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2017 NASCAR Monster Energy Cup \u2013 Daytona 500Daytona International Speedway, Daytona Beach, FL USA
Sunday 26 February 2017
Kurt Busch
World Copyright: Rusty Jarrett\/NKP<\/p>\n
NASCAR champions, the late Kyle Busch and Kurt Busch, along with NASCAR Vice Chairman Mike Helton and four-time Indianapolis 500 winner Rick Mears have been selected for induction into the 2027 National Motorsports Press Association Hall of Fame by vote of the membership.<\/p>\n
The NMPA is proud to announce and celebrate these four accomplished honorees, whose legendary careers have impacted motorsports for decades.<\/p>\n
The late Kyle Busch, 41, who passed away in May after a brief illness, is a two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion and his combined 234 victories in NASCAR\u2019s three premier series \u2013 the NASCAR Cup Series (63), O\u2019Reilly Auto Parts Series (102) and NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series (69) \u2013 are most all-time. He is one of only 18 drivers in the history of the sport to hoist multiple NASCAR Cup Series championship trophies (2015 and 2019). He won the 2009 ORAP Series title and his 102 wins in that series and his 69 victories in the truck series are both all-time best marks. He won races in 19 consecutive seasons and is the only driver in history to claim victories in all three national series in a single race weekend \u2013 something he accomplished twice in Bristol, Tenn. in 2010 and 2017.<\/p>\n
2017 NASCAR Monster Energy Cup \u2013 Daytona 500
Daytona International Speedway, Daytona Beach, FL USA
Sunday 26 February 2017
Kurt Busch
World Copyright: Rusty Jarrett\/NKP<\/p>\n
Kurt Busch, 48, won the 2004 NASCAR Cup Series championship in the sport\u2019s first-ever version of the \u201cChase.\u201d The Las Vegas native won 34 career races in the sport\u2019s highest level, including the 2017 Daytona 500. He earned the 2014 Indianapolis 500 top rookie honors for a sixth-place finish in his Indy debut \u2013 one of only six drivers to accomplish the legendary Memorial Day weekend racing \u201cDouble\u201d of competing in both the Indy 500 and Charlotte\u2019s NASCAR 600-miler in the same day. A 2026 NASCAR Hall of Fame inductee, Busch has five ORAP Series wins and four NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series victories. He podiumed (third place) driving in the 2008 Rolex 24 at Daytona and also won the 2003 International Race of Champions (IROC) championship.<\/p>\n
Helton, 73, is one of NASCAR\u2019s most legendary leaders. The Virginia-native\u2019s first job in racing was working in public relations at Atlanta Motor Speedway in 1980 before launching his trajectory in the sport\u2019s executive ranks five years later. H was named president of NASCAR in 1999 \u2013 a role he served until 2015 when he was named the sport\u2019s vice chairman. During Helton\u2019s tenure NASCAR saw a great expansion, adding race tracks in California, the Midwest and South Florida to its schedule. Helton oversaw the sport\u2019s first billion-dollar television deals and perhaps his greatest legacy may well be the massive safety innovations introduced during his tenure.<\/p>\n
Mears, 74, is one of the sport\u2019s great icons. His four Indianapolis 500 wins \u2013 in 1979, 1984, 1988 and 1991 \u2013 remain the benchmark for triumph in the great race, a record shared by only A.J. Foyt, Al Unser and Helio Castroneves. Mears\u2019 six Indy 500 pole positions is unmatched still today. The Kansas-native, who was raised in Bakersfield, Calif. won three CART Series championships in 1979, 1981-82 collecting 29 race trophies and setting a mark of 40 pole positions in what is the current-day IndyCar Series. He prevailed in the sport\u2019s early heyday competing on a grid that included fellow generational legends such as Foyt, Mario Andretti, Michael Andretti, Bobby Rahal and Johnny Rutherford. Although he is widely celebrated for his incredible open-wheel success, Mears is also the 1976 winner of the world-renowned Pikes Peak Hill Climb.<\/p>\n
These four accomplished members of the sport will be honored and celebrated in the annual National Motorsports Press Association\u2019s Hall of a Fame Induction Ceremony Jan. 23, 2027 in Concord, N.C.<\/p>\n
NMPA PR<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NASCAR champions, the late Kyle Busch and Kurt Busch, along with NASCAR Vice Chairman Mike Helton and four-time…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":943198,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":["post-943197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nascar","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/943197","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=943197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/943197\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/943198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=943197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=943197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=943197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}