getting drivers because he decided he didn’t like to run at high speeds.

GLEN WOOD: It was a whole lot of trouble to try to do the driving and be a part of working on the car, too. Of course I was probably the best truck driver they had, so that would have been part of my job, too.

Q. Today we’ve seen marriages last 72 days and you guys have been in the sport forever and have been with Ford. What’s the secret to keeping everything together for so long?

LEONARD WOOD: Well, Glen and I have always worked really well together. Glen is really good at keeping people happy, his employees and all that, and of course I was concentrating on making the car run. He is the businessman. He’s a way better businessman than I ever thought about being. I was just concentrating on making the race car run and he concentrated more on the business.

We both just worked together. And then of course you don’t never need to — if you have bad luck, you don’t never say, poor me or whatever, you just know that goes along with it and try not to let it get the best of you and just go forward as much as you can.

GLEN WOOD: I think if I ever had one bad expression of it, I think I did throw my helmet down one time, but I never did anything like some of them do today.

Q. They talked during the induction ceremony that 20 of the greatest 50 NASCAR drivers of all time drove your cars at some point in their career. How did you go about getting them into your cars? Was it something Ford engineered or did you call them or did they call you?

LEONARD WOOD: Well, if you get your car fast enough, you’ll get your drivers. That’s the biggest thing.

GLEN WOOD: Ford did ask us sometimes if it would be okay to do that or put us together. We got together with some pretty good ones. But David Pearson, I just called him myself and asked him did he want to drive it. Well, yeah. So that worked out the best of anybody we ever had in the car.

Q. Can you one more time, Glen, tell the story about how your name went from Glen with two Ns to one N, and to follow that up, how long do you think it’ll be before Leonard gets in the Hall of Fame, as well?

GLEN WOOD: Well, I really don’t know how come the last N got dropped off. I guess it had to be signing autographs. You know how they do today. You don’t know who — if you didn’t put a number on it, you will not know who did it the next day or the next five minutes if you had several there, because it’s a scribble of sorts.

I always write my name, try to write it so they can read it, because it may not have a number by it. Who was that?

And what was the other part?

Q. Give me your best reason why he should be in the Hall of Fame.

GLEN WOOD: He’s the best, that’s why. No, he knows more about — I think Dale Inman would agree with this, that Leonard knows more, everything about a car than anybody that’s ever been in NASCAR. That’s why.

THE MODERATOR: Glen, Leonard, thanks for being here tonight. Glen, congratulations on being inducted into the Hall of Fame, and we’ll see you this season. Thank you very much.

RICHARD PETTY: Well, they just took my speech away from me there on that camera deal. I guess I’ll just start out with telling you, we started out 75 years ago, Dale did, I’m not quite that old, and again, it shows we’re born in the country with dirt roads, the whole deal, we grew up, didn’t know what a race car was, used to race our bicycles down to the creek, go swimming, stuff like that. It was just plain old situation where we was country and didn’t know any better.

And then my dad started racing. That kind of took us out all over the country. I don’t guess me and Dale, either one, had been out of Randolph County until we went to race somewhere in Wilkesboro somewhere. Anyhow, we just grew up together, grew up around it. Neither one of us was that mechanically inclined. We just sort of learned as we went. My dad taught us a lot, and we learned a lot on our own.

And way back when, there wasn’t no such thing as a crew chief. You know, they had mechanics, crew mechanics, whatever they wanted to call them, and Dale was basically the first one. He’s the one that basically started the crew chief operation, because we used to — I guess in 1958 or something, my brother and Dale drove a ’57 Oldsmobile to California, run the race and drove it back home. That was pit crew, that was the whole deal. And that’s the way it started.

So we learned as we went, and over a period of time we got lucky, we got a truck, we got a trailer, went big-time, hired two or three people to go to work for us. Dale come back out of the service and went to work for us full-time, and when we did — I guess that was like ’62, ’63, somewhere, where he went full-time. He worked for us all that time just on weekends, went to the races, went all over the country, Daytona, whatever. And he was involved in a lot of different things.

