Dec 17, 2007

Motorsports Hall of Fame to Honor Variety

In the Associated Press story on the upcoming 2008 inductees into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame, Robert Byron got the first mention. Why?  Because Red, as we knew him, was a driver -- in fact, the first driver to win a NASCAR points championship. And although Byron is certainly deserving, Driving Today applauds the fact that the upcoming inductee class also includes a car owner, a racecar fabricator, an engine-builder and a marketing maven. That's as it should be, because drivers would be nothing without all the other folks who make racing happen. Other inductees at the April 24 enshrinement in Talladega will be Art Arfons, Bill Jenkins, Frank Kurtis, Everett "Cotton" Owens and Ralph Seagraves. Sadly, Arfons died just a week ago at 81.

Arfons was a legend on drag strips across the country, not for winning races but for the incredible showmanship of his "Green Monster" jet- and rocket-powered cars. At the wheels of various Green Monsters he set setting the Land Speed Record three times. Jenkins was a premier engine builder for dragsters, often called the "father of PRO Stock." He built engines for 61 NHRA Eliminators, and cars powered by his engines garnered five NHRA championships and three ARHA championships He also dipped his toe in as a PRO Stock driver.

While Kurtis was never a racecar driver, he made his name in motorsports by building more than 500 Kurtis-Kraft midget racecars. His midgets were the "class of the class" for two decades. Owens was both race driver and car owner, winning more than 100 NASCAR Featherlite Modified Tour races during the 1950s. He then moved to what was known as the Grand National series as driver and car owner, taking 41 wins.

Seagraves never drove a racecar, owned one or worked on one, but he was a pivotal cog in NASCAR's development. He pushed the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco sponsorship of motorsports in the 1970s and served as president of Reynolds' Special Events Operations from 1972 until his retirement in 1985. Byron, like Seagraves, deceased, captured the first NASCAR sanctioned race on the Daytona beach-road course on February 15, 1948, and the following year he won the first NASCAR points championship.