Orange County Register

pearson

NASCAR’s long-anticipated announcement of its Hall of Fame inaugural class deserves a caution and a restart.

The honorees are Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt, Junior Johnson, NASCAR founder Bill France and longtime president Bill France Jr.

That’s a fine list if you ignore the best driver in the history of stock car driving.

David Pearson won 105 races, a distant second to Petty but far ahead of Johnson. He also won three points championships. His winning percentage was slightly ahead of Petty, who ran far more races and came from a racing family (his dad, Lee, will make the Hall of Fame someday). Pearson came from the mills of South Carolina. He was a homegrown genius who usually moseyed around in the middle of the pack before striking at the end.

Petty and Pearson finished 1-2 or 2-1 a total of 63 games, and Pearson won more of those than Petty did.

While driving the No. 21 Mercury as prepared by the Wood Brothers, Pearson won 63 races in a 7-year span. In 1973 he won 11 of his 18 races.

The Woods didn’t have the operation to compete at all the small trackets, so they concentrated on superspeedways. Pearson also retired early with back spasms.

He wound up with 301 top fives in 572 races.

You can argue that Pearson wasn’t the best driver — and you won’t convince many of us — but there’s absolutely no way he’s not one of the five most influential figures in stock car racing.

Putting both Frances into the first class is ridiculous. Sure, they’ve run a fabulously successful operation, and France Jr. nationalized the sport and made the stockers the preeminent form of auto racing in America. But nobody would have minded if France Jr. had made it and “Big Bill” had waited until next year.

The first class should have consisted of Petty, Pearson, Earnhardt, Johnson and France Jr. If you want a first alternative, Darrell Waltrip won three championships and won 84 races since 1971, which was the beginning of the Winston Cup. No one else has more.

Jeff Gordon already has Hall of Fame credentials, with four championships, but I don’t think they’re inducting active drivers.

If you’re looking at 2010, look at Waltrip, France Sr., Bobby Allison, Cale Yarborough and the Wood Brothers (as an entry).

But why take it seriously when Pearson isn’t in? It would be like leaving Ty Cobb out of the original Cooperstown class.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.