2018 NASCAR Hall of Fame Nominees Announced

DAYTONA BEACH, FL - RIS - The late Davey Allison and NASCAR champion owners Roger Penske and Joe Gibbs highlight the NASCAR Hall of Fame's newest additions to a phenomenally accomplished nomination list.

 The NASCAR Hall of Fame announced the new slate of nominees Wednesday evening. It also will include Red Farmer and 2000 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series champion Bobby Labonte, along with Daytona 500 winner Allison and team owners Penske and Gibbs.

 The NASCAR Hall of Fame Voting Day is May 24, when five more names will be selected for enshrinement.

Allison won the 1992 Daytona 500 and 19 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series races before losing his life in a helicopter accident in July of 1993. The son of NASCAR Hall of Famer Bobby Allison, Davey was the 1987 Rookie of the Year and finished third to the late Alan Kulwicki for the 1992 championship in one of the most dramatic and highly contested season finales in NASCAR history.

 Fittingly, Allison's nomination coincides with fellow Hueytown, Alabama, racer, Red Farmer, who made NASCAR's highly respected list of its 50 Greatest Drivers. Although no one knows exactly how many victories the talented Farmer has amassed in a seven-decades long career, he did capture three consecutive championships in NASCAR's Late Model Sportsman division (1969-71) more than a decade after earning the NASCAR Modified title in 1956. Farmer ran 36 premier series races with a best finish of fourth (twice).

 The three-time Super Bowl-winning NFL Coach Gibbs, 76, has shown his leadership prowess extends from field to track, guiding his NASCAR teams to four Monster Energy Cup Series championships with three different drivers -- Labonte, twice with Tony Stewart (2002, 2005) and most recently Kyle Busch (2015). His teams have also won five owners titles in the XFINITY Series.

 Gibbs' 140 victories in the premier series already ranks third all-time in the owners' category in the history of the sport and includes two Daytona 500 wins and five Brickyard 400 trophies. Gibbs, who was inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame in 1996, has guided the career of some of the most successful NASCAR competitors, including fellow Hall of Fame nominee Bobby Labonte, as well as current Hall of Famer Dale Jarrett and Monster Energy Series champion Busch.

Joining Allison, Farmer and Gibbs is Labonte, 52, whose older brother Terry was a 2016 NASCAR Hall of Fame inductee. The Labonte brothers are one of only two sets of brothers who both won Cup titles -- the Busch brothers are the other pair.

 Bobby Labonte was the first of only four drivers to ever win both the Monster Energy Series and XFINITY Series championships. He won 21 races and earned 26 pole positions at the premier-series level despite starting his career in the elite ranks at the age of 28. In his 2000 championship run, he won the Southern 500 and the Brickyard 400 and finished an amazing 265 points ahead of the late Dale Earnhardt for the season trophy.

Concluding this list of the sport's potential Hall of Fame members is one of auto racing's greatest contributors, Roger Penske, a Cup champion owner as well as a XFINITY Series championship owner.

 "The Captain" as he is affectionately known, just celebrated his 50th season in racing in 2016. He has already left an indelible mark in the stock car world as a team owner and also a track owner (formerly at Michigan Speedway). And he built one of the circuit's most successful venues, Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California.

 Penske driver Brad Keselowski won the 2012 Monster Energy Series title and the organization has twice won the Daytona 500, including the 50th anniversary of the great race with driver Ryan Newman and then again in 2015 with Joey Logano. His teams have amassed 101 victories and earned 113 pole positions. And Team Penske's three consecutive XFINITY Series owners titles from 2013-15 ties a modern record.

 In 2016, Penske was awarded the prestigious Bill France Award of Excellence last year for his contributions to NASCAR.

 Hall of Fame voters will select five people for enshrinement out of a talented and diverse list of 20 nominees.

 Fifteen additional names remain on the Hall of Fame ballot and include 19-time winner Buddy Baker, NASCAR's first premier series champion Red Byron, three-time Monster Energy Series champion crew chief Ray Evernham, legendary crew chief and car owner Ray Fox and four-time truck series champion Ron Hornaday Jr.

 Harry Hyde, the 1970 championship crew chief joins 1992 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series champion Alan Kulwicki, former NASCAR West Series champ Hershel McGriff, five-time weekly series national champion Larry Phillips and eight-time national series championship owner Jack Roush on the list as does 23-time race winner Ricky Rudd.

 Rounding out the talented and award-winning group of nominees is legendary radio and television broadcaster Ken Squier, nine-time NASCAR champion Mike Stefanik, three-time championship engine builder Waddell Wilson and Robert Yates, who won Monster Energy Series titles as both an engine builder and an owner.

 The Landmark Award for achievement in the sport also added two names to its nominee list, including NASCAR's Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors and Executive Vice President Jim France, who is also the Chairman of International Speedway Corporation, and Alvin Hawkins, NASCAR's first flagman, who was present with NASCAR founder Bill France Sr. at the Streamline Hotel during the earliest formation of the sport. He and France brought NASCAR to the famed Bowman Gray Stadium, one of the country's most popular race facilities even today.

 They join Janet Guthrie, the first woman to compete in a NASCAR premier series superspeedway race, Ralph Seagraves, who formed the groundbreaking partnership with R.J. Reynolds and NASCAR to create the Winston entitlement sponsorship and Squier, who is also the inaugural winner and namesake for the Squier-Hall Award for NASCAR Media Excellence.