Hall of Fame Racing
Encyclopedia
Hall of Fame Racing was a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series racing team principally owned by Jeff Moorad
Jeff Moorad
Jeff Moorad is a former sports agent and is currently lead owner of the San Diego Padres and part-owner of the Arizona Diamondbacks baseball team.He is an Assyrian American...

, Tom Garfinkel, and Tom Davin. The team was created as a joint venture between former Dallas Cowboys
Dallas Cowboys
The Dallas Cowboys are a professional American football franchise which plays in the Eastern Division of the National Football Conference of the National Football League . They are headquartered in Valley Ranch in Irving, Texas, a suburb of Dallas...

 quarterbacks Roger Staubach
Roger Staubach
Roger Thomas Staubach is a businessman, Heisman Trophy winner and legendary Hall of Fame former quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys from 1969 until 1979. Staubach was instrumental in developing the Cowboys into becoming one of the best teams of the 1970s and led the team to nine of the Cowboys'...

 and Troy Aikman
Troy Aikman
Troy Kenneth Aikman is a former American football quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys in the National Football League. The number one overall draft pick in 1989, Aikman played twelve consecutive seasons as quarterback with the Cowboys...

. The team has closed following the 2009 season, with its best season coming with Tony Raines
Tony Raines
Floyd Anthony Raines is an American race car driver. He is a former National Touring Series champion in the now defunct American Speed Association and 1999 Rookie of the Year in the NASCAR Nationwide Series...

 behind the wheel of the #96 DLP Chevrolet, finishing 25th in owners points in 2007.

History

Hall of Fame Racing was first rumored in 2003, but it took three years to start competing. The team announced at Texas Motor Speedway
Texas Motor Speedway
Texas Motor Speedway is a speedway located in the northernmost portion of the U.S. city of Fort Worth, Texas – the portion located in Denton County, Texas....

 on November 3, 2005, that for the 2006 season, the team would be operating only one car, the #96 sponsored by Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments Inc. , widely known as TI, is an American company based in Dallas, Texas, United States, which develops and commercializes semiconductor and computer technology...

' Digital Light Processing technology. Terry Labonte
Terry Labonte
Terrance Lee Labonte is a semi-retired NASCAR driver who occasionally drives in the Sprint Cup Series when called upon and is a two-time Winston Cup and IROC champion. He currently drives the #32 U.S. Chrome Ford for FAS Lane Racing. Labonte was introduced to the sport through his father, who had...

 drove the car for the first five races, placing it inside the top 35 in the point standings, and guaranteeing a starting spot in upcoming races. Labonte also drove the car at the two road courses, with Tony Raines
Tony Raines
Floyd Anthony Raines is an American race car driver. He is a former National Touring Series champion in the now defunct American Speed Association and 1999 Rookie of the Year in the NASCAR Nationwide Series...

 taking control at the others. Tony Raines
Tony Raines
Floyd Anthony Raines is an American race car driver. He is a former National Touring Series champion in the now defunct American Speed Association and 1999 Rookie of the Year in the NASCAR Nationwide Series...

 and the team had a solid night during the Bank of America 500
Bank of America 500
The Bank of America 500 is a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race that is hosted annually at Charlotte Motor Speedway in Concord, North Carolina, United States. The race is usually held in the month of October, as part of the Chase for the Sprint Cup and is 500 miles long...

 at Charlotte Motor Speedway
Charlotte Motor Speedway
Charlotte Motor Speedway is a motorsports complex located in Concord, North Carolina, United States 13 miles from Charlotte, North Carolina. The complex features a quad oval track that hosts NASCAR racing including the prestigious Coca-Cola 600 on Memorial Day weekend and the Sprint All-Star Race...

, taking the lead for 28 laps and finishing in 7th place. The team's highest finish in 2006 was third at Infineon Raceway
Infineon Raceway
Infineon Raceway, formerly Sears Point Raceway, is a road course and drag strip located on the landform known as Sears Point in the southern Sonoma Mountains near Sonoma, California, USA. The course is a complex series of twists and turns that go up and down the hills...

 with Labonte at the wheel, and finished 26th in owners points.

Raines was to compete in 2007 on a full time basis, however those plans changed after the year began, when it was announced that road course driver Ron Fellows
Ron Fellows
Ron Fellows is an accomplished Canadian SCCA Trans-Am, IMSA, and American Le Mans Series driver, and a NASCAR Road course ringer.-Early career:...

 would take the wheel at the road courses at Infineon Raceway
Infineon Raceway
Infineon Raceway, formerly Sears Point Raceway, is a road course and drag strip located on the landform known as Sears Point in the southern Sonoma Mountains near Sonoma, California, USA. The course is a complex series of twists and turns that go up and down the hills...

 and Watkins Glen
Watkins Glen International
Watkins Glen International is an auto race track located near Watkins Glen, New York, at the southern tip of Seneca Lake. The facility is owned by International Speedway Corporation...

. Fellows went on to finish 15th at Infineon and 4th at the Glen, and Raines' best finish was 9th at the UAW-Ford 500. Raines was able to earn the team 25th in the final owners points standings, however, the highest finish for any single car team in the Sprint Cup Series since 2005 with the Wood Brothers and Ricky Rudd, and also improving upon HOF's 26th place finish the year before. Raines ended 2007 with 18 top 25 finishes.

