The newest inductees into the NASCAR Hall of Fame include Ricky Rudd, Carl Edwards, and Ralph Moody.
The NASCAR Hall of Fame Class of 2025 inductees will include Ricky Rudd, Carl Edwards, and Ralph Moody. Furthermore, Dr. Dean Sicking was selected to receive the Landmark Award for Outstanding Contributions to NASCAR.
The 15 candidates for the 2025 induction class and the five nominees for the Landmark Award were discussed and voted upon by the members of the NASCAR Hall of Fame Voting Panel during a closed meeting on Tuesday at the Charlotte Convention Center.
The Modern Era ballot, which was selected by the Nominating Committee, featured ten nominees as the same committee also selected the five nominees for the Landmark Award. The Honors Committee chose the Pioneer ballot, which featured five contenders whose careers started in 1965 or earlier. Every Hall of Fame class, starting with the Class of 2021, consists of one inductee from the Pioneer ballot and two from the Modern Era ballot.
The NASCAR Hall of Fame, representatives from major facilities and historic short tracks, media members, manufacturer representatives, competitors (drivers, owners, crew chiefs), renowned industry leaders, a nationwide fan vote via NASCAR.com, and the last two NASCAR Cup Series champions (Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson) cast votes to determine the Class of 2025 inductees.
A total of sixty-two votes were cast; however, two members of the Voting Panel Jeff Burton and Ricky Rudd, were not eligible to vote because they were potential induction nominees. The votes were tabulated under the direction of the EY accounting company.
In the Modern Era ballot, Rudd garnered 87% of the votes while Edwards received 52%. In third place was Harry Gant followed by Jeff Burton, and Harry Hyde. 60 percent of the Pioneer ballot votes went to Ralph Moody while Ray Hendrick was runner-up. The NASCAR.com Fan Vote results were: Ray Hendrick (Pioneer), Carl Edwards and Harry Gant (the Modern Era).
The two inductees were picked from a group of ten nominees, including Greg Biffle, Neil Bonnett, Tim Brewer, Jeff Burton, Randy Dorton, Carl Edwards, Harry Gant, Harry Hyde, Ricky Rudd, and Jack Sprague. Ray Hendrick, Banjo Matthews, Ralph Moody, Larry Phillips, and Bob Welborn were among the Pioneer Ballot nominees.
Alvin Hawkins, Lesa France Kennedy, Dr. Joseph Mattioli, Les Richter, and Dr. Dean Sicking were the nominees for the Landmark Award.
Class of 2025 Inductees
Modern Era Ballot
Ricky Rudd: The Virginia native held the Cup record for consecutive starts (788) before Jeff Gordon broke it in 2015. His 906 series starts rank second only to seven-time champion Richard Petty (1,185). During his 32-year Cup career, Rudd earned 23 wins, 194 top-five and 374 top-10 finishes and won 29 poles. He provided Richard Childress Racing’s first win in 1983 and he won six races with his own team, including the 1997 Brickyard 400. Rudd finished a career-best second in the series standings in 1991 and won at least one race in 16 consecutive seasons (tied for third-longest in series history).
Carl Edwards: Edwards started off as a substitute teacher but eventually joined Roush Fenway Racing to compete in the Truck series, which kicked off a career that would include 29 Cup wins, 38 Xfinity wins, including the 2007 championship, and six Truck victories. Over this 13-year Cup career, Edwards took victories in the Coca Cola 600 and Southern 500. In finished second in the series standings twice, including the closest finish in NASCAR history when he lost the 2011 title to Tony Stewart in a tiebreaker. Edwads retired from full-time Cup competition following the 2016 season.
Pioneer Ballot
Ralph Moody: Moody won five NASCAR Cup races between 1956-57 but is biggest contribution to NASCAR came when he paired with John Holman to form Holman-Moody Racing in 1957. The organization competed in NASCAR until 1973 and won consecutive Cup titles with David Pearson (1968-69) and captured the 1967 Daytona 500 with driver Mario Andretti. Overall, Holman-Moody earned 96 wins and 83 poles in 525 series starts.
Landmark Award for Outstanding Contributions to NASCAR
Dr. Dean Sicking: The impact he has made in keeping drivers safe cannot be overstated. Sicking is best known as an inventor of the SAFER (Steel and Foam Energy Reduction) barrier, an advancement that has saved countless lives over the past 20 years. Following the death of Dale Earnhardt in 2001, NASCAR partnered with Sicking and the Midwest Roadside Safety Facility at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to better understand the circumstances and help prevent future tragedies — a partnership that remains in place today.
In addition to designing the SAFER barrier, Sicking studied each track’s incident history and helped implement a plan to cover the most dangerous areas immediately. Currently, all NASCAR national series race tracks feature SAFER barriers. For his efforts, Sicking was named winner of the Bill France Award of Excellence in 2003 and was awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation by President George W. Bush in 2005.
The Class of 2025 Induction Ceremony is scheduled to take place at the NASCAR Hall of Fame and Charlotte Convention Center in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Friday, February 7, 2025.
