Q&A: Facility's executive director opens up on debut

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- The NASCAR Hall of Fame that opens its doors to the public at 9 a.m. ET Tuesday belongs to everyone who has ever had anything to do with the sport.

But more than any other individual, it has been Winston Kelley's baby up to this point. Kelley, executive director of the Hall, can't wait to share his newborn with the entire racing world and even those who may not know much about it.

He spoke last week with a small group of reporters about the Hall, what it means to him personally, and how excited he was to get one of the inductees of the original Hall class to come down and do a little construction work on it for him.

Q: After all the time spent wondering how it would be when the Hall finally opened, what has been your personal reaction to this facility opening its doors?

Kelley: I guess I've been going through it for weeks and weeks and weeks, but when it finally hit me was after we got our [Certificate of Occupancy from the city of Charlotte] on April 16. We came in the next day and were going to do some run-throughs with our staff for the soft opening [two days later]. I went up to the Skybox and I sat down and looked at Glory Road and literally came to tears. Because you see such history of the sport, and you remember the people. I'm getting to work with my childhood heroes -- the Richard Pettys and David Pearsons. So that part of it, that historical part, literally brought tears to my eyes.

Then me going up and seeing the interactive [displays] and seeing kids come through here and just have a great time, it just showed me that there really is something for everyone. Whether you're a die-hard NASCAR fan or whether you've never been around the sport, whether you're 5 years old or 80 years old, whether you want to see the history or take part in the interactives. ... The videos are absolutely incredible. I don't know what else to say.

Q: What feedback have you heard from those involved in the sport?

Kelley: Junior Johnson was here when we started our soft opening and he got about a two-minute standing ovation from the group -- and he said, 'This is the biggest thing that's ever hit North Carolina.' When Darrell Waltrip was through here when we dedicated his car, he said, 'Not only is this the real deal, it has exceeded my expectations.'

Q: What can you do to keep it fresh and keep people coming back year after year?

Kelley: I think there are a couple of perspectives on that. One is, unless you stay for a couple or three days, you will not have done everything. But even once people come through and they've done absolutely everything, we'll keep changing exhibits out. Glory Road will change out every couple of years, probably; the Great Hall space will change out at least twice a year, so people who come during May and October race weeks will get to see something different there. The artifacts up in Heritage Race Week, some of those will change out every three or four months. ... and we'll have new Hall of Honor exhibits on an annual basis. So we'll just continue to rotate things out and put in new exhibits and artifacts.

Q: We noticed that at least until the inaugural class is inducted here shortly, there are four cars in the Hall of Honor under wraps. Is the plan in that room to have new cars each year that identify with the latest inductees?

Kelley: We'll have a different display for each of the inductees, and it'll depend on who they are or what they are. Like Bill France Jr. will not have a car [in this class], but the others will. If there is a car associated with that person's history, you will have a car and then there is a case of artifacts that will explain a little bit about that person.

So in Dale Earnhardt's exhibit, for example, you will know that he was an outdoorsman. Because you want to tell his personal story as well as the race track story. And then there be a spire there that explains more about the person. That will then stay there and eventually be positioned around the outside of the Hall of Honor, and those will stay in there forever.

Q: What exactly do you mean when you say 'a spire?'

Kelley: It's more than the bust concept [used in most other Hall of Fames] . ... I remember sitting down with Ralph Applebaum, whose team designed this, close to 3 1/2 years ago and saying, 'We've got to do something special to acknowledge these inductees.' His team came up with this concept of a spire.

It's a little less than 7 feet tall and it's got multiple elements. It's got a facial likeness of the inductee at the top; a different facial likeness of the individual at the bottom -- and the one at bottom is for kids to put paper up against and do a rubbing, so they have something to take away. It's going to have their name, what their title was ... their signature, and a video vignette of about 90 seconds so you'll get to see some of why they're in the Hall of Fame. And then there is some statistical information. So it's a multidimensional aspect.

Q: You said you had some personal favorite exhibits or elements to the Hall. What are they?

Kelley: One, of course, is Glory Road -- starting with Fireball [Roberts'] car, because that's when I started following the sport. I've gotten to know Mr. [Raymond] Parks, so seeing his car is special. And I got to know Lee Petty. I got to grow up with all those cars, so that's like re-living your past.

For people to be able to see what it's like on the race track. One of the things we [in the media] all take for granted is knowing what it's like to see or feel 33 degrees or 24 degrees of banking. So getting to see that [on Glory Road] is neat.

Q: Anything else?

Kelley: Junior's [moonshine] still, because of how it came about, is another of my favorites. We asked him to build a replica; he built a full-sized still. Then when we tried to install it, and the artifact fabricators and [Hall historian] Buz [McKim] were trying to figure out how to connect it, Buz called him and asked, 'Can you talk me through this?' Junior replied, 'It might be easier if I just came down there and did it.'

So Junior gets in his car and drives down here, gets the hard hat and safety paraphernalia. He's got a pipe wrench and pair of channel locks that were very worn; he didn't just go down to Lowe's [store] and pick these up. They had been around the block a time or two. And so he steps into the exhibit and starts connecting things and telling people what to do. We were smart enough to get the [NASCAR] Media Group folks over here to videotape it. And I'm sitting there thinking, 'That's like Babe Ruth designing, building and installing one of the original exhibits at the baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown [N.Y.]. That's history right there.' Thirty years from now people will come in and say, 'Wow. One of the original inductees actually installed this exhibit.'

Q: What about some of the interactive displays?

Kelley: I like the Pit Crew Challenge, because it's hard for people to understand how difficult it is to service a car in 12 1/2 to 13 1/2 seconds. Now people can see what it's like -- the hand-eye coordination and strength that it takes.

And the [race] simulators. You get in the simulator and you feel the bumps of the tracks, you feel the bumps if you hit the wall. And you see how hard it is to keep the cars between the lines. You see how difficult it really is.

Q: How much of a discussion was there about whether or not some unpleasant things such as Dale Earnhardt's fatal accident in February 2001 should be included?

Kelley: We focused on the fact that we've got to tell the accurate history of NASCAR. Our credibility, and NASCAR's credibility, was on the line. The very first question I got asked was what was our biggest challenge ... well, I answered that our biggest challenge was also our greatest opportunity. There are more things to put in there than we have space for.

But I think Dale Earnhardt has two legacies. He has an incredible legacy as one of the best drivers that's ever driven a race car, and with what he did on the race track. But his other legacy is the impact that his accident had [on safety improvements]. It actually was NASCAR's idea to show the accident report.

People thought we would shy away from the moonshine connection to the sport; we've got a full moonshine still here. People thought we would shy away from Earnhardt's accident. But it's all part of the story of NASCAR. You want to tell it in a respectful manner ... but that accident report is part of the history. That story is very important and needs to be told accurately and yet in a respectful manner.