Forty-eight drivers have been enshrined in the NASCAR Hall of Fame since its founding in 2010.
With 15 years of nominees and voting, the threshold for a NASCAR Cup Series driver to be inducted hovers just north of 20 wins, with a few exceptions.
In fact, every single Cup driver that has won at least 22 races (and is eligible for induction) has been enshrined in the Hall of Fame.
Well, every driver except one: Jim Paschal.
Paschal was a participant in the first-ever Cup race held at Charlotte Speedway on June 19, 1949, and in a career that spanned 421 races across 23 seasons, he won 25 races, including the 1964 and 1967 Coca-Cola 600s.
He led 335 of the 400 laps in his 1967 win, and that was the longstanding record for most miles led in a Cup race (502.5) until Martin Truex Jr. broke it in 2016 by leading 392 laps and 588 miles of the 2016 Coke 600.
Paschal won races with eight owners, and the plurality of his victories (nine) came with Petty Enterprises between 1962 and 1964. His final win was at Montgomery Speedway in 1967, and his final start was the 1972 Coca-Cola 600, where he finished 16th.
Paschal is tied with two-time champion Joe Weatherly for 35th on the all-time Cup win list, the winningest Cup driver that hasn’t been inducted into the Hall of Fame.
Of course, this is a title he’s only held since January, when Carl Edwards (28 wins) was inducted in his fourth year as a nominee.
But what’s intriguing about Paschal is that he was also snubbed from NASCAR’s 50 Greatest Drivers list in 1998 and NASCAR’s 75 Greatest Drivers ranking in 2023. In both cases, he was the winningest Cup driver to be left off.
Paschal was a Hall of Fame nominee for 2020, but that was his first and only appearance on the ballot. Five years have passed, and he hasn’t been nominated since.
Compared to his contemporaries of the 1950s and 1960s who hover between 25 and 35 wins, Paschal and his career remain in relative obscurity in the present day.
How did that become the case?
For one, he seldom ran the majority of races in a single season. Paschal’s best points finish was fifth in 1956, and there was only one season in his career when he competed in more than 80% of the races: 1967. He competed in 45 of the 49 races that year at the age of 40, and he finished with four wins and a sixth-place points finish.
And in the ’50s and ’60s, the speedways (paved ovals one mile in length or longer) were the most prestigious races of the time. Paschal won the Coca-Cola 600 twice, but those were his only triumphs on speedways.
His other 23 wins came at dirt or paved short tracks, and while they all count the same in the record books, the speedways awarded the most points and featured the largest car counts and purses. All of the top teams and drivers would be present to try to win them.
And while Paschal racked up 25 wins, he had more than 400 starts to do so for a lifetime winning percentage of 5.9% (25/421). That’s still a solid number, but it’s a mark below Fred Lorenzen‘s 16.5% (26/158), Weatherly’s 10.9% (25/230), Rex White‘s 12% (28/233) and Fireball Roberts‘ 16% (33/206).
All of that is to say that there were numerous drivers that defined the ’50s and ’60s, and while Paschal may not have been on the same level as the elites in the record books, he was still a talented and decorated driver in his own right.
The Hall of Fame is only inducting one pioneer per class now, so it might be a while before Paschal is back in consideration. But he was nominated before, and if he returns to the ballot sometime down the road, he certainly has a resume worthy of induction.
Stephen Stumpf is the NASCAR Content Director for Frontstretch and is a three-year veteran of the site. His weekly column is “Stat Sheet,” and he formerly wrote "4 Burning Questions" for three years. He also writes commentaries, contributes to podcasts, edits articles and is frequently at the track for on-site coverage.
Find Stephen on Twitter @stephen_stumpf