And over a period of time we got more people to work on the car. Where Dale was so good, he was good with people. Somebody just drive up in the driveway and want a job, we had a place to put them in, Dale put them in there, worked them, and he was able to take a talent and know how far he could go with that talent, know how far this guy could really come along in the company, what he could do, whether he could change tires or work on the engine or rear end or whatever.

And I guess over a period of time, I always look back, Linda and myself think every once in a while about the people that graduated out of the Dale Inman School at Petty Enterprises. I’ll read you off a few of them here, Mike Beam, Barry Dodson, Jake Elder, Tony Glover, Steve Mills, Robby Loomis, Robin Pemberton. These guys won championships, they won races, because they learned from Dale how things needed to be done. He was one of the first ones to come in and take a car in and completely disassemble it from one race to another instead of waiting until something broke or just checking wheel bearings and stuff like that, completely disassembled engines, the cars.

And in doing that, that made those cars almost bulletproof. That’s the reason we won a lot of races. But the deal is people didn’t really understand the strategy of what Dale sort of figured. He knew what he was trying to do, he watched over people, he knew whether they was going to change tires, get gas, whatever.

Just showed like the Daytona in ’81. Everybody would make a pit stop. They did their strategy. Then he comes back and does something different. Luckily we didn’t run out of gas, and we did win the race.

But it was a gamble to a certain extent, but he knew we wasn’t going to win the race if we didn’t do something like that. You see more and more of that stuff coming along.

But of the 180 some, 90 some races that we won together, there’s probably dozens of them in there that I don’t think about or he don’t think about, made the right call at the right time to make the thing all work. And in doing that, it made it good for me, it made it good for him, it made it good for the racing, and from the standpoint of the things that he’s accomplished, from, okay, I guess 1964 to 1984, he won eight championships, and that’s pretty good in 20 years.

And like I say, almost 200 wins, seven Daytonas, 27 races one year, ten in a row. I mean, it takes a pretty good crew just to have a car running ten races and not thrown out of the race to begin with. But the big deal that Dale had that really made the whole thing work was people. He knew how to work with people. If he was going to get on to you, he’d take you off to the side and tell you about it. He didn’t let you know it, get in front of somebody and really make you feel bad. He knew how to work people.

And the deal with working people was what it was all about. We started out, we had five or six people, then we had ten people, then we had 15 or 20 people. And as time went on, he was able just to bring more and more people in, do different things and make the whole deal.

And I always looked at the way that Dale approached things, with attitude, confidence and focus. That’s what he did with his people, and that’s the reason he was able to be a winner like what he is.

I’m supposed to say this: It is now my honor on this 20th day of January, 2012, to present the Hall of Fame inductee ring and special induct Dale Inman into the NASCAR Hall of Fame.

(Applause.)

DALE INMAN: I’m kind of familiar with this ring. For the last two or three years Richard has put it in my face a bunch of times. (Laughter.)

I want to introduce my family, Mary, my wife of some 52 years; my daughter Tina; her husband Chris; my granddaughter Taylor; Logan; my son Jeffrey; his wife Melissa; and my grand daughters Peyton and Addison. I’m so proud of all of you.

Linda is here tonight, Linda Petty. I’m so glad you’re here. You’ve meant so much to me and Mary over the years, it’s just — there’s no words for it. I’m so glad you’re here.

And of course Terry Labonte and his wife Kim. Terry, the ’84 season was very special. And Terry, we’re going to have to worry about the Cowboys and the Indians this weekend, will we? They’re gone.

Richard hit on me and Maurice driving the race car to Riverside, California, in 1958. He didn’t clear that up very good. Him and Maurice was supposed to drive it, and he was out in the yard showing off and trying to walk on his hands and hurt his shoulder, so I was his substitute driver, and I won’t go into that much, but you didn’t race but you drove the race car to Riverside, California, run a 500-mile road course, then got home and rode down in Wilcox, Arizona, had to order a housing from another town, and it come in on the bus. I didn’t think this country boy would ever get home.

