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NASCAR HALL-OF-FAME INDUCTION CEREMONYJanuary 30, 2015Franklin ScottSybil ScottWendell Scott, Jr.CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA KERRY THARP: I don't think there's any better way to end our evening here tonight than to have representatives from the Wendell Scott family, three of his children, Frank Scott, Wendell Scott Jr., and Sybil Scott. I met the Scott Family several years ago. One of my first years in NASCAR. I believe it was Atlanta, Georgia, if I'm not mistaken. I consider them very dear friends. Every time I go up to Martinsville, we see them, of course, and I can say that today is a great day for our sport. We appreciate each of you being here. We appreciate the sacrifices that your family has made and the contributions that you've made to the sport of NASCAR. I think I'd be remiss if I didn't say that because I consider all three of y'all personal friends. At this time I'll ask each of you all maybe to give a remark or two about what it means to have your dad inducted into the Hall of Fame here tonight in Charlotte. I'll start with you, Sybil. Ladies first. SYBIL SCOTT: You know, I guess for me, I feel I can't say it enough because I feel it so strongly, that maybe if I continue to say it that I'll finally get the point across to more people, that it's a sure fact that daddy's accomplishments are now undeniable, that it's come later than people feel it should have. At this point it doesn't have a lot of significance to me anymore because I would like to see us move forward from it and build off of it and allow the younger people to have the positive impact, the diversity program. I would like to see people who are part of that, that are preparing themselves for when opportunities avail to them to go to the next level, that they will be encouraged, and that people who provide the resources that are needed for people to be successful outside of their own determination and desires, that they will continue to put more into whatever program that these drivers need, whether they're engineers or whatever avenue they decide to go as far as in the racing world. I think real strongly about that. That's an area that I'm very interested in. And also for us on a personal note I feel that medically with our mother, that she's not here with us physically, that still, it has now happened in her lifetime, and that's something that I wanted so much to happen. I remember Mommy being a part when they had the groundbreaking here, and she was so excited. Winston took a picture and ended up framing it and ended up sending it to her, her with the shovel. She believed in this effort. And to now have Daddy a part of it and to know that he had already been inducted into so many halls of fame, yet when the NASCAR Hall of Fame came about, it didn't discredit what we call the granddaddy of them all, the International Motorsports Hall of Fame, but at the same time it is the NASCAR Hall of Fame. So certainly we would want him to be a part of that because he certainly deserved to be. I'm going to pass it off to my brothers because I could go into a lot of different feelings. KERRY THARP: Wendell, if you could just comment briefly on the significance here tonight. WENDELL SCOTT JR.: I appreciate the kind words you said to us initially because we feel the same way about friendships. I look out there in the audience of you working people, and I see people that we've made friendships with over the years. They're very important to us. There was a time when the media thing, we didn't have as much confidence in it as we do now. Like Dad and my brother shared‑‑ well, he shared what my daddy shared about there will be generations of things that will start to happen, and they'll start to happen eventually, and we have to be prepared for them as a people. We need to know graciousness and forgiveness and temerity, one of the key things, and that's what daddy had, because he was‑‑ I don't want to be redundant, but as I often share about we used to go to racetracks, and we've been from each coast to coast, all over the United States of America, so tired. We had to get Mommy to haul the race car. Mommy has hauled the race car, y'all, to Texas. We worked so hard, Daddy said, we've got to wake Mary up, and that was his pet name for Mommy, and she would get a pack of gum and a radio station and take us on the road. But the point I'm trying to make is it took extreme tenacity, took a lot of forgiveness on a lot of people's parts to get where we are today. This tonight is about we're in the NASCAR Hall of Fame, and Daddy was the very one to convince us that this would happen. When you're so tired and you've got to get up and you've got to go to school, first of all, because that was his rule. You've got to get up, go to school, then come back to the shop, and whatever you've got to do on the race car, like put the rear end in or fix some body work or whatever, you've got to do that, too. He deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. He had hopefully Hall of Fame support on the way. So that's what this means to me. KERRY THARP: Frank, same question. What's it mean to you, your family, for your dad to be inducted? FRANK SCOTT: Okay, well, I think I agree with both of my siblings, with what they said is certainly right. He laid a foundation that I kind of thought about, he broke the glass ceiling, and I asked myself, and I hope that it won't be as long before another minority will get an opportunity to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. That's something that has to be earned, and as my brother said, you have to prepare for opportunities when you get them. We don't believe too much in luck. We believe in blessings but not luck, so you have to prepare for opportunities when you get them. With Daddy's attitude about life, he just didn't hold grudges. He didn't hold grudges. He'd forgive you if you mistreated him. He couldn't go to the track and say, well, last week you cut me off or you bumped me or you did this or that and still concentrate on what he had needed to do to be successful. So I think that humility which we spoke of tonight and integrity were his trademarks, and it was stamped all over his everyday interaction with people as he traveled across this great country in dealing with people that didn't necessarily like him. I mean, one day I stopped by a book store and I just looked in some books, looked in the index and saw if Wendell Scott was in some of them. Some of them had him described as somebody I