Local racing pioneers deserve recognition

The National Association of Stock Car Racing on Tuesday opened its gleaming Hall of Fame, replete with 154 video screens, racing simulators and interactive displays that make it the most modern hall in sports.

The first class -- Bill France Sr., Bill France Jr., Junior Johnson, Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt Sr. -- will be inducted May 23 at the 150,000-square-foot building in the heart of Charlotte, N.C.

The hall will join such other racing shrines as the IndyCar museum at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, drag racing's Wally Parks Motorsports Museum in Pomona, Calif., and Don Garlits Museum in Ocala, Fla. A corner of the National Automobile Museum in Reno offers the Off-Road Motorsports Hall of Fame.

We need something devoted to the rich history of Southern Nevada motor sports. And the history is rich, indeed.

Las Vegas Motor Speedway does a great job each year honoring champions of its Bullring and dragstrip racing programs with year-end banquets. Desert racing groups also fete their champions.

The only effort to combine all racing series into one event was by local publicist and race announcer Mike Henle, who created the Nevada Motorsports Awards dinners when he was a sports writer at the Las Vegas Review-Journal. The ambitious undertakings were in 1983 and 1984 at the Frontier Hotel, in the main showroom where Siegfried & Roy performed. About 600 people attended each year, with proceeds going to the Lion's Burn Unit at University Medical Center.

Desert motorcycle racer Jack Johnson was the Nevada Motorsports Competitor of the Year in 1983. Stock-car racer Dick Cobb won the award the following year.

More important than saluting the year's best, we need to recognize Southern Nevada's racing pioneers. Let's honor the accomplishments of such 1950s stock-car racers as Ray Wulfenstein, Jack Ewing and Gus Newman and men such as Fred Gibbs and Gary Fox, who fielded a classic dragster in 1959.

One person who supports the idea is Chris Powell, president of Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Powell started the Mel Larson Night of Champions five years ago to honor major contributors to local racing with Las Vegas ties, including Larson, Carroll Shelby, Kurt Busch, champion drag racing team owner Ken Black and Dale Carrison, a motor sports trauma doctor from UMC.

Powell suggested there might be a way to expand that program to include former great Southern Nevada racers.

"We would need it to encompass more than the speedway," he said. "There is a lot of history in Southern Nevada with all forms of racing, including desert racing and events such as the Mint 400."

A display of plaques at the speedway would memorialize dozens of great racers. Our own racing museum would be nice, but this is not a good time to solicit funds to build one.

Memories, however, are priceless.

Contrary to what I thought in ninth grade, history is a good thing.

Jeff Wolf's motor sports column is published Friday in the Las Vegas Review-Journal. He can be reached at jwolf@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0247. Visit Wolf's motor sports blog at lvrj.com/blogs/heavypedal/ throughout the week.