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Nascar Hall of Fame?


ATL4EVER

Who Do You Think Will Get The Nascar Hall of Fame?  

100 members have voted

  1. 1. Who Do You Think Will Get The Nascar Hall of Fame?

    • ATLANTA
      21
    • CHARLOTTE
      67
    • KANSAS CITY
      2
    • RICKMOND
      0
    • DAYTONA BEACH
      10


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While we're talking about Atlanta's racing history, I figured I'd toss out the fact that Hartfield-Jackson Int'l was built on an abandoned racetrack outside oftown owned by the Candler (the Coca-Cola people) family.

Yep, and while they're not NASCAR, don't forget we have Road Atlanta, which is an internationally known road racing track, as well as legendary drag strips such as Atlanta Dragway, home to many major NHRA events. We've still got dirt tracks, too. Those moonshiners coming out of the Georgia hills had a whole lot to do with the origins of stock car racing.

From the NASCAR website:

"And as great of an example as (Junior) Johnson is as a bridge from bootlegging to NASCAR racing, he may not be as good an example as were the Fabulous Flock Brothers -- Bob, Fonty and Tim.

They were bootleggers. Actually their uncle Peachtree Williams was the bootlegger and the two older Flock boys -- Bob and Fonty -- were his drivers. They came from their home in Ft. Payne, Ala., to make moonshine runs in rural Georgia back during the prohibition era.

When they were not making runs they talked with other drivers about which car was the fastest. And that talk led to NASCAR ... if you follow the progression.

According to the story the drivers would find a pasture field somewhere and drive around in circles -- about a half mile circle -- until they had worn out a path in the grass. Then they would race.

The Flocks were among the instigators of this racing. And the racing grew by word of mouth as a small crowd got a little larger and larger until some entrepreneurial people started building race tracks. It is from those tracks that NASCAR grew.

The Flock family as a whole was a very interesting family. There were eight children born to Lee and Maudie Flock and many of them were colorful, to say the least.

Carl, the oldest boy, was a speedboat racer. Reo, one of the girls, was a wing-walking daredevil. She also was a stunt parachutist. Another sister, Ethel, was a race car driver with more than 100 races. She had one Grand National (the precursor of NASCAR's Winston Cup) start and finished 11th.

Then there was the trio of Flock boys that actually made it onto the NASCAR circuit -- Bob, Fonty and Tim.

Bob, the oldest, and Fonty got into racing first. They were competitors in the 'moonshine' races held in pastures in Georgia, which probably was the genesis of what is now NASCAR. They both drove those circuits in the years before NASCAR came along in 1949."

Atlanta is very much a racing town and always has been.

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On the Nascar website, they have a poll which allows you to vote for which city you think should have the HOF. Atlanta's in last place with 10%, and guess which city is winning with 32% C-H-A-R-L-O-T-T-E. I realize this doesn't guarantee we won't get it, but It still disappointed me a little.

Charlotte has 58% now

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  • 4 weeks later...

It seems like Atlanta's doing a little to sweeten up the bid.

Legislators scramble to pony up NASCAR Hall incentives

Georgia lawmakers and state officials are quickly putting together a $27 million Valentine's Day goody bag for the proposed Atlanta NASCAR Hall of Fame.

House Speaker Glenn Richardson (R-Hiram) and other legislators introduced a bill this week exempting the hall of fame from taxes on construction materials, saving the car racing attraction effort about $6.4 million.

Legislators and state officials also plan to earmark a $3 million state grant for the hall of fame in this year's budget and float the project an $18 million loan from a special economic development bond kitty the General Assembly set up last year.

This sounds great. It's good to see we're getting some help from the state on this. Whether you like NASCAR or not, the hall could really help bring people here. According to the article, NASCAR could get up to $32.4 million in incentives from our government.

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Here's nice pro-Atlanta NASCAR Article that I found while searching Google:

NASCAR Glove Fit for Atlanta

.........................

