Here is a rundown of what got me thinking...
Kyle Kirkwood won the final IndyCar race on the original Nashville street course as IndyCar confirmed the 2024 season finale will be on a new Nashville street course, and people found a reason to be upset about it. Another NASCAR Cup race was delayed to Monday. There were no Canadian drivers in the SRX race and there were no accidents during this past Thursday's race. Speaking of Canada, IMSA announced its 2024 schedule and there will be a different headlining class at Mosport. Detroit will see a little more muscle. Lime Rock Park is missing. Indianapolis expands. Calendars also came out in Germany and Japan, and even Formula Two released its schedule. However, the NASCAR Hall of Fame announced its 2024 induction class and the response to the results has been on my mind.
The Worst of Us
Jimmie Johnson and Chad Knaus won seven NASCAR Cup Series championships together as driver and crew chief. In January 2024, they will go in together as the Modern Era inductees of the NASCAR Hall of Fame, each elected on their first ballot, along with Donnie Allison from the Pioneer ballot and Janet Guthrie as the Landmark Award winner.
However, the inductee announcement last week took a turn when the detailed results were released. Johnson was selected on about 93% of the ballots, his name appeared on 53 of the 57 cast. The four he was not on drew outrage.
A host of people, from writers to current Cup Series drivers, in the aftermath demanded that the four voters be named and many believed those four people should have the privilege of voting taken away for future NASCAR Hall of Fame inductions.
I have written before about my lack of enthusiasm for halls of fame and induction classes for all sports. Unfortunately, this induction process brought out the worst in people, and showed again why this is such a pointless exercise.
There is nuance to everything in life. It is not a black and white world. It is very much grey.
The disappointing thing is many of respectable people immediately went for their torches and pitchforks when finding out Jimmie Johnson was not an unanimous selection. Nobody stopped to consider what the explanation would be for someone to leave Johnson off their ballot. The mob only thought it was a problem Johnson was left off in the first place.
Not a single person stopped to think perhaps a voter has a principle and that person would vote for the same people until those people are elected because the voter believes they should be in the hall of fame and there is a limit on Modern Era ballot appearances. A person can only be on the Modern Era ballot for ten years. After that, a person moves to the Pioneer ballot, where fewer people are nominated each year. A Modern Era ballot includes ten names while only five make the Pioneer ballot.
Sticking to the principle, the voter marked the same two names as last year because neither made it. Those names could have been Carl Edwards and Neil Bonnett. They could have been Harry Gant and Ricky Rudd. Either way, the voter stuck to the principle, hence why Johnson was not included.
That voter might believe Johnson is a hall of famer. I would guess the voter does believe Johnson is a hall of famer, but he or she has his or her own process and in that case Johnson was not included this year.
There is nothing wrong with that. If a person has a certain code he or she wants to vote by and has stuck to it, why should anyone be angry about that? You might not like that it cost Johnson an unanimous induction, but each voter is allowed to choice whomever he or she wants. If everyone is going to be forced to choose the same person, what is the point of having a vote at all? In that case, the NASCAR Hall of Fame executives should just say the likes of Johnson will just be in without it having to be voted on. If it is that much of a slam-dunk, why even waste our time with the voting?
Let's stop and consider how the voting went. Each voter is allowed to select two people from the Modern Era ballot. The two nominees with the most votes are inducted. With 57 voters, that is 114 total votes being cast. Johnson received 53. Knaus was on about 81% of the ballots, which comes out to 46. Ninety-nine of 114 votes went to Johnson or Knaus. Only 15 votes went to the other eight people on the Modern Era ballot. We know Harry Gant, Ricky Rudd and Carl Edwards were announced as finishing third, fourth and fifth respectively in balloting.
Johnson and Knaus each comfortably made the Hall of Fame. I would guess Gant, Rudd and Edwards each received at least one vote if they were listed, but assuming Rudd and Edwards each only received one, Gant would have been third with 13 votes, or just 11.4%, about 70% behind Knaus for the final inductee spot for the class of 2024.
The good news is the NASCAR Hall of Fame does not come down to unanimous decisions. Johnson is not less of a hall of famer for not being unanimous. His induction speech isn't going to be two minutes shorter because he didn't reach 100% nor will his display be 4% smaller for being four votes short.
I understand people wondering how anyone could think Jimmie Johnson is not a NASCAR Hall of Fame. However, not voting for Jimmie Johnson does not mean a person does not think Jimmie Johnson is not worthy of being in the NASCAR Hall of Fame. The same way someone not voting for Gant, Rudd, Edwards or Harry Hyde this year does not mean that person does not see those individuals as hall of famers. You can only pick two people. If you think there are three, four or five people on the ballot that should be in the hall of fame, somebody is going to be left off.
