Yarborough shouldn't be penalized for retirement

CONCORD, N.C. -- After a long and illustrious career in NASCAR, Cale Yarborough retired to a private life on his plantation in rural South Carolina. He lives there with his wife Betty Jo near the place he grew up, running a car dealership and pretty much keeping to himself. Any reporter wanting to talk to Yarborough knows you have to catch him on those few mornings each week he's in his office, or you might not get him at all. Everyone was so surprised when Yarborough appeared at the Sprint Cup postseason banquet two years ago because, well, Cale doesn't do that kind of thing very often.

There's a certain honor in that, in putting in your time and retiring quietly, in leaving a loud and raucous sport behind to focus on business and family. It's the way we'd all do it, if we had the financial wherewithal and the opportunity. It's the natural order of things. And yet, it may have very well cost Yarborough his rightful place in the second class of the NASCAR Hall of Fame.

Class of 2011

Relive the moments as Brian France reveals the second five voted to the Hall of Fame.

• Selection 1: David Pearson
• Selection 2: Bobby Allison
• Selection 3: Lee Petty
• Selection 4: Ned Jarrett
• Selection 5: Bud Moore

Yarborough and fellow three-time NASCAR champion Darrell Waltrip were notable exceptions when the latest class to earn induction into the shrine was unveiled this week, a group in which slam-dunk selections David Pearson, Lee Petty and Bobby Allison were joined by surprises Ned Jarrett and Bud Moore. No question, Jarrett and Moore are worthy of eventual inclusion; the former is a two-time champ and a pioneering broadcaster, the latter a veteran car owner who won 63 races working with a series of legendary drivers. Seeing the emotion displayed by Moore and Jarrett, two men who honestly wondered if they'd live to see a day like Wednesday, was enough to soften even the hardest of hearts.

But the omission of Yarborough is troubling. His numbers alone -- 83 victories (four of them in the Daytona 500) and three titles, the only man to win at least three crowns consecutively until Johnson began his current streak of four in a row -- are ridiculously good, better than those of any driver in the first two classes except for Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt, and David Pearson. But it seems his numbers were not the issue when the 52 voters who decide each Hall class sequestered themselves Wednesday morning. It seems what kept Yarborough out of that second class was the fact that, after his driving days ended in 1988, after the team he owned was sold off 11 years later, he went back to Sardis, S.C., to live quietly rather than become a booster for the sport.

Granted, there is no hard and fast criteria for inclusion into the NASCAR Hall of Fame, just as there are no written rules that 3,000 hits or 500 home runs guarantee a baseball player entrance to Cooperstown. The voters are very much making this up as they go along, turning the enshrinement qualifications into something of a moving target. There seems very much a divide between older and younger voters -- the former of which are often retired competitors, the latter often journalists -- that produces debates like the one that came up behind closed doors Wednesday: Should what a driver does to further the cause of NASCAR after his driving days are over be weighted as heavily as his accomplishments behind the wheel?

It's a startling and somewhat outrageous notion, akin to keeping John Elway or Dan Marino out of Canton because they didn't do enough to promote pro football in their retirement. But this is NASCAR, where promotion is second-nature, and where those who devote their entire lives to the cause are almost deified. Suddenly it becomes very easy to see why Yarborough was left out this year, and why David Pearson -- who, like his fellow South Carolinian, went home to live on his own terms after his career ended -- had to wait a year for enshrinement. Suddenly it becomes very easy to see why there was so much support for Jarrett, who appeared on a whopping 58 percent of ballots.

"Darrell Waltrip certainly is a deserving candidate. Cale Yarborough certainly is a deserving candidate to be in the Hall of Fame. They have the numbers, no question about that," Jarrett, also a voter himself, said after the results were announced. "They're great drivers and Hall of Fame material. But there was a lot of discussion about things that people have done other than their driving career .... No question, they'll get in some day. But I think when the voting members looked at who did what when ... they looked at it from a standpoint other than just driving race cars."

Jarrett believes he owes his inclusion to his work both as a driver and a broadcaster, going so far as to state that both roles should be on his plaque. And to be fair, his work behind the microphone was groundbreaking, beginning in an era when not many former drivers did that kind of thing, and even less would be any good at it. But Gentleman Ned had a way with words just as he did with people, and his kind, soft-spoken manner connected first with listeners and then viewers. His Ned Jarrett's World of Racing, which he himself hosted until last year, has been a daily radio staple for decades. Along with Ken Squier, Chris Economaki, Mike Joy and others, he was part of a CBS broadcast crew that was the best NASCAR has ever seen. (Continued)