And then in today’s world, we talk about track conditions. We might have a ten-degree change in temperature. We might have a cloud cover. But I happen to be lucky enough to be with the Pettys on the beach in 1958, the last race on the beach. Four miles out — how many miles down the beach? A long way. And then you go through a sand bank, up the beach when the tide is out, and Junior has run there, but you’re talking about track conditions, now, that was some track conditions.

And then we still get back to 1958, and back then the drivers had to be 21 years old before they could drive, and that would affect a lot of it today. But Richard turned 21 July the 2nd, 1958, and ten days later, me and him and the Red Miler took a convertible to Columbia, South Carolina, eight miles of dirt, slick track. We get down there and Richard had never driven. We didn’t know whether he could last or not. Joe Willy was down there without a car, so we talked to Joe and said if Richard needs help, will you help him. He said, well, sure.

And of course this was before radios, so we had to communicate with black boards, and the signal for a driver was go to your head. Of course the drivers today with radios uses some gestures, but they’re pretty expensive. But Richard went to his head two or three times, and I’d go get Joe and Joe would come and put his helmet on, his little golfing gloves. Going home, I said, Richard what was you doing, he was wanting relief and you wouldn’t come in. He said, oh, my head was itching.

So it’s come a long way. And of course you probably haven’t raced until the mid ’60s when we’d leave home with a race car in a period of about ten days. We’d run five or six races where we’d come home, and that was — I guess it was fun. I don’t know.

And then, of course, Mr. Helton hit on it last night. He said they used to run the Daytona race, the July race on the 4th of July no matter what day it turned out on, so in ’69 it turned out to be on a Friday. And this was great. The only problem was we had run Dover on Sunday and had never seen the place. Nobody had ever seen it. And of course we won that one. (Laughter.)

Of course I’d like to say a special thanks to all branches to the military, the men and women that keep us free. It is so great for the military.

And of course I’m proud that I served my time, you know what I mean. And it’s just — when I look back over all this, the wins, the Daytona wins, the championships and all that, I think over the years the people I’ve met, the places I’ve seen, the friends I’ve made, both in and out of racing, that sticks out big. Now, maybe years ago it wouldn’t have, but I know some of us older people respect that.

I’d like to thank the entire staff here at the Hall of Fame and NASCAR, what a wonderful job they’ve done for us, and they’ve been so nice to me and my family. And congratulations to the other four inductees and their family. I know they’re very proud. And of course you know we’re coming up on the 2012 season. Imagine that.

And I want to wish all the luck in the world to all the active crew chiefs now, and especially to the 9 and the 43; get after ‘em, boys.

I just want to thank everybody. It’s been such a big night tonight, really a thrill for me, and thank you so much. Thank everybody.

An Interview With Dale Inman

THE MODERATOR: We’re here with Dale Inman. Dale was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame tonight. We’ve got two drivers that have won seven championships, but as a crew chief you have won eight. Talk about — you look back on all those championships. Talk about how all of that came together working for the Petty Enterprises and then all of a sudden you’re in the Hall of Fame.

DALE INMAN: Well, the Hall of Fame is great, no doubt about that. And when some of them was coming around and being accumulated, we didn’t think there would be a Hall of Fame, and we really wasn’t running for anything other than trying to beat the competitors and get enough money to survive on and stuff like that. And it’s growed into this great big sport that we’ve got now.

You know, what an honor it’s been to work with the different drivers over the years but most of them with Richard. They used the term eight championships, but it’s in a different league from what the drivers are, and I give that respect.

But to be the first crew chief to come in, I’m sure there will be more after this, is quite an honor.

Q. What did you mean when you walked off the stage and said, it’s such a long ride, I hope it’s not over yet?

DALE INMAN: Well, if you look at our date of birth, you’ll see what I’m talking about. We’ve been around a long time, you know, and to still be as active as we are with the sport and everything, you know what we’ve been through, and we’re still surviving. I think that’s great.

But no, it was just a phrase. I didn’t mean nothing by it. But look at our date of birth, and you might understand what I’m talking about.

