LONG BEACH, Calif. — The Motorsports Hall of Fame of America announced its 2027 Induction Class Friday during the 51st running of the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach.
The Class of 2027 includes four-time Indy car race winner and multiple USAC Champion Gary Bettenhausen (Open Wheel), three-time NHRA Funny Car champion Ron Capps (Drag Racing), founder of the successful Dyson Racing and a winning Rolex 24 At Daytona driver Rob Dyson (Sports Cars), two-time Daytona 500 winner Dale Earnhardt Jr. (Stock Cars), the executive who led GM’s racing operations to unprecedented results Herb Fishel (Business), a two-time Indianapolis 500 winning car owner and three-time second-place finisher at the Brickyard as a driver Harry Hartz (Historic), two-time Unlimited Air Racing champion Steve Hinton (Aviation), three-time NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle champion Angelle Sampey (Motorcycles), the first woman to win Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year Lyn St. James (At Large) and one of NASCAR’s most successful engine builders Robert Yates (Stock Cars).
“It’s an honor for the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America to be welcomed each year to make this important announcement at the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach,” said MSHFA president Daren Lucas. “We want to thank the Grand Prix Association of Long Beach, IndyCar, IMSA and so many other top organizations and individuals who make this possible every year. The Class of 2027 is as accomplished as any group of iconic motorsports inductees in our nearly 40-year history, all still revered and admired today, and their legacies and achievements will now be forever memorialized at the Hall of Fame of all motorsports. Congratulations to the Class of 2027.”
An unknowing representative of the Class of 2027 was St. James who attended the press conference as the co-founder and past President of WIMNA (Women In Motorsports North America) but instead found herself as one of the announced inductees.
St. James joins Sampey as the first women inductees since the late sports car driver and journalist Denise McCluggage (At Large) was enshrined in 2022. Including Sampey and St. James, 13 women are Motorsports Hall of Fame of America inductees.
The Class of 2027 also completes two more father-and-son MSHFA inductee combinations. Just last month, Kenny Roberts (MSHFA Class of 1990) had the opportunity to induct his fellow World Champion son Kenny Roberts Jr. as the Motorcycle inductee in this year’s MSHFA class. Next year, Earnhardt Jr. takes his place in the Stock Cars wing of the Hall alongside his legendary father Dale Earnhardt (MSHFA Class of 2002).
Additionally, Bettenhausen will be brought into the same Open Wheel category next March that his father Tony Bettenhausen (MSHFA Class 1997) will have been a part of for 30 years.
The Earnhardts and the Bettenhausens join the Roberts, Mario Andretti and son Michael Andretti, Lee Petty and son Richard Petty, Al Unser Sr. and Al Unser Jr., Bobby Allison and son Davey Allison, Bill France Sr. and Bill France Jr., Don Schumacher and son Tony Schumacher and Ned Jarrett and son Dale Jarrett as father-and-son MSHFA inductees.
The Motorsports Hall of Fame of America Class of 2027
Gary Bettenhausen: Son of 1997 inductee Tony, Bettenhausen was one of the greatest sprint car drivers of his generation and dominated the 1972 Indianapolis 500, leading 138 laps before engine failure sidelined him with 24 remaining, handing victory to Penske teammate Mark Donohue. Bettenhausen was also fastest qualifier for the 1991 event. Bettenhausen scored four IndyCar wins despite rarely being in a top car. His best Indy 500 finish was third in 1980. “Gary B.” won the 1969 and ’71 Sprint Car titles before a 1974 crash badly damaged his left arm. He eventually recovered enough to capture the 1980 and 1983 USAC Silver Crown championships. Bettenhausen scored four Top 10s in eight NASCAR Cup Series starts. He was inducted into the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame in 1993 and National Midget Auto Racing Hall of Fame in 1998.