I can say with a moderate amount of certainty that I would pay to visit the NASCAR Hall of Fame, if it were to be realized in Atlanta and if the price of admission was reasonable.

And honestly, to the powers that be, I think $10 is a fair amount to ask for any museum in Atlanta. In fact, for some $10 is a little too much.

I myself don't think $10 is terribly much to pay, especially for a Hall of Fame. I don't think I or my family would have a problem shelling out the money to visit the HOF.

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Here's nice pro-Atlanta NASCAR Article that I found while searching Google:

NASCAR Glove Fit for Atlanta

I myself don't think $10 is terribly much to pay, especially for a Hall of Fame. I don't think I or my family would have a problem shelling out the money to visit the HOF.

It seems to me Atlanta would be the obvious choice for this, based on its deep NASCAR roots, its location and accessibility, and its much more compelling demographics. I would think there'd also be a lot of synergy with Atlanta's other family-style tourist attractions such as Six Flags, the Acquarium, Turner Field, Lenox Square, the Zoo, Underground, the Coke Museum, etc.

However, I don't know anything about the politics of stuff like this. I just can't imagine what the advantages would be to putting it in a town like Charlotte or Daytona Beach.

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It seems to me Atlanta would be the obvious choice for this, based on its deep NASCAR roots, its location and accessibility, and its much more compelling demographics. I would think there'd also be a lot of synergy with Atlanta's other family-style tourist attractions such as Six Flags, the Acquarium, Turner Field, Lenox Square, the Zoo, Underground, the Coke Museum, etc.

However, I don't know anything about the politics of stuff like this. I just can't imagine what the advantages would be to putting it in a town like Charlotte or Daytona Beach.

I think that this is impossible to handicap at this point. All three cities have historical ties to NASCAR. It really depends on which direction the France family wants to go with.

I still think that IF the HOF gets built here, and IF the Lovejoy Commuter Rail line gets built and subsequently extended to Hampton, there is a real nice opportunity to have people come to Atlanta and be able to get around to all the sites very easily.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Here's a littl something from today's AJC:

Some of Atlanta's big businessmen and benefactors have been getting in on the idea of bringing the NASCAR HOF to Atlanta...which is, of course, great to hear.

Georgia's NASCAR heavy hitters

As the NASCAR hall of fame race goes into final laps, a team of local power brokers has taken the wheel of Atlanta's bid effort.

From Gov. Sonny Perdue to Georgia Aquarium benefactor Bernie Marcus, local leaders are trying to bump rivals Charlotte and Daytona Beach, Fla., out of the race with more money and new promises.

This seems to be one of the strong points of the city of Atlanta: cooperation of government, business, and community leaders.

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You'll have to forgive me for continuing to revive this topic, but I still think it deserves some coverage.

Anyways, there are some people here who don't think that the Hall of Fame should come to Atlanta and that it isn't something that will make or break our city (which is actually something I believe, but I still wouldn't mind seeing it come here). I think you people might find this opinion column from today's AJC quite interesting.

No sooner have I digested the news that state and local leaders are prepared to pony up a $32.4 million incentive package to lure the proposed NASCAR hall of fame to our capital city than I learn that the folks at NASCAR are not particularly impressed by this show of generosity.

I think it's certainly worth the read. :)

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Quote from the article: Direct or indirect, once construction is finished, the service and retail positions generated by the new tourist attraction are not likely to be nearly so remunerative as those lost in Hapeville or in dozens of other Georgia towns whose manufacturing facilities have recently gone belly up.

So is he suggesting that since the NASCAR Hall of Fame will not create as many jobs at as high a salary as the jobs lost in the Hapeville plant that Atlanta should not build this museum? This is ridiculous.

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So is he suggesting that since the NASCAR Hall of Fame will not create as many jobs at as high a salary as the jobs lost in the Hapeville plant that Atlanta should not build this museum? This is ridiculous.