Q. Do you think your induction is going to pave the way for more crew chiefs to get consideration for this hall?

DALE INMAN: No, I’m sure there will be, and like I said — I don’t know if I said it on stage or not, but I’m really looking forward to what the next group will be because there’s certainly some other categories out there that should be added. But no, there’s crew chiefs that will be in for sure later on down the line. They haven’t asked me to say who do you think, and boy, I wouldn’t touch that with a ten-foot pole.

Q. We hear a lot of talk today from teams and competitors and owners talking about how long the season is and how much it takes out of them. You guys ran twice as many races back in the day. What did you do? How did you all manage to not get burned out?

DALE INMAN: Well, I retired there for a while at the end of the ’98 season, and there’s two words I hate about it, I paid my dues and I’m burned out, but I think I was both of them at that time and enjoyed a little bit of time off and Richard came back to me and said he wanted me to come back and be a consultant. I don’t take the full brunt of it like I used to. And my theme to him, it ain’t always been this easy.

But it’s tough on the crew chiefs now. I mentioned the wave-around, the lucky dogs, the pit strategy, two tires, four tires, track position is so important. And years ago we practiced from early in the morning until late at night. Now if they give you an hour and 15 minutes of practice, man, it’s right on the nose, so you’ve got to schedule — there’s just so many — it’s just a different world from what it used to be.

But my hats off to them even in this era that we talk about now.

Q. When you served in the military, did you have any of your non-commissioned officers that helped you learn a little bit about dealing with people, because when Richard said in his remarks, said that you were a great people person and the way that you got things done was through your people, could you expand upon that, please?

DALE INMAN: Well, when I was drafted in the service, I went in in 1959, and I’d been around racing a little bit. I took my basic training in Jacksonville, South Carolina, sent me to Dover, Delaware for basic training, and then I went overseas in France, and they put me in an ordinance company, which is maintenance on vehicles, and I was over there about probably six weeks, and they rotated a sergeant out who had been in 18 years, and they put me in charge, and I’d been in about three or four months.

Maybe I took some of my skills to them. That’s what I was doing at that time, which was working on vehicles.

Q. I have a question concerning the 1970 or ’71 season. At that time Petty Enterprises’ was running the Superbird with a big rear wing. How did you prove that this car was working on the track?

DALE INMAN: Yeah, the Superbird, we only lasted one year with it, and the way that story goes, we were running Plymouth, and of course we was working for Chrysler, and the Dodge came along, and in 1969, they came along with a Daytona which had a wing. Richard said he couldn’t compete if Plymouth didn’t come with a wing. So we went to Ford in 1969, and then they said, and what does it take to get you back into racing with us, and he said, put a wing and a nose on a car, and they did.

And we done right good with it, but Pete Hamilton won three races with us that year. But as good as that car was, we probably got a third of the knowledge out of it because of — like you said, there wasn’t a wind tunnel and all that other stuff, but we learned from what looked good, most of the time was good, and then of course the next year NASCAR didn’t outlaw it, but they put an engine rule on that crippled it so it wouldn’t run.

Q. I know during some of the announcement ceremonies in the past couple years, I think it was just good natured ribbing between you and Richard about the fact that you felt like you should have been in before him because you had eight championships and he had seven, but over the years have the two of you taken the time, whether it’s in what little bit of an off-season we have or maybe on the farm on a non-race weekend, sit back and realize how much you used to beat the crap out of everyone else that was in the sport?

DALE INMAN: No, Richard has been special to me all over the years, and of course Lynda has, too, to our family and everything. The reason some of that comes about, he’s told me he would have won 400 races if it hadn’t been for me and 14 championships. Then I come back and tell him, yeah, you’ve made pit stops at Martinsville for directions. That’s just the relations that we have. So no, that was nothing like that. It was only the joking end of it.

Q. Similar to what this gentleman was said, 1967, when you had 27 wins and ten in a row, is that something today you look back on and think, that’s one of the special achievements, and was it at the time where you just thought it was always going to be that way?

DALE INMAN: Well, you know, it was certainly a special season for us, and we just got on a streak there, and it was — put a lot of pressure on us because you was winning and then you knew some day you was going to lose. I didn’t want to see that day, but it happened.

