NASCAR inducts Hall of Fame class

Family was the prevailing theme Friday night as NASCAR inducted its third and most varied class into its Hall of Fame.

Cale Yarborough, notoriously tight with his money, recalled the days he fed his family with 10-cent cans of black-eyed peas.

Darrell Waltrip, in a humorous speech that lasted almost 24 minutes, became emotional only once, when thanking his daughter for flying 25 hours from a mission trip in the Philippines to surprise him at the inauguration.

Dale Inman was inducted by his cousin, seven-time champion Richard Petty, and the late Richie Evans' widow thanked fans for keeping her husband's memory alive.

And Leonard Wood inducted Glen Wood, calling "my big brother, Glen Wood," to the stage.

Glen Wood, a pioneer team owner, stressed that his induction was an accomplishment of the Wood Brothers race team and his decades-long partnership with manufacturer Ford.

"This is not just about me being inducted in the Hall of Fame. It's also about the Wood Brothers. And it's about NASCAR," he said. "And I'm proud to have been a NASCAR driver and car owner for the past 60 years, and I'm proud of this great honor, and this is about two families: the Wood family and the Ford family working together, which has resulted in me being here tonight."

Inman, the first crew chief to be inducted, led Petty to all his titles, and won an eighth with Terry Labonte.

"Neither one of us was that mechanically inclined. We just sort of learned as we went," Petty said of Inman. "Way back when, there wasn't no such thing as a crew chief. They had mechanics, crew mechanics, whatever they wanted to call them, and Dale was basically the first one.

"He's the one that basically started the crew-chief operation."

Petty then rattled off a list of prominent crew chiefs and mechanics — including current NASCAR vice president of competition Robin Pemberton — who all learned from Inman.

Inman, still active in Richard Petty Motorsports, made a point to wish the unsung heroes of NASCAR a successful 2012 season — including RPM drivers Marcos Ambrose and Aric Almirola.

"I want to wish all the luck in the world to all the active crew chiefs now, and especially to the (numbers) 9 and the 43. Get after 'em, boys," he said.

NASCAR chairman Brian France presented the four living inductees with Hall of Fame jackets before the ceremony.

So excited when he was voted in, Waltrip raced onto the stage that day and kissed France. When Waltrip went on stage Friday night to receive his jacket, France quickly warned him not to kiss him again. A sheepish Waltrip instead took his place next to Yarborough, then made some exaggerated poses before doing a little dance.

During the actual inauguration, he could be seen in the front row of the Charlotte Convention Center, pen cap in his mouth, making alterations to his speech.

"Bobby Allison said I deserved to be in the Hall of Fame! Does anyone know how big that is? That's big!" he began, referring to Allison, a member of the inaugural class.

Then Waltrip, known as "Jaws" for his trash-talking as a driver, lived up to his reputation with the longest and final speech of the night.

"It wasn't that I talked that much. Those other guys didn't talk at all. I had to fill in the blanks," he said. "Not a lot of people warmed up to my style. Couldn't understand why — charming, nice friendly, very conversational. But a lot of guys didn't warm up to that. I was an antagonist."

Glen Wood and younger brother, Leonard, were the foundation of an organization that started in 1950 and has won 98 races with 75 drivers, and five Daytona 500s, including last season's with driver Trevor Bayne.

A soft-spoken gentleman from Stuart, Va., Leonard Wood joked about how slowly he and his brother speak and how it surprised people when they led Jim Clark to victory in the 1965 Indianapolis 500.

"As most of you know, when Glen and I talk, we talk slow. We just recently found out, when we went to Indy with Jim Clark, they said, 'I sure hope they can pit faster than they talk,' " Leonard Wood said.

Evans was considered the "king of modified racing," winning nine titles over 13 years, including eight straight from 1978 to 1985. Although popular and well respected, his election to the Hall in its third year was no guarantee since Evans never raced on NASCAR's national level.

His widow, Lynn, thanked the voters for "stepping outside the box" to elect Evans, who was killed in a 1985 accident at Martinsville.

"You have given hope to thousands of NASCAR competitors to someday reach their dream," she said, also thanking fans for keeping Evans' memory alive.

Yarborough, a three-time champ, said he began reflecting on his career when he received a call from a high-priced clothing store a few weeks ago about his wife, Betty Jo's, outfit for the ceremony.

"After I hung up, I got to thinking about the hard times that we went through, and she stuck with me through some awful hard times," he said. "We had a budget we could go by, just had to stick with it. And we'd go to the grocery store on Saturday night to buy enough groceries to last out the week."

During one trip, when they saw a pallet of black-eyed peas on sale, she agreed to empty out the items in the cart and buy every available can.

"We had black-eyed peas for breakfast, we had black-eyed peas for dinner, we had black-eyed peas for supper, a long time," he smiled. "Well, honey, I'm glad you went and bought that outfit because you look good in it, and I'm glad we could afford it. But needless to say, this coming week, we're going to be looking for another black-eyed pea sale."