KNOXVILLE, Iowa — Knoxville Raceway has been around for over a century, but it wasn’t until the early 1980 talks began about building a hall of fame. The National Sprint Car Hall of Fame has hoovered over turn two, at the Knoxville Raceway for the last three decades. It opened in 1991, and since, has been home to 380 inductees.
According to Bill Wright, the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame Museum Coordinator, says the Knoxville is the third hardest Hall of Fame to be inducted into; behind Cooperstown, New York for Major League Baseball and Canton, Ohio for the National Football League.
The National Sprint Car Hall of Fame has 72-voters across the country. The categories include drivers, promotors/media members, mechanics/owners and pre-war to make of the eight inductees, every year.
There will be 12-inductees in 2022 and 2023 to make up for the lost year during the COVID pandemic.
The Keystone State had three inducted in 2020; Greg Hodnett, Walt Dyer and Tim Shaffer, but it isn’t easy to keep a place like this open. They rely heavily on donations and selling the suits above the hall of fame, all have a waiting list for.
Those that were one's on that waiting list, Richard and Jennifer Marshall, were on the waiting list for a suite for seven years. They gave a huge donation to the Hall of Fame to build, what is now, the Bryan Clauson Suite Tower. The Marshall's have done a lot of Knoxville; starting the Priority Aviation Knoxville Nationals Sponsorship that has helped bring even more money to the hall of fame, and drivers and teams that otherwise, may have never been able to make it out to race at Knoxville.
The memorabilia is constantly swapped in and out, new displays are always added and it has to go somewhere.
“We have the largest motorsports library in the world just two blocks north of this museum. So, we rotate things in and out a lot,' said Wright. 'I was just thinking the other day, we have some old lights from Williams Grove, that are sitting over in our staging building to bring out for a display next year."
It doesn't matter what time of the year to visit the Hall of Fame, there will be something different to see from around the world, year round.
“There was only one kind of racecar in the early 1900s and that was really sprint cars, big cars they called them, and we want people to know this is really where racing was born. Then, came midgets because they were smaller than the big cars. Then stockcars came a little later. This is really the origin of auto racing," said Wright.
The National Sprint Car Hall of Fame is open year round. You can find more information here.