We just got on kind of a roll that year, and it seemed like that particular car would not lose a race. It didn’t want to lose. I don’t know these stories about horses and everything, and I guess that car was kind of like that.

But then we come back in ’68 and had a decent year, but things just happened to us that wasn’t supposed to happen. You know, and like Richard — he’s real good at it. He’s never praised me but he’s never scolded me, but he just says you can’t overcome circumstances. This is a different version of it, but there’s been two races where we were leading, 500-lap races, one at Dover and one at Bristol, leading, blowed the engine, coasted, got white flag and couldn’t coast back and get the checkered. You talk about frustration, that sets in then.

Q. The crew chiefs today have computers and engineers and specialists on everything. How much fun would it be to see those guys work through what you did in order to get championships?

DALE INMAN: Well, to start with I’d have to have a little bit better education and use some of the stuff they’ve got now. But I tell them the stopwatch tells it all. You make a change and you read the stopwatch, and if it’s better, that’s good. If it’s worse, you go back the other way. But they ask the computers and everything and the models and all the stuff that they’ve got. We’ve got two engineers on each car, and some teams might have more than that.

But the big critical thing right now is the tires are so critical to these race cars, and we first started hearing they was changing the air pressure two tenths of a pound, and heck, we didn’t have a gauge that would read within two or three pounds of each other and certainly wouldn’t repeat. It’s hard to believe how sensitive these cars are, and my hats off to them because they’ve just about got them so fast they can’t race them.

THE MODERATOR: Congratulations on being inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame. Enjoy the rest of the weekend, and we’ll see you at Daytona.

Here’s the versatile list. Dale Inman – an eight-time champion, he’s the first to be inducted based on his primary role as a crew chief. Darrell Waltrip and Cale Yarborough – a pair of three-time NASCAR premier series champions, who won a combined 167 races. Glen Wood – the legendary car owner whose team has raced in seven decades, compiling 98 wins. And the late Richie Evans – a nine-time NASCAR Modified champion, the first to be inducted from outside NASCAR’s premier division.

Their induction ceremony – held in the Crown Ballroom of the Charlotte Convention Center – increased the NASCAR Hall of Fame’s membership to 15.

Inman, Richard Petty’s first cousin, is generally credited with inventing the modern role of crew chief. He won seven championships with Petty Enterprises and an eighth with Billy Hagan and driver Terry Labonte in 1984. Randleman County, N.C.’s Inman, 75, who retired from the sport in 1998, won 193 times. The list of current NASCAR Sprint Cup crew chiefs learning at Inman’s side is a lengthy one.

“I’m kind of familiar with this ring,” said Inman, referring to his NASCAR Hall of Fame ring. “For the last two or three years Richard has put it in my face a bunch of times.”

As host Mike Joy said, “Tonight, Dale Inman and Richard are together again, as NASCAR Hall of Fame members.”

Like Ned Jarrett, a member of the second class of the NASCAR Hall of Fame, Waltrip is both champion driver and distinguished television broadcaster. Waltrip won championships in 1981-82 and 1985 driving for NASCAR Hall of Famer Junior Johnson. The Owensboro, Ky., native won 84 times in 809 starts ranking fourth on the all-time NASCAR Sprint Cup victory list with Bobby Allison, also a member of the Hall’s second class. Waltrip, 64, has been the lead NASCAR on FOX analyst since 2001.

“I was telling [wife] Stevie earlier this week that I hoped I wouldn’t get emotional tonight, but she reminded me ‘Honey, you always get emotional about the things you are passionate about,’” Waltrip said. “This night, these men, and the people in this room, they’re what inspire me.”

Wood, a four-time NASCAR premier series winner, left the driver’s seat to own the fabled No. 21 Wood Brothers Ford team. With his four brothers, who include NASCAR Hall of Fame nominee and crew chief Leonard Wood, the organization counts 98 victories, including its fifth Daytona 500 win in 2011 with 20-year-old Trevor Bayne. Those who drove for the 86-year-old Wood’s Stuart, Va.-based team included fellow inductee Yarborough, NASCAR Hall of Famer David Pearson, A.J. Foyt and road racer Dan Gurney.

