Denied: A Tribute to David Pearson

Roughly a week ago NASCAR representatives announced the members of the inaugural class of the NASCAR Hall of Fame at the Charlotte Convention Center. The inductees into the 1st HoF class included NASCAR founder Bill France Sr., his son Bill Jr., Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt and Junior Johnson. One name not included on this list was the NASCAR legend David "Silver Fox" Pearson. The 74 year old Pearson took the denial in stride, but many fans and critics perceived it as either an oversight or an outright snub. Regardless of HoF status, Pearson is a classic racing hero, and this video today shows us why he is held in such high regard.

This is a neat little video of David Pearson being interviewed by Kyle Petty, son of the "King" himself, Richard Petty. This piece produced by NASCAR notes his many historical accomplishments in the sport as well as his legendary rivalry with Petty in the '70's. This clip plays out as biography, but fear not car geeks: there's lots of great historical footage of auto racing's yesteryear with some pretty cool footage of those old school race cars kicking up dust on the track (not to mention some embarrassing footage of bad '70's hair and apparel). Perhaps the highlight of this video comes toward the end where Pearson and Petty go nose-to-nose at the 1976 Daytona 500 where the two drivers collided and Pearson squeezed a very lucky victory. I know what I think, but I'll leave it up to the fans to decide whether Pearson got shafted by not being included in NASCAR's first Hall of Fame class.