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For Fans, The Hall of Fame is a Magic Place

An Opinion


May 30, 2010

By Kim Roberson

Kim Roberson
The NASCAR Hall of Fame is an amazing place. I don't know how else to describe it, and yet amazing almost seems to small a word to explain the content that this one building holds.

I arrived just after 10 a.m. Saturday morning and fund a line already from the ticket office to the Food Lion Stage, which had been sat up as part of the festivities surrounding the Coca Cola 600 race weekend. I had purcahsed a "Crew Chief" membership to the Hall when memberships became available last fall (I am No. 19), so I was lucky enough to be able to bypass the line and go straight in.

After stopping at the Customer Service desk to pick up my "hard card" and "goody bag" for being a charter member, I passed through the entrance to the main hall, and walked on to Glory Road.


Photo Kim Roberson

For a relatively new fan, many of the cars that were located along the long and curving "road" were nothing but photo's in a book about the history of NASCAR before now. Richard Petty's Championship winning '67 Plymouth (with "by Petty" under the word Plymouth on the left rear), Herb Thomas' Fabulous Hudson Hornet, Bobby Isaac's 1970 winged Daytona, The Car that Cale Yarborough won the 1977 and 1978 Championships with, Dale Earnhart's No. 3, and one of Jimmie Johnson's winged COT cars. There are 18 total vehicles located along Glory Road, including a No. 16 NAPA truck, and two modified cars. As you walk along, you can read about each car, who drove it, and what made that car special. As you make the walk, the banking of Glory Road increases, and along side the descriptions of the cars are descriptions of the various tracks that NASCAR races on, as well as a small sample of the track pavement that you can actually touch to understand how rough or smooth it is. At the end of the road, the banking is 33-degrees, which matches the banking at Talladega. There is a place where you can climb up on the display to get a feel of just how much of an angle 33-degrees actually is.

After leaving Glory Road, you enter the interactive portion of the Hall. The first stop is the area set aside for the Hall of Fame inductees. As you walk in the antrance, Junior Johnson is commemorated on the right, and Dale Earnhardt is on your left. In front of you is the King, and in between are Bill France Senior and Junior. Each display has a car -- Earnhard's No. 3, Petty's famous No. 43, Bill Senior's No. 10 -- and the tall lighted display that you saw featured at the Induction Ceremony. There are also personal items -- Junior's pardon from President Reagan, Dale's boots, the King's Championship Rings and the Medal of Freedom he received from President George H.W. Bush. In the back of this room is what is called "the Skybox", where you can look out across Glory Road and the atrium area below. There are seats in this room in case you feel like just sitting down and enjoying the view, or if you need to rest from your walking and observing to this point.

After stopping at the Customer Service desk to pick up my "hard card" and "goody bag" for being a charter member, I passed through the entrance to the main hall, and walked on to Glory Road.


Photo Kim Roberson

You then move on to the hands on part of the Hall. This is where you can try your hand at changing a tire and filling a car with gas, jacking the car up, or climbing into a simulator discuised as a race car and trying to win a race against other Hall visitors. there is a place where children can try their hand at jacking the car, filling it with gas, or loosening and tightening lug nuts on a tire as well in a kid-sized atmosphere. There are full sized cars for fans to look over, old engines for gear heads to study, and plenty of other "tech" artifacts for fans to study. As with all of the other displays, there are artifacts mixed in with the activities: in this case, a wall of drivers' uniforms dating all the way back to when they just wore shirts and pants.

The fourth floor is where the real magic is. You could easily spend all afternoon just wandering and investigating each piece of NASCAR history contained in this section. Some of the items are from the drivers or their families, others are from collections donated by fans. There is a red letterman's jacked worn by Fireball Roberts the week before he died; Bobby Allison's childhood band uniform; Davey Allison's custom made Texaco cowboy boots; Alan Kulwicki's Hooters uniform; Smokey Yunick's weathered and worn hat. There is a letter written in October of 1957 to Lee Petty from Pat Purcell, the Executive Manager of NASCAR, discussing Lee's 'rough driving'."We have received a great many complaints this season about rough driving on your part, and they are now piling in so fast and from so many different directions that it is going to be neccessary for someone to put the "eye" on you for the next several race meets."

After stopping at the Customer Service desk to pick up my "hard card" and "goody bag" for being a charter member, I passed through the entrance to the main hall, and walked on to Glory Road.


Photo Kim Roberson

I could go on and on and still not touch all of the items on this floor. There is a place for you to have your picture taken waving one of the many flags used in NASCAR, and places for you to test your knowledge of NASCAR trivia.

As you leave and head for the exit, on the right, there is a glass case with a document in it. Upon further inspection, I find it is the "Injury Causation Analysis" report on Dale Earnhartds death at Daytona almost ten years ago. There are actually two copies: one is the closed document so you can see the cover, the other is opened to the introduction page which includes an abstract of the reports contents.You can only read that one page, but it is enough to remind you of just how violent this sport of ours can be.

As I left the Hall of Fame, I was already thinking about trying to go back again on Sunday to try and see things I know I missed this first time around. That is one of the things I like the most about the NASCAR Hall of Fame -- you know that no matter how much you see, and how much time you spend wandering around, there is probably something you missed and others you just want to go back and look at a second time.

If you find yourself in Charlotte, make sure you make time out to visit the Hall. It is open seven days a week, 362 days a year (they are closed Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas). Tickets are $19.95 for adults, $17.95 for members of the Military, and $12.95 for a child, and your 'ticket' is actually a plastic card that you can use to interact with several of the displays throughout the Hall. For more information, you can visit www.nascarhall.com.



You can contact Kim at.. Insider Racing News
You Can Read Other Articles By Kim


The thoughts and ideas expressed by this writer or any other writer on Insider Racing News, are not necessarily the views of the staff and/or management of IRN.

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