Ron Capps: The three-time NHRA Top Fuel Funny Car champion (2016, 2021, 2022) is also No. 2 all-time in Top Fuel Funny Car wins with 75 (through 2024), behind only inductee John Force (155) and ahead of Robert Hight (65), Matt Hagan (52) and brothers Tony Pedegron (43) and Cruz Pedegron (38). He got his shot at driving in 1995, scoring a win in a Roger Pimm Top Fuel Dragster. He moved to Funny Cars in 1997 for inductee Don Prudhomme (pictured below with Capps after he won the 2023 U.S. Nationals), then inductee Don Schumacher in 2005. He started Ron Capps Motorsports in 2021.
Capps’ 2022 season was his 28th in the sport and one of his best. In addition to his second consecutive championship, he grabbed five wins, six No.1 qualifiers (a career best) and his first U.S. Nationals. Capps has driven occasional oval races, including a remarkable 4th at the 2006 Prelude to the Dream, ahead of multiple NASCAR stars and Hall of Famers.
Rob Dyson: Robert Dyson is founder and principal of Dyson Racing, one of the most successful in sports car racing history to date and the winner of 19 championships, 70 races, 69 pole positions and 215 podiums, including championships in ALMS, IMSA, USRRC, and Grand-Am.
Dyson started driving a Datsun 510 in club racing in 1974, winning the 1981 SCCA GT2 national championship. Turning professional in 1983, Dyson won four races overall as a driver during the height of the IMSA GTP era, including the 1997 24 Hours of Daytona. Dyson Racing Team drivers won the Porsche Cup North America four years consecutively (1985-88).
Championships include The IMSA Drivers and Team Championship (1997-98); USRRC Drivers and Team Championship (1998-99); ALMS LMP900 championship (1999) and Grand-Am Drivers and Team championships (2000-01). Dyson retired from driving in 2007 but remains the organization’s leader, supported by son Chris Dyson, who has won multiple championships for the team.
Dale Earnhardt Jr.: In a 19-year NASCAR Cup Series career, the younger Earnhardt won 26 races, including two Daytona 500s (2004, 2014) and captured the Most Popular Driver Award a record 15 straight times (2003-2017). The streak ended only when he retired from full-time driving. His 26 wins put him 32nd all-time, tied with Fred Lorenzen and ahead of other MSHFA inductees, including Joe Weatherly, Terry Labonte, Benny Parsons and Buddy Baker. He was phenomenal on restrictor plate tracks.
From 2001 – 2003 he won four straight races at Talladega Superspeedway. In addition to his two Daytona 500 victories, he finished second in the 500 four times. Although his highest ranking in Cup Series points was third (2003), Earnhardt Jr. won two Xfinity Series championships as a driver (1998, 1999) and five as an owner (2004, 2005, 2014, 2017, 2018), helping Martin Truex Jr., Chase Elliott, William Byron and Tyler Reddick advance to the top level. Since retiring from driving, he’s become a popular author, podcaster and a television color analyst. Earnhardt was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2022.
Herb Fishel: When the Winston-Salem native graduated from nearby North Carolina State University with a mechanical engineering degree, he wanted to work for a NASCAR team. Instead, he was hired by General Motors, where he rose to run a racing operation that achieved unprecedented results. During Fishel’s tenure, GM won 25 NASCAR manufacturers’ championships – 11 consecutive (1981-91) – 12 Indy 500s and numerous drag, off-road and sports car racing titles. He was also a pivotal figure in the Corvette programs that scored overall and class wins at Daytona and Le Mans and made “America’s sports car” a world-class winner. Much of the success achieved by inductees like Dale Earnhardt, Tommy Kendall, Junior Johnson and Darrell Waltrip is directly attributable to him. In the early 1990s, Fishel led the effort to install black boxes in racecars, dramatically improving driver safety. He was inducted into the SEMA Hall of Fame in 2005, the Corvette Hall of Fame in 2015 and the Drag Racing Hall of Fame in 2006.
Harry Hartz: Born in Pomona, California, Hartz won the Indy 500 twice as an owner and finished second three times as a driver. He also won the AAA national championship as a driver (1926) and owner (1930). Hartz began as a riding mechanic before moving behind the wheel full-time with a Duesenberg in 1922. At Indy, Hartz collected top-four finishes five straight years (1922-6), placing second in 1922, ’23 and ’26. He won the 1926 AAA national championship by a wide margin, taking five of 19 races. His biggest was a 300-miler on the Atlantic City board track at a world-record 134.091 mph.