Topped Out....I think what he is writing against is all the money being ponied up for the NASCAR HOF in a time when the Atlanta metro area and Georgia have lost higher paying manufacturing jobs. Perhaps he is questioning why is it so important to "fund" this "museum" when you have more pressing matters....like attracting the KIA plant to Georgia or why did Geogia lose out to South Carolina for the Diamler-Chrysler plant. While this "museum" will be nice in terms of tourism, the jobs created by said "museum" will not equal the 2100 lost last month via Ford's annoucement.

In those terms, his assertions are not that ridiculous afterall.

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It would be an interesting choice, all three provide various 'pluses':

Atlanta - appeal to broader demographic groups particularly Blacks

Charlotte - appeal to the 'preffered' NASCAR fan, middle class White

How absurd to presume that Charlotte's African-American population would somehow be less interested in NASCAR than Atlanta's. If NASCAR was truly interested in "expanding" their base they put the HOF in Hartford near New England's NASCAR raceways.

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How absurd to presume that Charlotte's African-American population would somehow be less interested in NASCAR than Atlanta's. If NASCAR was truly interested in "expanding" their base they put the HOF in Hartford near New England's NASCAR raceways.

phillydog, you're thinking too hard :)

Atlanta just has a larger prescence of Afro-Americans is all...

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Hopefully this isn't a false rumour (5 sources say it isn't).

Not that I wouldn't have thought the HOF would have it's benefits for downtown, but the negatives outweigh the positives in my view. Not to mention, I think most people have assumed Charlotte would have been awarded the HOF - & perhaps this was a way for NASCAR to get Charlotte & NC to pony up more money. Atlanta's CAP & city needs to direct their attention on the two greatest positive movements taking place - GSU & the growing downtown population. Tourist attractions don't make downtowns livable, but more retail & improved streetscaping do.

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I had forgotten, the state was of course going to provide funding for the HOF (since I would imagine Perdue is a big NASCAR fan) & would obviously not support an ASO hall (Perdue isn't likely a big Bach fan). But was there any other funding that could be diverted to the ASO hall?

I think what has bugged me about this, though publically Shirley Franklin & CAP have been in support of the HOF, is that this has appeared to be more of the state's interest in getting the HOF & not the city's. Obviously there would be benefits of the city being awarded the HOF, but I can think of far more things that would benefit the city more than a HOF.

Hopefully all of this won't matter & Fairlie Poplar won't be marred by such an obtrusive beast that the HOF would have appeared to be. FP is far too human oriented of an area to have a monster like the HOF rearing it's head in.

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Well I just finished responding to this issue in the Charlotte NHOF thread. Although this funding was not earmarked specifically for the ASO, I would hope that the state now take more interest in finding ways yo help the ASO or even MARTA. Like I said over in Charlotte, it baffles me how state lawmakers can be so eager to find funding to help the NHOF (which would directly help the CITY OF ATLANTA) yet they sit quietly by when the issue of state funding for MARTA comes up. I just don't understand the rationale.

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I think what has bugged me about this, though publically Shirley Franklin & CAP have been in support of the HOF, is that this has appeared to be more of the state's interest in getting the HOF & not the city's.

I think you are right. My guess is the thinking was that more people statewide have an interest in Nascar than the Symphony and getting a new Symphony Hall. With the funds Atlanta has proposed to get the Nascar Hall of Fame, they should divert it to building the new Symphony Hall. I think the design is beautiful.

I know there are those that disagree that the design is beautiful and many say the design is too similar to the halls in other cities, but I still love it. Hopefully this will get built.

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phillydog, you're thinking too hard :)

Atlanta just has a larger prescence of Afro-Americans is all...

Brad, no matter how hard people will promote NASCAR to the black community, they're not going to fall in love with it. It's like trying to get white adults over the age of 25 turned onto gangsta rap by the droves. It isn't going to happen.

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