“This is not just about me being inducted in the Hall of Fame,” said Wood. “It’s also about the Wood Brothers. And it’s about NASCAR. And I’m proud to have been a NASCAR driver and car owner for the past 60 years, and I’m proud of this great honor.”

Yarborough, a native of Sardis, S.C., made NASCAR premier series history in 1978 when he won his third consecutive championship, a record that stood until Jimmie Johnson claimed his fourth straight title in 2009. Yarborough, now 72, won 83 times – sixth all-time – including four Daytona 500s. The majority of his wins came in cars fielded by Junior Johnson.

“Racing is like a big, tall ladder,” Yarborough said. “When you begin, you’re at the bottom. And it’s a long, hard climb. And tonight, I feel like I’m standing on the top step.”

Evans, nicknamed the “Rapid Roman” by virtue of racing out of Rome, N.Y., won nine championships over a 13-year span – including eight in a row – driving modified stock cars, primarily a race car fashioned from pre-World War II coupes and sedans powered by high horsepower engines. His bright orange No. 61 cars became legendary throughout the northeastern U.S. Evans won an estimated 475 times frequently racing seven nights a week. He lost his life at the age of 44 in 1985 practicing for a race at Martinsville Speedway in Virginia, having clinched his ninth championship a week prior.

“I know you’re here in spirit as the number 61 [Evans’ racing number] appears often in my life, even as I checked into the hotel the number 61 came up,” said Lynn Evans, who accepted on her departed husband’s behalf. “I’d especially like to thank the Hall of Fame voting panel for stepping outside the box and making Rich the first driver inductee not to have raced in NASCAR’s top series full time. You have now given hope to thousands of NASCAR competitors throughout the country to maybe someday reach their dream. ”

The inductors for the five inductees: crew chief Billy Nacewicz for Evans; Richard Petty for Dale Inman; Jeff Hammond for Darrell Waltrip; Leonard Wood for Glen Wood; and Ken Squier for Cale Yarborough.

Special congratulatory videos opened each inductee’s segment, with a NASCAR legend starring in each. Those involved: Jerry Cook for Evans; Leonard Wood for Inman; Bobby Allison for Waltrip; Junior Johnson for Wood; and Donnie Allison for Yarborough.

The five inductee exhibits officially open Sunday, Jan. 22 at the NASCAR Hall of Fame.

Linwood Burrow, director of track operations, and Seiji Kashiwabara, nursing director, earned the Track Services Award for Excellence and Nursing Director of the Year Award for Excellence, respectively, at the 2012 NASCAR Summit earlier this week.

“We are thrilled to have two of our staff members recognized at this year’s NASCAR Summit,” said RIR President Dennis Bickmeier. “Their continued enthusiasm and professionalism are vital to our operations throughout the year and on race weekend.”

NASCAR presents The Track Services Award for Excellence annually to an individual who has taken the initiative to significantly improve track services at a NASCAR National Series Track over the duration of a career of ten or more years. Burrow, who earned the service award, has been a member of the Richmond International Raceway staff for over 40 years.

NASCAR annually awards The Nursing Director of the Year Award for Excellence to a Nursing Director who shows outstanding leadership and organizational skills, quickly addresses concerns and delivers an immediate and positive outcome. Kashiwabara and his medical team operate the RIR Infield Care Center on race weekends, where they provide medical care to competitors and track guests. Kashiwabara has been a part of the RIR team for the past 11 years.

“It’s an honor to have one of our team members recognized by NASCAR,” said Dr. M. Stephen Kramer, M.D., Medical Director at Richmond International Raceway for the past 23 years. “Seiji is such a talent and a great representation of Richmond International Raceway.”

The awards were presented based on the employees’ service during the year 2011 and prior.

