Modified champions in the NASCAR Hall of Fame

Red Byron (No. 22) leads the field during a NASCAR Modified race at the Daytona Beach-Road Course in January of 1949. Byron had won NASCAR's first season championship, in the NASCAR Modified Division, in 1948.

Red Byron became the first NASCAR Strictly Stick champion -- the precursor to today's NASCAR Cup Series, in 1949. He was elected to the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2018.

Charles "Red" Farmer (right) poses with fellow NASCAR champions at the 1956 awards banquet with Ralph Earnhardt (L), the National Sportsman champion, and Fred Meeker (C), the Midget Division titlist. Farmer won the NASCAR Modified national championship by 118 points over Sam DiRusso.

Red Farmer (C) with one of his early Modified stock cars at North Carolina's Concord Speedway. Farmer clinched his 1956 title at Concord in the final race of the season.

Red Farmer went on to win the NASCAR Late Model Sportsman championship three years in a row from 1969-1971. Farmer still races today. He was elected to the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2020 as the Class of 2021.

Bobby Allison moved from the Miami, Florida, area to Hueytown, Alabama, in 1962 and became a top star in short-track racing, earning back-to-back Modified Special titles in 1962-63, then two consecutive NASCAR National Modified championships in 1964-65.

At the NASCAR Banquet in 1964, season champions were presented their awards by Illustrated Speedway News Publisher Walter Bull (L). They were Bobby Allison, 3rd straight Modified title; Rene Charland, 3rd straight Sportsman title; and Richard Petty, 1st Cup Series title.

Bobby Allison drove a 1973 Camaro to win the inaugural Permatex 200 Modified road race at Daytona. Allison went on to win 84 Cup races - tied for fourth all-time - and the 1983 premier series title. He was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2011.

NASCAR Modified driver Jerry Cook celebrates after a Bowman Gray Stadium win in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, one of 342 total during his career.

Jerry Cook in his No. 38 Ford Pinto bodied Modified during a NASCAR Modified Series race in 1971. Cook raced around his home state of New York and often ran down south to chase championship points. Cook won NASCAR Modified national titles in 1971-72 and then four straight seasons from 1974-77.

Jerry Cook poses inside his Modified stock car. Cook would go on to win the track championship in 1969 at the Utica-Rome Speedway in Vernon, N.Y., before turning his attention to running for NASCAR National Modified points. Cook retired as a driver to oversee the formation of the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour. He was elected to the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2016.

Nine-time NASCAR Modified champion Richie Evans won the championship in 1973, then again in eight consecutive years from 1978 to 1985.

Richie Evans' orange No. 61 modified was a familiar site on the track -- and in Victory Lane -- throughout the east. He won an estimated 475 races.

Richie Evans won more than 30 track championships, including two at Connecticut's Stafford Motor Speedway, and won the track's Spring Sizzler three times. He was elected to the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2012.

Mike Stefanik made his NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour debut with six races in 1985 and finished fifth at Stafford Motor Speedway. He went on to race 453 times and collected a tour-leading 74 wins, nearly 30 more than the second winningest driver.

Mike Stefanik drove a number of different cars, piloting the No. 6 to NASCAR Modified titles in 1997 and 1998, winning the NASCAR Busch North Series championships simultaneously those two years.

Mike Stefanik earned 15 of his Whelen Modified Tour wins at Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park, and captured the last of his six tour championships in 2006. He was elected to the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2020 as a member of the Class of 2021.

Red Byron, shown here with the trophy, won the first NASCAR-sanctioned national points race, held in Modified cars, in Daytona Beach. The Anniston, Alabama driver defeated Marshall Teague and his car owner Raymond Parks, who finished third with relief from Bob Flock.