Hartz was number five all-time in board-track wins (7) and No. 2 in prize money. He retired from driving after a 1927 accident sidelined him for two years but returned to motorsports building the Miller-powered FWD cars Billy Arnold (1930) and Fred Frame (1932) drove to Indy 500 wins. Hartz was inducted into the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame in 1963 and the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame in 1998.
Steve Hinton: Hinton won two Unlimited championships and set the world speed record for piston-engine planes — and that’s just what he did in his spare time. He also worked as a pilot and aerial coordinator for television and motion pictures, like TV’s Baa Baa Black Sheep and films like Pearl Harbor. The charter member of the Motion Pictures Pilots Association competed in the Unlimited class for 13 years, piloting “Red Baron,” John Sandberg’s “Tsunami” and the All Coast “Super Corsair,” winning two Gold National Championships in Reno (1978, 1985), the 1979 Miami Gold, 1990 Texas Gold and two Mojave Gold Unlimited air races.
The record he set in “Red Baron” in 1979 (499.046 mph) stood for a decade. Since 1990, Hinton has continued his relationship with air racing as official Reno National Air Races Unlimited pace pilot, president of the Planes of Fame Air Museum and owner of Fighter Rebuilders, a world-renowned warbird restoration firm.
Angelle Sampey: She’s not just one of the most successful female racers in drag racing history, she is one of the most successful in motorsports history. Over the course of her career, the hugely popular New Orleans native has won three NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle championships (2000-02) and, as of 2024, remains third all-time in NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle wins with 46. Sampey, 1990 inductee Shirley Muldowney and Pro Stock champion Erica Enders-Stevens are the only women with more than 10 NHRA event victories. After Enders’ six, Sampey and Muldowney are the only women with three NHRA championships.
Sampey’s career began when she took her then-fiancé’s street bike to the local strip. It took off when she met George Bryce, an instructor at the Frank Hawley Drag Racing School, who became the guiding force behind her championships and most of her event wins.
Lyn St. James: The first woman to win Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year (1992), St. James built on the work of inductees Janet Guthrie, Denise McCluggage and others to open doors for women at the highest levels of American racing. St. James won numerous sports car events, including IMSA GTO victories at Sebring in 1990 and the Rolex 24 At Daytona in1987 and 1990. Her best GTP finish was third at Watkins Glen in 1984 with Howdy Holmes. She also competed at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. St. James made 16 Indy car starts (1992 – 2000), with a career-best eighth at Walt Disney World in 1996.
She qualified sixth for the 1994 Indy 500 (224.154 mph) and was the first woman to lap an oval at over 200 mph in 1985, later upping her women’s closed course speed record to 227.32 mph. One of the foremost female drivers of her era and an inspiration to others, St. James was named one of the Sports Illustrated Top 100 Women Athletes of the Century.
Robert Yates: Yates was one of NASCAR’s most successful engine builders before becoming a Daytona 500 and NASCAR Cup Series champion team owner. A graduate mechanical engineer, he joined Holman-Moody in 1967 and began building engines for H-M, Junior Johnson, Richard Petty and the Wood Brothers, all MSHFA inductees. Yates’ engines won 77 Cup races, including five Daytona 500s and two championships. Robert Yates Racing opened in 1988 with inductee Davey Allison behind the wheel.
It was a constant title threat throughout the ‘90s, finishing fourth or better from 1991 through 2001, except 1993 to ’95 when lead drivers Allison and Ernie Irvan were lost in mid-season accidents. Yates and Allison won the 1992 Daytona 500 and finished a fighting third in the 1991 and ’92 point standings. Inductee Dale Jarrett won the 1999 Cup title and 2000 Daytona 500 for Yates.
Overall, Yates won 57 races and 48 poles as a team owner. Yates received the Bill France Award of Excellence (2000) and Buddy Shuman Award (2007) and was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2018.