Arctic Cat Inc. will return as our main ride sponsor and provide their World Class Snowmobiles for the celebrities to ride and share their passion. Celebrities this year will include Tony Stewart, 2011 NASCAR Cup Champion, driver of the No. 14 Office Depot/Mobil 1 Chevrolet Impala for Stewart-Haas Racing and Greg Zipadelli, Competition Direction for Stewart-Haas Racing as well as Crew Chief of the No. 10 GoDaddy.com Chevrolet Impala for Stewart-Haas Racing. They bring with them Steve Addington, Crew Chief, Jeff Meendering, Car Chief, and Aaron Kuehn, Crew Member of the No. 14 Office Depot/Mobil 1 Chevrolet Impala for Stewart- Haas Racing. We are excited about having the championship winning team members coming to the ride. For our Sprint Car race fans, we welcome back Donny Schatz, driver of the No. 15 STP/Armor All/Chevy/J&J for Tony Stewart Racing.

For the special position of Emcees for the evening we have our favorite radio announcer and friend to all of our Crusade attendees, The Postman – Steve Post, he is joined this year by a few special guests to carry out the duties including SPEED TV reporter and fellow Better Half Dash racer, Wendy Venturini, as well as television reporter Matt Yocum to help throughout the event, they both have been Crusaders in the past and I know you all will be excited to see them return.

We also have our favorites returning for the event and I know you will give them all a warm welcome, including Frank Stoddard, Owner of FAS Lane Racing, Mike “Magic Shoes” McLaughlin, Jarrad Egert, Scott Zipadelli, Bruce D’Alessandro, Mark Robertson, Todd Foster, Scott “Scooter” Crowell and Bill Byrne. Last year we worked to bring some of our hunting fans into the mix with Drop Zone TV. We again will film for a show and showcase our fans from the hunting community on guest appearances for the episode.

The event will be filled with fun and exciting auction and raffle items and the opportunity to bid on certain items you maybe can’t live without. Zippy’s Crusade For Kids Charity Snowmobile Event will begin at 5 p.m. on Friday evening with a meet and greet, autograph signing, heavy hors d’oeuvres and raffle prizes. “Showtime” will begin to play at 9 p.m. Snowmobile ride will begin with brunch on Saturday morning at 10 a.m. and “take-off” of the sleds will be at 11 a.m. The event will conclude Saturday evening with a full buffet of excellent food, raffles, silent and live auctions and presentation of checks.

Zippy’s Crusade For Kids is a not for profit founded by Greg and Nan Zipadelli to raise funds through community events to donate to help kids in need.

To commemorate the milestone, Richmond International Raceway unveils a special “60 Years of NASCAR” logo to be used throughout 2012. The logo will be incorporated into marketing materials, as well as merchandise that will soon be available for purchase.

“NASCAR at Richmond International Raceway has a storied history, dating all the way back to 1953,” said track president Dennis Bickmeier. “Since that first NASCAR race, the track has undergone three name changes, five configuration changes and one surface change. But one thing that remains a constant is the incredible racing action our fans love.”

The first NASCAR race at what was then known as Atlantic Rural Exposition Fairgrounds, took place on April 19, 1953. Lee Petty, the patriarch of the famous Petty family, won the race and took home $1,000 with an average speed of 45.535 mph on the 1/2-mile dirt track.

Fast forward to 2012 and the track is a bit different, measuring at 3/4-mile of asphalt. When the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series returns to Richmond International Raceway on April 28, 2012, the 60th year of NASCAR at Richmond International Raceway begins.

Richard Petty, Lee’s son, holds virtually every major NASCAR Sprint Cup Series career record at Richmond International Raceway, including most wins (13), most poles (8 [shares record with Bobby Allison]), most top-five finishes (34), most top-10s (41), most starts (63), most consecutive starts (46), most races led (34), most laps led (5,136).

Tickets for the Saturday, April 28, NASCAR Sprint Cup Series 400 race at Richmond International Raceway go on sale this Friday, January 13, at 9:00 a.m. ET and can be purchased online by clicking here or by calling 866-455-7223. The weekend begins Thursday, April 26, with a doubleheader featuring the Denny Hamlin Short Track Showdown Late Model race, preceded by the Blue Ox 100 NASCAR K&N Pro Series East race. On Friday, April 27, catch the NASCAR Nationwide Series 250 race. For tickets and information on all events, log on to www.rir.com or call 866-455-7223.