We should be comfortable with someone voting differently than the rest of the pack. Everyone has a reason, and instead of assuming it was nefarious or had something to do with hatred for Johnson, perhaps we should consider someone had a sound reason, a principle for his or her voting decision, and it had nothing to do with Johnson whatsoever.
There are flaws with the NASCAR Hall of Fame process, and a lack of releasing the full voting information being one of them, but with the reaction from this year's voting, it is now less likely we will see full transparency and all the voting information released for future classes. People were looking for someone to tear apart, but they didn't consider who it could have be.
Most of the voters are not media members. Past inductees, such as Richard Petty, Dale Inman, Dale Jarrett and Ned Jarrett, are on it. NASCAR's top executives, such as Mike Helton, Steve O'Donnell and Ben Kennedy, receive a vote. A number of track officials are on the voting panel, from Speedway Motorsport, Inc.'s Marcus Smith to Cathy Rice from South Boston Speedway and Dale Pinilis from Bowman-Grey Stadium. The reigning NASCAR Cup champion gets a vote each year, which means Joey Logano voted for the class of 2024.
Are we really going to kick Richard Petty off the panel if he didn't vote for Jimmie Johnson? What if it was Ned Jarrett? What if Dale Inman believed one of his contemporaries Harry Hyde deserved a vote after years of competing against him and Inman decided to have an all-crew chief ballot with Knaus and Hyde? Should he really be kicked out for voting such a way? Come on! Of course not!
One thing should be considered. One ballot for the NASCAR Hall of Fame is based on an online fan vote. What if one of the four ballots not to include Johnson was the fan vote due to fierce online voting from a contingent of Neil Bonnett and Harry Hyde loyalists? Who would the mob go after then?
There shouldn't be a mob at all. Frankly, nobody should have been that upset over this and I shouldn't be writing these words. I should be writing about something else that is meaningless like Nashville becoming the IndyCar season finale or whether the three biggest North American based series should coordinate scheduling better so all three aren't on the same day with two starting at 11:00 a.m. ET and 12:30 p.m. ET respectively.
But this is what you get when a group of numbskulls decided to shoot from the hip and never stopping to think and find some understanding. Of all the things to be angry about in this world, a collective decided the greatest crime against humanity was not voting for Jimmie Johnson to make the NASCAR Hall of Fame on his first ballot. We are surrounded by idiots.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Kyle Kirkwood, but did you know...
Aleix Espargaró won MotoGP's British Grand Prix, his second career victory. Álex Márquez won the sprint race. Fermín Aldeguer won the Moto2 race, his first career victory. David Alonso won the Moto3 race, his first career victory. Randy Krummenacher and Mattia Casadei split the MotoE races.
The #7 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche of Matt Campbell and Felipe Nasr won the IMSA race from Road America. The #52 PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports Oreca-Gibson of Paul-Loup Chatin and Ben Keating won in LMP2. The #74 Riley Motorsports Ligier-Nissan of Josh Burdon and Gar Robinson won in LMP3, its fourth consecutive victory. The #23 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin of Ross Gunn and Alex Riberas won in GTD Pro, its second consecutive victory. The #1 Paul Miller Racing BMW of Bryan Sellers and Madison Snow won in GTD.
John Hunter Nemechek won the NASCAR Grand National Series race from Michigan, his fifth victory of the season.
Christian Rasmussen won the Indy Lights race from Nashville, his second consecutive victory and third of the season.
Johnny O’Connell and Jason Daskalos split the GT America races from Nashville.
Kyle Busch won the SRX race from Berlin Raceway, his second consecutive victory.
Mirko Bortolotti and Maximilian Paul split the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters races from the Nürburgring.
The #3 NDDP Racing Nissan of Katsumasa Chiyo and Mitsunori Takaboshi won the Super GT race from Fuji. The #11 Gainer Nissan of Ryuichiro Tomita, Keishi Ishikawa and Yusuke Shiotsu won in GT300.
Elfyn Evans won Rally Finland, his second victory of the season.
The #33 Honda Team HRC Honda of Tetsuta Nagashima, Takuma Takahashi and Xavi Vierge won the Suzuka 8 Hours.
Coming Up This Weekend
The IndyCar-NASCAR combination weekend from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course.
The 62nd Knoxville Nationals.
