Snubbed: Terry Labonte Should Have Been Inducted Into 2015 NASCAR Hall of Fame Class

The 2015 NASCAR Hall of Fame class was announced on Wednesday, May 21 and the sixth Hall of Fame class is the first to be comprised entirely of former drivers. Former champions Bill Elliott, Joe Weatherly and Rex White received the call, as did 26-time winner Fred Lorenzen and Wendell Scott, the first and to this day only African-American driver to ever win a race in NASCAR’s premier series.

All five inductees are no doubt Hall of Famers. But, there is one snub – who like Bill Elliott was on the ballot for the first time this year – that I thought should’ve been a no-brainer selection on the first ballot. That person is two-time champion Terry Labonte.

I think Elliott, Weatherly and Scott are all no-brainers for different reasons and would have included all three on my ballot had I had a vote. However, I don’t think the selections of White or Lorenzen were merited over Labonte.

It seems rather strange for a one-time champion in White to get the call over a two-time champion in Labonte, especially when White has only six more career wins. But, the reason likely lies in the fact that White is the sport’s eldest champion at 84 and the voting committee wanted him to have a chance to be inducted while he was alive. Labonte is merely 57 and actually still competes in the occasional Sprint Cup Series race, despite having been retired full-time for nearly a decade. This is a reasonable explanation as to why White was chosen over Labonte, but I don’t necessarily feel the age of a nominee should be a deciding factor over racing resume.

The selection of Lorenzen over Labonte is more curious. Lorenzen is not a champion of the sport, but that likely has much to do with the fact that he didn’t run a full season schedule in an era where many drivers did the same. Lorenzen also only has four more career wins than the two-time champion. The case for Lorenzen’s induction over Labonte has to do with his importance in the sport as a very popular driver, his incredible winning percentage (including winning half of the 16 events he entered in 1964) and like White the committee might have wanted to induct him before his death. Lorenzen is 79 and living in an assisted living facility.    

I think Labonte’s two championships alone should have gotten him inducted over White and Lorenzen. With the induction this year of Weatherly this leaves Labonte as the only multiple time champion in NASCAR history who is eligible for Hall of Fame induction that hasn’t been inducted.

Terry Labonte’s career is truly mesmerizing. His first race came in 1978 and he has raced at least once in every single NASCAR season since (that’s a 37 year span), including as recently as just a few weeks ago at Talladega Superspeedway. At one point Labonte was the sport’s “Iron Man” for most consecutive races with 655, before the record was later broken by Ricky Rudd and eventually Jeff Gordon.

His first championship came in 1984 in the prime of Dale Earnhardt and Darrell Waltrip winning championships and his second title came in 1996 in the midst of one of the sport’s greatest runs ever by Jeff Gordon. This means Labonte won titles in the prime years of likely three of the five greatest NASCAR drivers of all-time. The 12 year span between championships is also the longest between titles in NASCAR history, by quite a margin, which shows how consistent of a driver Labonte was for a long time. Labonte finished in the top 10 in the season’s end points standings 17 times in his career (in 26 full seasons); including a top 10 season finish in four different decades.

If you need more evidence as to how Labonte was snubbed in being left out of the 2015 NASCAR Hall of Fame class you need look no further than his three closest peers who have recently been inducted. In the last three years Rusty Wallace, Dale Jarrett and Bill Elliott have all been inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame, all on their first year on the ballot, despite each having one fewer career championship than Labonte. The one thing all three drivers have in their favor is 10-plus more wins in their careers than Labonte (Wallace and Elliott doubled Labonte’s career win totals). But, doesn’t championship rings usually determine an athlete’s greatness more than anything else in almost every sport?

I’m not saying that Labonte is an all-time better driver than Wallace, Jarrett or Elliott, by any means, but what I am saying is that his resume and hardware is proof that he should’ve received the same treatment by the Hall of Fame voting committee as that trio of legends.

Terry Labonte is going to be a future NASCAR Hall of Famer. This is a fact and thus might make this entire piece much ado about nothing in the eyes of many. But, when you’re the sport’s greatest eligible champion and you have to wait another year while arguably inferior candidates are chosen ahead of you that’s a disservice to your career and legend. I hope and believe that Terry Labonte will be a member of the 2016 NASCAR Hall of Fame class in Charlotte, but in my book he’s already been enshrined.