{"id":429469,"date":"2026-01-24T04:12:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-24T04:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/429469\/"},"modified":"2026-01-24T04:12:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-24T04:12:09","slug":"three-drivers-take-their-place-in-nascar-hall-of-fame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/429469\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Drivers Take Their Place in NASCAR Hall of Fame"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was an unlikely journey, Kurt Busch\u2019s road to the NASCAR Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n

He started in Las Vegas, which is not exactly a stock car racing hotbed. When he arrived in the Southeastern hotbed of the sport and received good opportunities at several team addresses, challenges remained. Busch, still unbelievably young, showed up with somewhat of a mean streak, and even as he began showing his considerable skills at driving fast cars, he also drove into a series of controversies with other drivers, team owners and journalists. He later would say all he thought about in those early years was the gas pedal.<\/p>\n

Related Story<\/p>\n

He moved from ride to ride at NASCAR\u2019s top level. He won the Cup Series championship in 2004 with Roush Racing but was booted from that ride less than a year later. Busch moved on to Team Penske, Phoenix Racing, Furniture Row Racing, Stewart-Haas, Chip Ganassi and 23XI, stringing wins along the way and refining his attitude. <\/p>\n

By the time Busch\u2019s driving career ended, he was praised by team owners and sponsors and had stacked up years of both quality racing and admirable contributions to the sport in general.<\/p>\n

Busch\u2019s career ended in July 2022 when he suffered a concussion in a crash during qualifying at Pocono Raceway.<\/p>\n

\"nascarDavid Jensen\/\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Kurt Busch.<\/p>\n

Busch finished with 34 Cup victories, scoring at least one win in almost all his full-time seasons, and he was an easy choice for the Hall of Fame the first year he appeared on the ballot.<\/p>\n

Busch, Harry Gant, and the late Ray Hendrick were inducted into the NASCAR Hall in a ceremony in Charlotte, North Carolina Friday night, hours before a major winter storm was expected to hit the area.<\/p>\n

Busch described himself as \u201ca blue-collar kid from Las Vegas living his dream.\u201d He reminded those in attendance that he raced a car for the first time in March 1994 and was competing in the Cup Series only six years later. He thanked \u201cthe village of people in Las Vegas who were always there to help me out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Related Story<\/p>\n

Gant was a carpenter who turned racing from a hobby into a career that made him rich and famous. Elected in his seventh year on the ballot after close calls in previous years, Gant won 18 Cup Series races.<\/p>\n

Most famously, Gant won four straight Cup races in September 1991, earning the nickname \u201cMr. September.\u201d He was among the most popular drivers in NASCAR history. He remains the oldest driver\u2014at 52\u2014to win a Cup race and pole.<\/p>\n

After being inducted by Kyle Petty, Gant thanked people who had raced with him, those who built his engines and maintained his cars and sponsors who were along for the ride. He talked about competing against drivers like Richard Petty who were inducted into the first Hall class in 2010 and against younger drivers who probably will follow him into the Hall.<\/p>\n

\"nascarDavid Jensen\/\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Harry Gant.<\/p>\n

Hendrick raced rarely in the Cup Series but had astonishing success in modified and late model sportsman racing, totaling hundreds of wins over a long career. Some tracks put a bounty on Hendrick, offering bonus money to anyone who could outrun him. Few collected. He won 20 times at Martinsville Speedway in Virginia.<\/p>\n

Hendrick finished in the top 10 in the modified series in nine seasons and was noted for running at virtually any track that paid decent money, following the series from state to state and often racing five times a week. He eventually earned the nicknames of \u201cMr. Modified\u201d and \u201cRapid Ray.\u201d<\/p>\n

Related Story<\/p>\n

Also honored Friday night was late track president and promoter H.A. \u201cHumpy\u201d Wheeler, who was selected to receive the Landmark Award for Outstanding Contributions to NASCAR. Wheeler was a revolutionary in the field of motorsports promotion, perennially drawing huge crowds to Charlotte Motor Speedway with innovative pre-race shows and facility enhancements that put the track in a class of its own.<\/p>\n

\"Lettermark\"<\/p>\n

Mike Hembree has covered auto racing for numerous media outlets, including USA Today, NASCAR Scene, NBC Sports, The Greenville News and the SPEED Channel. He has been roaming garage areas and pit roads for decades (although the persistent rumor that he covered the first Indianapolis 500 is not true). Winner of numerous motorsports and other media awards, he also has covered virtually every other major sport. He lives near Gaffney, South Carolina and can be convinced to attend Bruce Springsteen concerts if you have tickets.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was an unlikely journey, Kurt Busch\u2019s road to the NASCAR Hall of Fame. He started in Las…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":429470,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,782,178969,784,1642,634,178968,82],"class_list":["post-429469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-content-type-news","tag-contentid-fcf744c9-ffbb-418c-870f-d024f188b65d","tag-displaytype-standard-article","tag-locale-us","tag-nascar","tag-shorttitle-3-drivers-take-their-place-in-nascar-hall-of-fame","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=429469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429469\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/429470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}