For the 2008, the team decided to hire J. J. Yeley
J. J. Yeley
Christopher Beltram Hernandez Yeley is a NASCAR driver. Nicknamed "J. J." , he is currently a competitor in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, driving for Front Row Motorsports.-Open wheel:Yeley initially made a mark for himself in the world of auto racing when he took the Hoosier state by...

 from Joe Gibbs Racing
Joe Gibbs Racing
Joe Gibbs Racing is a group of NASCAR racing teams owned and operated by former Washington Redskins coach Joe Gibbs, who first started racing on the NASCAR circuit in 1991, and J. D. Gibbs, his son...

. The contract was to last throughout 2010
2010 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series
The 2010 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season was the 62nd season of professional stock car racing in the United States. Beginning at Daytona International Speedway, the season included 36 races and two exhibition races. The season concluded with the 2010 Ford 400 at Homestead Miami Speedway...

, and it was announced that they would be switching to Toyota. With Yeley at the wheel, the team quickly fell out of the top 35 in points and, by the end of the year, failed to qualify for five races. In August 2008, Hall of Fame Racing released Yeley, replacing him with Brad Coleman
Brad Coleman
Bradford Coleman is an American stock car driver. He was a high school graduate of Carlisle School.Coleman was discovered at an indoor karting center in Houston, TX by LeMans champion Price Cobb...

 for one race, and later Ken Schrader
Ken Schrader
Kenneth Schrader is a second-generation race car driver. He currently races on local dirt and asphalt tracks around the country while driving part-time in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series and the ARCA Racing Series for his own Ken Schrader Racing. He also runs part time in the NASCAR Camping...

 and Joey Logano
Joey Logano
Joseph Thomas "Joey" Logano , nicknamed "sliced bread" by Randy LaJoie, is an American stock car auto racing race car driver who currently drives the #20 Home Depot Toyota Camry in the Sprint Cup Series and the #20 GameStop/Sport Clips Toyota Camry in the Nationwide Series for Joe Gibbs...

. P. J. Jones also ran a one-off race for HOF Racing at Watkins Glen
Watkins Glen International
Watkins Glen International is an auto race track located near Watkins Glen, New York, at the southern tip of Seneca Lake. The facility is owned by International Speedway Corporation...

, finishing 37th. The team's highest finish in 2008 was 3rd at New Hampshire with Yeley in a rained shorted race, but finished better than 25th only 5 times out of 36 attempts, and ended the year 39th in the Nextel Cup Series owners standings (out of 43 fulltime teams). It was also quietly announced in September of '08 that Troy Aikman, Roger Staubach, Bill Saunders and Mark Griege were no longer part of the ownership group, leaving only Moorad, Garfunkel, and Whitman as the owners.

Brad Coleman
Brad Coleman
Bradford Coleman is an American stock car driver. He was a high school graduate of Carlisle School.Coleman was discovered at an indoor karting center in Houston, TX by LeMans champion Price Cobb...

 had signed a development contract
Driver development program
A Driver development program is a program used by racing teams to develop younger drivers. It is widely used in both Formula One and NASCAR, usually consisting of a team signing a driver to a multi-year contract in which they run in minor-league racing divisions A Driver development program is a...

 with Hall of Fame and was expected to drive the car in 2009, but he was reported to be released at the end of the year after running only one race for the team.

On January 13, 2009, Hall of Fame Racing announced an alignment with Yates Racing
Yates Racing
Yates Racing was an American stock car racing racing team that competed in NASCAR until the 2009 season when it merged with Richard Petty Motorsports. Previously known as Robert Yates Racing, the team was owned by Doug Yates, who has officially owned the team since his father Robert's retirement on...

. Technically, Hall of Fame Racing closed its doors, laying off all of its employees, and brought over sponsorship to the former #38 car, changing the number to #96. Bobby Labonte was to be the fulltime driver with sponsorship from search engine Ask.com
Ask.com
Ask is a Q&A focused search engine founded in 1996 by Garrett Gruener and David Warthen in Berkeley, California. The original software was implemented by Gary Chevsky from his own design. Warthen, Chevsky, Justin Grant, and others built the early AskJeeves.com website around that core engine...

, who provided primary sponsorship for 18 races, Academy Sports and Outdoors
Academy Sports and Outdoors
Academy Sports + Outdoors is a sports goods discount store chain. For 74 years it was a privately held company owned by the Gochman family, until its May 2011 sale of majority ownership to the investment firm Kohlberg Kravis and Roberts LP. Academy is one of the largest sporting goods stores in the...

 for 5 races, and Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments Inc. , widely known as TI, is an American company based in Dallas, Texas, United States, which develops and commercializes semiconductor and computer technology...

/DLP for 8 races. However in August due to sponsorship problems, Labonte was replaced by Roush Fenway Racing Nationwide Series driver Erik Darnell
Erik Darnell
Erik Darnell is an American stock car racing driver, c He is the grandson of former USAC and NASCAR driver Bay Darnell, who also started three NASCAR races for Holman Moody...

, for 7 of the last 12 races. Darnell came over with sponsorship from Northern Tool and Equipment. The team ended the season 31st in owners points, with only 1 top-5 finish.

Following the 2009 season, Yates Racing
Yates Racing
Yates Racing was an American stock car racing racing team that competed in NASCAR until the 2009 season when it merged with Richard Petty Motorsports. Previously known as Robert Yates Racing, the team was owned by Doug Yates, who has officially owned the team since his father Robert's retirement on...

 merged with Richard Petty Motorsports, and the #96 team was shut down. The car owner points were transferred to Front Row Motorsports
Front Row Motorsports
Front Row Motorsports is a team that competes in the NASCAR Sprint Cup. The team began running part-time in 2004 as Means-Jenkins Motorsports under a partnership with Jimmy Means and restaurant entrepreneur Bob Jenkins, with Jenkins becoming the full team owner in 2005...

for the start of the 2010 season.

External links

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