The Silver Fox arrived early on Wednesday. Very early. In fact, David Pearson showed up a full six hours before the NASCAR Hall of Fame's inaugural class was scheduled to be announced at 4 p.m. ET.
Ten minutes after that announcement was over, he was gone.
And he was not a Hall of Famer.
"Somebody was going to get left out," the three-time national champion said as he headed for the doors of the Charlotte Convention Center. "Looks like today it was David Pearson, don't it?"
Pearson told ESPN.com's David Newton that he knew he was out the instant that Bill France Jr.'s name was read aloud at the announcement. With two Frances making it in (NASCAR founder Bill France Sr. had already been announced), a driver was going to be left out and Pearson knew it wouldn't be Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt or Junior Johnson.
He also told Newton, one of the few writers quick enough to grab him as he bolted for the door, that he wasn't disappointed. "Not really. If they don't like me, they're going to vote for someone else."
He lied.
The second part of what he said -- "if they don't like me" -- reveals a lot about how NASCAR's second-winningest driver feels about the people who govern, cover and support his sport. It stems from how Pearson has felt about NASCAR's top brass: that they never cared for his rough-hewn ways as a driver. He was the chain-smoking yin to Richard Petty's family-friendly yang. His driving ability was every bit "The King's" equal, but his ability in front of the camera, in the board room or on the autograph line was never in league with Petty. "Richard and Ned [Jarrett] and Darrell [Waltrip], they ran to the cameras, always ready to talk, you know," Pearson told me at the Moonshiners and Revenuers Reunion on Tuesday night. "When I saw those cameras my first instinct was to run away from them."
But over the past year, he'd made an effort to do the opposite. With the Hall of Fame vote looming, the intensely private man suddenly became accessible. He ditched the bitterness he'd always harbored over having missed out on the big money of the 1990s and beyond. (It drives him crazy to watch "strokers" banking millions and buying private jets.) And he eased his longstanding friction with NASCAR over its using his image to promote the sport without him seeing a dime, or just receiving a phone call of thanks, in return.
But in the frantic moments after Wednesday's program had concluded, he was running again. He did the interview with Newton and a small contingent of writers. He did a quick television hit, during which Petty made his grand entrance, unsuccessfully motioning to get Pearson's attention. The King didn't yet know that his old rival hadn't been voted in. When he was told minutes later, he was visibly irritated, saying, "Anybody that won 105 races and didn't make the cut ... Somebody ain't adding right."
Ryan McGee
The Silver Fox heads back to Spartanburg.
Cotton Owens adds just fine, thank you. The driver-turned-owner -- and HOF voter -- made the wet, 80-minute ride up from Spartanburg, S.C., with Pearson that morning. He was the reason that the Silver Fox had arrived so early. Pearson spent most of the day sitting in the lobby of the convention center while his old friend and one-time racing partner was locked in a room where the voting was taking place. In 1966, Pearson won 15 races and the NASCAR Grand National title (now Sprint Cup) driving Cotton's car, the first of Pearson's three championships.
It was Owens who sat with Pearson as the names were revealed, reaching over and patting his friend on the leg when it became obvious that he wasn't getting in. Earlier in the day, during the voting panel's closed-door discussions (here's a great behind-closed-doors account of the voting process by the Virginian-Pilot's Dustin Long), it was Owens who presented statistics he had stayed up the night before compiling, specifically career winning percentages. "Look here," the 85-year-old said as he pulled those same papers out of his jacket pocket while standing by the convention center exit shortly after the news conference had ended. "David won 19 percent of his races. That's 2 percent more than Richard Petty and 3 percent better than Junior Johnson, who both got in today. Only [fellow nominees] Herb Thomas and Tim Flock have a better winning percentage in the history of stock car racing."
Then he took a deep breath and fiddled with his cell phone. "I don't know. It's just sad. He's hurt worse than he's letting on. All he ever wants from anyone is respect. I wish I could get him on the phone. He's my ride home, you know."
Pearson, supposedly not bothered by not getting into the Hall, had been in such a rush to get out of there that he'd forgotten Owens, despite the fact that he'd invoked Cotton's ailing wife as the reason for his quick exit from the media horde. While Owens was saying goodbye to old friends in the announcement hall, Pearson had blown out the door. He was stopped briefly by track mogul Bruton Smith, who put his arms around the driver and told him that he'd been robbed. A group of fake-mustache adorned models tried to grab his attention with an invite to Teresa Earnhardt's celebration of her husband's induction at the nearby Ritz Carlton. "No thank you," said the man who owns 29 more wins than "The Intimidator," and, according to Owens' stat sheet, a winning percentage that was an eight points better. "I'm trying to remember where I parked my damn car."
Pearson had no idea that Petty was already calling out the voting panel for his greatest rival's absence from the first class. He had no clue that sportswriters, including some on that very panel, were already busy writing stories questioning his exclusion or that race fans were lighting up the phone lines at Sirius NASCAR Radio wondering aloud how he could have been overlooked. (This despite the fact that he didn't crack the top five of the 670,000 fan votes cast.) And he certainly didn't know that the debate over whether two Frances should've been admitted in the first class had been the greatest source of stress for the voters, causing a split even among the three members of the France family on the panel.
Nope, he just wanted to get the hell back to Spartanburg. And at 4:20 p.m., barely 10 minutes after the news conference's conclusion, the Silver Fox exited the convention center, hit the sidewalk of Martin Luther King Boulevard, and walked away into the rainy afternoon.
And he was not a Hall of Famer.
Ryan McGee
