NASCAR Hall of Fame Inducts Its 16th Class

Their racing experiences and their backgrounds were radically different, but they will drive in the same lane in January when they arrive at the NASCAR Hall of Fame.

Harry Gant and Kurt Busch.

Gant, Busch, and the late Ray Hendrick, a Virginian who won hundreds of Modified and Late Model Sportsman races, will be inducted as the 16th class in the hall January 23.

Gant and Busch attended Sunday’s Cup Series playoff race at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Big-time auto racing was almost an afterthought for Gant, a Taylorsville, North Carolina, native who made an excellent living building houses and running short-track Late Model races across the Southeast as a sideline. He was 33 years old when he ran his first Cup Series race and was 40 in his first full-time season. The contrast to the current day, when younger and younger drivers are arriving on the shores of the major leagues, is dramatic.

Busch grew up on the opposite side of the country in Las Vegas and followed his father, Tom, into racing, running desert short tracks as a teenager. He advanced through numerous series to arrive in Cup in 2000 at 21 years old.

Gant scored 18 Cup wins and perhaps is best remembered for winning four-straight Cup races in September 1991. Known as Handsome Harry, Gant now is 85 years old. He was elected to the hall in his seventh year on the ballot.

His phone has never been busier.

“It got so bad I just had to turn off the cell phone and the house phone,” Gant said Sunday. “I was surprised and caught off-guard about everything. It’s starting to dawn on me now how good this all is and I’ve been looking forward to it.”

Gant blended his talents in carpentry and racing for many years before finding gold in the Cup Series.

“I was in the house-building business and racing some on Saturday nights, then I started racing on Friday and Saturday and then Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. It just kept growing,” he said.

Before racing Late Models at tracks like Hickory Motor Speedway, Columbia Speedway, and Greenville-Pickens Speedway against short-track legends like Jack Ingram and Butch Lindley, Gant was a race fan. He remembered getting an autograph from Fireball Roberts at the Charlotte track.

“I wanted to meet him because I liked the way they announced him, like, ‘Sitting on the pole, it’s FIREBALL ROBERTS!’” he said.

Much like his younger brother Kyle would years later, Kurt Busch jumped into Cup racing with both feet, yielding little to veteran drivers and stirring the pot.

“When we were watching races with my dad, we were a Dale [Earnhardt] Senior family,” Busch said. “To get to watch the black 3 car and the moves he would make on the track and his overall demeanor, that was really what we were laser-focused on. It was amazing that I had the chance to race against him for a few races, and then I got him pissed off at me at Daytona. I got the last middle finger from Dale Senior.

“Kyle and I pushed each other and tried to be as good as we could, to stick it out on the West Coast. That was the hardest part. Were we ever going to have the chance? I was OK with just being on the Southwest Tour. That was a dream.”

Bigger dreams were ahead.