Waltrip's Hall premonition comes true: `I didn't think I'd get in'
<em style="b">Edited by USA TODAY.</em>
By NATE RYAN
USA TODAY
CHARLOTTE - An informal straw poll and his TV colleagues told Darrell Waltrip that he was bound for NASCAR glory.
But while fidgeting on a stage inside the NASCAR Hall of Fame, his cream suit matching the color of his pale face, Waltrip's gut told him otherwise.
The three-time Sprint Cup champion and nationally renowned TV analyst knew he wouldn't be enshrined in the stock-car museum's second class.
"I haven't met anybody yet that didn't vote for me," Waltrip said, managing a smile Wednesday afternoon in between TV takes analyzing the Hall of Fame's vote for Speed TV. "Somebody maybe needs to do the math, because everybody said, 'Oh, I voted for you, man! You're in!' "
"To tell you the honest truth, I didn't think I'd get in. I just knew the fabric of the group that votes. They're trying to build the Hall with the platform first. They got the Frances and the Pettys and some of the older drivers, some of the older car owners build a platform and give us something to stand on."
The top five elected by a 53-member panel (including an online fan vote) skewed toward pioneers behind three-time champ David Pearson, the sport's second winningest driver who received 94 percent of the vote after being snubbed in the Hall's first year.
The other inductees were Lee Petty, the patriarch of powerhouse Petty Enterprises who won the first Daytona 500; championship car owner Bud Moore, who stormed the beaches at Normandy before fielding entries for 37 seasons in NASCAR's premier division; and Ned Jarrett, a two-time champion who was as well known as an affable TV broadcaster as a two-time champion.
Rounding out the class was Bobby Allison. His 84 victories tied him for third all time with Waltrip and his 1983 championship is two fewer titles than won by Waltrip and Cale Yarborough, who also wasn't elected.
Longtime track promoter Humpy Wheeler said "it's almost an impossibility" Allison could be elected while Waltrip and Yarborough were left out but added "there's not a vote where personal feelings aren't involved."
Despite their impressive records, both might have run afoul of some voters off the track. Waltrip was a brash competitor who has remained outspoken as a broadcaster unafraid to criticize leaders in Daytona Beach, Fla. Yarborough was a fiery driver (he exchanged punches with Allison in a legendary fight to end the 1979 Daytona 500) who has distanced himself from NASCAR over the past decade
At least a dozen members of the Hall's voting panel are connected to NASCAR through employment by the sanctioning body or International Speedway Corp., controlled by the France family that founded NASCAR.
"Is this about auto racing achievement or a PR thing?" asked Wheeler, one of the voters. "Well, it's all of them together . . . You don't want to say the most popular people are going to be in the Hall of Fame, but people are human beings."
Jarrett, 78, recently began an intense exercise regime because he wanted to be alive when he was elected to the Hall of Fame. But he didn't expect induction until 2012. Nicknamed "Gentleman Ned," he said his Christian faith and TV experience "was a great help in being elected."
Allison also became a popular figure in retirement and believed his record (which included three Daytona 500 wins) merited consideration. But, he said, "I wondered if maybe something I said one day might have really backfired on me."
Waltrip, 63, said he might not have been old enough to be considered. "They look at me as maybe a guy that's still going to be around awhile," he said.
"I'm not angry. I couldn't do more. In this sport, I've done everything they've ever asked. . . . You know, it just wasn't my time."