didn't even know. First of all, he never smoked and he never drank, and every one of them books said he had a big cigar in his mouth. What I'm saying is there were a lot of detractors and there are always going to be detractors, but he didn't let them make him less determined at what he wanted to do. Death threats, he was poisoned, he went through all kinds of stuff, but he came back. Tonight hopefully will be motivation and inspiration to anyone who has a dream for greatness and a vision for greatness. That's pretty much what I have to say. Q. How did the anticipation of Wendell being inducted into the Hall of Fame match up with the actual experience of that happening? SYBIL SCOTT: Well, for me, I'm going to have to refer to the fans, because in being a part of the different activities in reference to the inductions over the years, you get a feel for some of the things that take place, and at the same time when the nomination processes are going on, you're hoping that that person that you're pulling for, in this case our dad, will win. For us this last time, when Daddy won that fan vote, I would say that the anticipation and the expectations and everything just jived together. It was like one and the same for me at that point. I feel that it spoke volumes. Q. For any of you, in the video during the induction ceremony, it said that he was fighting for every spot, and it was a difference between sleeping in a motel or his truck. Can you just talk about that just drive to be the best and the competitiveness to get every single position out there on the track? WENDELL SCOTT JR.: I'm glad you asked that because I wanted to finish a thought I had earlier, and I hope I incorporate this in my answer. Daddy had a thing about when we got to the track and we sort of judged the mood of the crowd as we signed into the track, and when we crossed the track, if you can imagine this picture, and the boos and sometimes the boos were worse than boos, but he told us to listen to the fans that we don't hear, and I thought that was so immaculately said because those were the fans that really supported us. Over the years there came to be more of them than we realized. There were more fans supporting us probably during some of the worst periods or epochs of our history of this country. The boos weren't really that much proportionately speaking. I'll let my brother answer your other question, but I wanted to get that out there because I thought that was so‑‑ that was his thought process. Like my brother shared, now, Daddy would settle a matter. Don't think that he'd just roll over. He would handle it in a gentlemanly way if you would, whatever you call the gentlemanly way. He would put a stop to it if it got to be threatening to either his family or our livelihood. But the thing about him, Daddy knew his talent level anyway. He just wanted a chance. Frank can expand on that. FRANK SCOTT: Well, he was a fierce competitor. Obviously he was a risk taker. You know, he just loved speed. He loved machinery. He became a part‑‑ he said that in order to drive a race car you have to become a part of the race car. You can't be a separate entity. You have to feel it, you have to be a part of it in order to manipulate and drive on those dirt tracks the way he used to do and lean into it and just manipulate. Even his peers, you talk to them, they'll talk about what he could do. He could compensate for a lack of horsepower or lack of equipment with his driving ability. That always made him competitive. He could take a car that‑‑ I hear people talking about today, oh, man, he finished in the top 20. Man, we wouldn't have drove back down the highway if we finished in the top 20. Our goal was we're going to be in the top 10. A lot of people have a misconception about competition today compared to some of the competition back then. Cars were running just as fast back then, and there were teams, automobile manufacturers, that had multiple teams on the track, but we still competed against them. I think that's something that gets lost in the shuffle. But he was able to compete against on a shoestring budget, against people that had a lot more than he did. Q. A couple questions: One for Wendell. When you were up on the stage and saw the ring, you kissed it. Can you talk about why and what it meant to see that? And do any of you know approximately how many people were in your group or how many people came down from Virginia or elsewhere to be a part of this evening? WENDELL SCOTT JR.: I kissed the ring for Daddy and Mommy because they couldn't do it themselves. And then I handed it to my brother, my better half, because we've been together in this thing for‑‑ I hate to tell on ourselves, but for six decades. We were washing parts when we couldn't build parts, and then when we learned to build parts, then Daddy relied on us to operate his pit so we could secure those top 10 finishes. FRANK SCOTT: We had in excess of 100. I know that all of us had people there. I know I had 51 people here, and my brother and sister had people here. We had the delegation from the Danville City Council hear, Pittsylvania county, from the state of Virginia delegation, senators, and we had a lot of people. We had people come in from New York, from California, from Florida, Indiana, all over the United States. Some of them were‑‑ New Jersey, Connecticut, Florida. You know, they just wanted to be here for this moment because they loved our mother and father and they love being a part of it. So they really turned out in a big way to show the love for the family and support. It was really something we can always remember. KERRY THARP: Congratulations again to the Scott family, the legacy that your father and certainly your mother, as well, she's a big part of that, too, have contributed. Just warms our hearts that your father is in the Hall of Fame. Congratulations. We're going to have you come down front. We have some proclamations to present to you. First from the city of Danville, Virginia, from mayor Sherman Saunders declares that January 30, 2015, is Wendell Scott Day in the city of Danville. And then also from the governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia, he has a proclamation today on the outstanding achievement of Wendell Scott coming into the Hall of Fame. And then Congressman Richard Hudson from the state of North Carolina has presented a plaque, as well. We'll ask that the Scott family come down and get this photo. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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