{"id":3877,"date":"2018-03-30T13:01:17","date_gmt":"2018-03-30T17:01:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/?p=3877"},"modified":"2018-03-30T13:01:17","modified_gmt":"2018-03-30T17:01:17","slug":"fan-voting-opens-for-2019-nascar-hall-of-fame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2018\/03\/30\/fan-voting-opens-for-2019-nascar-hall-of-fame\/","title":{"rendered":"Fan Voting Opens for 2019 NASCAR Hall of Fame"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This week <strong>NASCAR<\/strong> opened up the fan voting for the 2019 Hall of Fame.\u00a0 Once again NASCAR will be adding five people to its Hall of Fame from the twenty folks listed on the nominee list which can be found here: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nascar.com\/news-media\/2018\/03\/06\/nominees-announced-nascar-hall-fame-class-2019\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>https:\/\/www.nascar.com\/news-media\/2018\/03\/06\/nominees-announced-nascar-hall-fame-class-2019\/<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<h1>Fan Voting Opens for 2019 NASCAR Hall of Fame<\/h1>\n<p>I put my five nominees out on social media and asked for people\u2019s comments and choices.\u00a0 As usual, NASCAR fans were not short on opinions.\u00a0 First, let\u2019s take a look at my informal poll results.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Jeff<\/strong> <strong>Gordon<\/strong> I\u2019m not sure if Gordon, the four-time champion, will be included on everyone\u2019s ballot when all is said and done, but he was on everyone\u2019s list in my informal poll.\u00a0 Can everyone say shoe-in?<\/li>\n<li><strong>Buddy Baker<\/strong> Baker received a huge amount of support in my poll.\u00a0 Baker, who won 19 races in his distinguished career certainly has a huge following.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Alan Kulwicki<\/strong> (tie) Kulwicki won the Championship in 1992. We lost Kulwicki in a plane crash the following year.\u00a0 It\u2019s tough not to include Kulwicki who was voted as a top 50 driver in NASCAR of all time.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Joe Gibbs<\/strong> (tie)\u00a0 It\u2019s really a hard call for many to separate Jack Roush, Roger Penske and Gibbs.\u00a0 I think in the end what separated Gibbs from the pack of owners were his 9 Championships vs Roush\u2019s five and Penske\u2019s 4.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Davey Allison<\/strong> (tie) Part of the famous Allison clan and a member of the old \u201cAlabama Gang\u201d, Allison won 19 times, including the 1992 Daytona 500.\u00a0 One year later, the 32-year-old Allison died in a helicopter crash.\u00a0 Larry McReynolds once said after Allison\u2019s death,<em> \u201cI lost my best friend.&#8221;<\/em>\u00a0 McReynolds was the Crew Chief for Allison.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>My Five<\/h2>\n<p>I found myself in agreement with most of the results of the poll with a couple of exceptions.\u00a0 Gordon, Gibbs, and Kulwicki were on my ballot as well.\u00a0 However, two of my picks did not make the top five list.\u00a0 One received many comments questioning my choice while my other pick did not.<\/p>\n<p>I had <strong>Kirk Shelmerdine<\/strong> on my list.\u00a0 Part of my reasoning was I thought Crew Chiefs should be represented in the 2019 class. In my opinion, Shelmerdine was at the top of his class.\u00a0 Part of those great racing seasons of <strong>Dale Earnhardt<\/strong>, Shelmerdine played a huge part in Earnhardt\u2019s 46 wins and four Championships.<\/p>\n<p>In those eight seasons as Crew Chief, his group won four consecutive Pit Crew titles.\u00a0 Fans often forget because the drivers are so high profile in our sport, but racing is a team sport.\u00a0 Shelmerdine deserves to be recognized for the success Dale Earnhardt and his team had for that decade.\u00a0 He gets my vote.<\/p>\n<h2>Reasons For The Ricky Rudd Choice<\/h2>\n<p>My last choice drew a lot of debate from NASCAR fans and I readily admit I probably voted more with my heart here.\u00a0 I loved <strong>Ricky Rudd<\/strong>.\u00a0 To me, he was just that old time tough racer who would never get outworked on the track.\u00a0 Lack of effort was not in his DNA.\u00a0 I loved that about Rudd.<\/p>\n<p>My favorite <strong>Ricky Rudd<\/strong> story happened in 1984 at Daytona International Speedway.\u00a0 Rudd, nicknamed \u201cThe Roster\u201d, crashed hard in the Busch Clash suffering head trauma.\u00a0 In fact the next week at the Daytona 500, Rudd\u2019s eyes were so swollen he taped them open so he could see.\u00a0 Now that\u2019s tough.<\/p>\n<p>Rudd also was named one of NASCAR\u2019s 50 Greatest Drivers.\u00a0 Rudd also had an amazing\u00a0 906 starts in the premier Cup series.\u00a0 He&#8217;s got longevity covered.<\/p>\n<h2>Who Votes<\/h2>\n<p>There will be 53 experts voting for this year\u2019s inductees.\u00a0 The five fan favorites will count as the 54<sup>th<\/sup> vote.\u00a0 You can vote up to 50 times a day.\u00a0 Here\u2019s the link.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nascarhall.com\/inductees\/fan-vote\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>http:\/\/www.nascarhall.com\/inductees\/fan-vote<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>I\u2019d love to hear your thoughts.\u00a0 Thanks for reading<\/strong>.\u00a0 <strong><em>Listen to WTBQ radio on Monday and Friday mornings at 8:45 as I join Frank, Taylor and the Morning Show gang to discuss all the current happenings in NASCAR.\u00a0 1110AM 93.5FM or online at WTBQ.COM.\u00a0 You can also follow me on twitter @JimLaplante<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>MAIN PHOTO:<\/strong><br \/>\n<a id=\"OZ-vYu5OR7FN6EFOT41zcw\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.in\/detail\/907540130\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'OZ-vYu5OR7FN6EFOT41zcw',sig:'hLUMnYlYnPQFU-nVWs4Y4v2KjhDL4oJt3HxxuHP0JEs=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'907540130',caption: true ,tld:'in',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This week NASCAR opened up the fan voting for the 2019 Hall of Fame.\u00a0 Once again NASCAR will be adding five people to its Hall of Fame from the twenty folks listed on the nominee list which can be found here: https:\/\/www.nascar.com\/news-media\/2018\/03\/06\/nominees-announced-nascar-hall-fame-class-2019\/ Fan Voting Opens for 2019 NASCAR Hall of Fame I put my five [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":709,"featured_media":3891,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"666","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[868,867,54,108,832,870,869],"class_list":["post-3877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-alan-kulwicki","tag-buddy-baker","tag-davey-allison","tag-jeff-gordon","tag-joe-gibbs","tag-nascar-hall-of-fame","tag-ricky-rudd"],"modified_by":"Sudha Sundar","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/709"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3877\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}