NASCAR Cup Series

'Bubba' Wallace wants Wendell Scott in NASCAR Hall of Fame

Published May. 20, 2014 3:30 p.m. ET

Jared Turner

Last October, 20-year-old Darrell Wallace Jr. became the second African-American driver in history to score a NASCAR national touring series victory when he won a Camping World Truck Series race at Martinsville Speedway.

Nearly 50 years earlier, Wendell Scott became the sport's first African-American national series race winner when he took the checkered flag first in a Grand National Series (now Sprint Cup Series) race in Jacksonville, Fla., on Dec. 1, 1963.

Wallace, who coincidentally scored his first truck win at Martinsville Speedway just a few minutes down the road from Scott's hometown of Danville, Va., feels a sense of indebtedness to Scott for helping pave the way for his entry and success in NASCAR.

It's no surprise, then, that the driver nicknamed "Bubba" is pulling hard for Scott -- who retired from NASCAR in 1973 and died of spinal cancer in 1990 -- to be one of five nominees chosen on Wednesday to be part of the NASCAR Hall of Fame's Class of 2015.

"Let's do it. Let's see him in there," said Wallace, an alumnus of NASCAR's Drive for Diversity program and second-year Truck Series driver. "I honestly think he deserves to be in it. He paved the way for me. If there was nobody in front of me, it'd be ... I don't know how it would be. I know it would be different with how the world is today, but at the same time he went out there and put it all on the line and went through a lot of stuff to get his first win, and just now getting the trophy a couple years ago, that's tough to hear about and to think about.

"But now it's changed a lot and we can go out there and I can have a good, solid weekend at the racetrack from a fan's view and from an officiating view. All that is OK, so I honestly think he deserves to get in."

The NASCAR Hall of Fame Class of 2015 will be announced Wednesday afternoon at the NHoF in Charlotte, N.C., following a vote by the NASCAR Hall of Fame Voting Panel. The five NASCAR Hall of Fame inductees will be selected from a list of 20 nominees that includes such household names as Rick Hendrick, Richard Childress, Terry Labonte, Benny Parsons, Bruton Smith, Bill Elliott and Buddy Baker.

When the announcement airs live on FOX Sports 1 at 4 p.m. ET, will Wallace be surprised to hear Scott's name called?

"No, no, not at all," Wallace said. "I think it would be more than disappointing to see if he doesn't get in."

Over a career that stretched 13 years and 495 races within the Grand National Series (known now as Sprint Cup), Scott recorded one win, 20 top-five finishes and 147 top-10 finishes. He won numerous minor league races, as well as two Virginia state championships, and was named to the National Sports Hall of Fame, the International Motorsports Hall of Fame, the National Motorsports Press Association Hall of Fame and the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame.

Wallace believes Scott's posthumous enshrinement in the NHoF in January would be "huge for the sport."

"For people to see that -- especially outsiders looking in -- they'll want to get more up to date on the history behind it," Wallace said. "They'll say, 'Oh, there's an African-American getting inducted.' Well, they won't know it's from way back, and now they'll read up on the history that's following him as far the Bill Lester, the Willy T. Ribbs, the Marc Davis (all African-American drivers), the me, the diversity program now.

"So it's just a lot of things that led up to that if it does happen."