NASCAR Hall of Fame may prove well worth the wait (cont'd)

And now, finally, it is almost at hand, a full 62 years after its namesake association was founded in that famous meeting in the Streamline Hotel in Daytona Beach, Fla. Consider that the football shrine was opened a mere 43 years after the NFL was founded in 1920. Consider that basketball's Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame opened its doors only 22 years after the founding of the National Basketball League, the NBA's predecessor. Although 63 years elapsed between the founding of what became Major League Baseball and the shrine in Cooperstown, the Baseball Hall of Fame has been around in some form since 1939.

The first artifact

A Unocal 76 spotter ball from Daytona became the first artifact to be placed in NASCAR Hall of Fame.

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Granted, all of those halls of fame encompass their sports in their entirety, and are not limited to a single sanctioning body, as the NASCAR hall will be. Even so, it's quite obvious that big-league stock-car racing is coming a little late to the game. The backlog of candidates worthy of enshrinement, the plethora of available NASCAR racing memorabilia, and the level of fan interest all make it clear that this is an idea that perhaps should have become reality 20 or 30 years ago. And yet, the wheels on this project -- which Atlanta, Daytona Beach, Kansas City and Richmond also bid for -- didn't really begin turning in earnest until 2004.

Now, though, that tardiness may work to NASCAR's benefit. Yes, there are too many people worthy of getting in, too many cars and trophies and artifacts to display. But even in its half-finished condition, it's easy to see that the place is going to be state of the art, full of the kind of interactive exhibits that separate good museums from mediocre ones. Compare that to say, the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, which was built in 1963 and feels stuck there, with a lot of things in glass cases and none of the multimedia flash that defines the NFL today. Other halls face similar battles, constantly upgrading to stay relevant in a digital age. One day, the NASCAR Hall of Fame will face that battle, too. But now, its late start gives it a huge jump on the competition.

There are going to be plenty of bells and whistles, like a spiraling ramp showing the progression of banking from Martinsville to Bristol, and accessible exhibits like an old orange Unocal tower and a real race hauler, the latter set in place before the walls were finished. There are going to be cars ranging from Richard Petty's 1967 Plymouth (which won more races than any car in NASCAR history) to Ricky Craven's 2003 Pontiac (which won the closest finish in the era of modern timing and scoring). There's the movie theatre where air will blow on viewers to make them feel like cars are going by, a massive ballroom space that may one day host a national political convention, the tall spires -- the equivalent to the busts at the NFL hall -- that will memorialize the enshrined and line the interior of a circular room.

And yet, it's the smaller, nuanced items that seem most memorable, at least now. Like the information sheet Dale Earnhardt filled out for NASCAR in 1975, before his first race when he was living at his mother's house in between marriages, where he mentioned that he wrestled in high school, was superstitious of peanuts and the color green, and had absolutely no ambitions other than racing. There are the treasure trove of awards won by lesser-known regional racers, donated by grandsons or nephews. McKim said the Hall found about 98 percent of the items it sought to put on display. "You just need to tell me what you want," Petty once told them.

There's one thing McKim still wants -- a gold membership card given by series founder Bill France to Red Vogt, the genius mechanic of the 1940s who won the sport's first two championships with driver Red Byron, and came up with the acronym "NASCAR" during the meeting at the Streamline Hotel. The card identifies Vogt as NASCAR member No. 1. McKim calls it the holy grail. "That's the one thing that's kind of stuck in my craw," the historian said during a recent media visit to the facility. "I'd love to have that card."

Card or not, the hall is scheduled to open May 11. Its first five inductees -- France, Bill France Jr., Earnhardt, Petty and Junior Johnson -- will be enshrined May 23 in a ceremony that is still taking shape. There are still movie screens to hang, display cases to erect, cars to be rolled into place. There is still a lot of work to be done in a relatively brief period of time. But for NASCAR, a facility like the one taking shape off Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard is long overdue. And if the early previews are any indication, it will be more than worth the wait.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.