WCSC/Motorsports Hall of Fame’s 2024 Heritage Class

The West Coast Stock Car/Motorsports Hall of Fame’s Class of 2024 is complete with the selection of six Heritage members, whose careers largely took place or began prior to 1972. Their choice brings to 11 the 2024 honorees who will be enshrined during this year’s induction ceremonies, presented by World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway, on Thursday, June 6 at Sonoma Raceway’s Turn 11 Club in Sonoma, Calif.

 

The 2024 Heritage inductees are:

 

Joe Huffaker. 

·        The late Joe Huffaker began building hot rods as a teenager in the late 1940s. His first sports car was a 1954 Austin Healey “Huffaker Special” driven by Mickey Martson. At about the same time, Kjell Qvale was establishing a competition department for British Racing Car Distributors in San Francisco. 

·        Qvale hired Huffaker in 1958 to run the operation, which became the largest race car manufacturer in North America. The company developed a series of mid-engine sports racers called the Genie – after Huffaker’s wife Jeane – building cars powered by V8 engines and driven by West Coast Stock Car/Motorsports Hall of Fame inductee Dan Gurney and Pedro Rodriguez, among others. 

·        In 1963, to promote the MG 1100 hydrolastic suspension system, a series of Indianapolis 500 cars were produced by BMC, referred to as MG Liquid Suspension Specials. In 1966, Huffaker established Huffaker Engineering and was contracted to build factory sponsored cars for British Leyland and Jaguar Rover Triumph Group. 

·        Over the next decade Huffaker team cars won 12 Sports Car Club of America national championships. Huffaker won the 1982 Trans-Am championship with Elliott Forbes-Robinson and 2000 TA title with Brian Simo. Huffaker entries won three TA titles and 14 victories. 

·        Huffaker retired in 1991, turning the company over to son Joe Jr., a 10-time SCCA national champion. He passed in 2022 at age 95.

 

Steve Lewis. 

·        Steve Lewis’ Nine Racing captured 10 United States Auto Club national championships over 29 years, driven by a who’s-who of open wheel racing. 

·        Stevie Reeves won Lewis’ first title in 1993, followed by NASCAR Cup Series champion Tony Stewart (1995); the late Kenny Irwin Jr. (1996); the late Jason Leffler, a West Coast Stock Car/Motorsports Hall of Fame inductee (1998-99); Kasey Kahne (2000); Dave Darland (2001-02); J.J. Yeley (2003); and Bobby East (2004). 

·        Lewis’ pearl white race cars appeared in 132 USAC midget victory lanes, beginning with Stan Fox in 1979. The team ceased operation in 2008. 

·        Lewis, born in Colton in Southern California, began attending midget races at the Orange Show Speedway and drag races at Fontana, Riverside Raceway and the Colton Strip. He attended San Jose State University, earning an MBA. 

·        Lewis developed trade shows and magazines for the surf lifestyle and backpacking and camping industries. Lewis launched Performance Racing Magazine and Trade Show in Orland, Fla. 1986, which he later sold. Lewis’ son, Michael Lewis, competes in a number of professional series including ARCA. 

 

Emmett and Tom Malloy.

·        Emmett Malloy, born April 11, 1908, was an Iowa farm boy who moved west in the 1930s, settling in Inglewood, Calif. In 1940, Malloy built Carrell Speedway, a half-mile, dirt track near the corner of 174th Street and Vermont Avenue. 

·        Post-war, Carrell quickly became a hotbed of West Coast racing, hosting all kinds of events from open-wheel racing to stock cars, sprint cars and motorcycle racing. It was paved in 1948. Some of the era’s most popular drivers raced there: Johnnie Parsons, Jack McGrath, Troy Ruttman and Parnelli Jones. 

·        On April 8, 1951 Marshall Teague drove his Hudson Hornet to victory in the first NASCAR Cup Series event to be held west of the Mississippi River. Malloy decided to go racing as a sprint car owner in 1949, dominating the AAA East, Midwest and West circuits with driver Troy Ruttman. 

·        Malloy entered two Championship Car events in 1950, with driver Bobby Ball winning the pole position at the Phoenix Fairgrounds Mile. Malloy later competed in the Indianapolis 500 with drivers Jimmy Reece, George Amick, Edgar Elder and others. Inducted into the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame, Malloy passed in 1971.

 

·        Tom Malloy was introduced to racing at an early age watching legends such as Rex Mays, Troy Ruttman, Jimmy Reece and Bill Vukovich driver his father’s cars. 

·        Tom attended the Skip Barber Racing school in 1992 and was hooked. Soon afterward he began racing and collecting vintage cars and has a passion for preserving the history of American racing. 

·        In the past 10 years, he has won historic races at Fontana, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Sebring and Watkins Glen among other venues driving a Lola T70, Brabham BT-18 and Porsche 962C. Overseas, Tom has raced in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, France and England. 

·        He lives in Villa Park, Calif and is an associate member of the Road Racing Drivers Club. 

 

Paula Murphy. 

·        Paula Murphy played a pivotal role in drag racing’s formative years as the first woman licensed to drive a funny car. In 1964, she got her first taste of drag racing, offered an Olds 442 prepared by Mopar legend Dick Landy, racing it for two years in Stock eliminator. 

·        Murphy’s introduction to funny car competition began shortly thereafter, meeting Jack Bynum, who built her first  Ford Mustang chassis and 392 cubic inch engine.

·         In 1963, STP’s Andy Granatelli brought Murphy to the Bonneville Salt Flats, where she set a 161 mph women’s land speed record in a Studebaker Avanti and became Miss STP. 

·        Murphy later drove Granatelli’s NASCAR Cup Series stock car to a women’s closed course record of 171.499 mph at Talladega Superspeedway. 

·        She also drove rocket powered cars – and survived a 300 mph accident at Sonoma Raceway. Murphy was inducted into the International Drag Racing Hall of Fame in 1992 and the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in 2017. She passed away at age 95 in December 2023.

 

·        Greg Pickett of Alamo, Calif. is the only driver to have won SCCA Trans-Am championship races in six decades of competition. The 77-year-old Pickett won the 1978 T-A II championship posting four victories in a Chevrolet Corvette.

·        In 1984, Pickett gave Jack Roush his first T-A victory at Sonoma Raceway. Pickett counts a pair of 12 Hours of Sebring class victories (1987, 2010).

·        As an owner in the American Le Mans Series (ALMS), Pickett’s Muscle Milk stable counted 21 victories and two team and driver championships. 

·        He also competed in a pair of NASCAR Elite Series Southwest Series events finishing sixth at the Los Angeles Coliseum and Sonoma Raceway. Prickett is a 2022 inductee into the Sports Car Club of America Hall of Fame.

 

“As we head for the third year of decade three in the West Coast Stock Car/Motorsports Hall of Fame and I look at these honored inductees, I realize that over my 73 years as a part of the sport of racing I have had the pleasure of knowing each and every one. All are so deserving,” said Ken Clapp, Chairman and CEO of the West Coast Stock Car/Motorsports Hall of Fame.

 

“In addition, I am so pleased to look at the Hall’s next goal, to reach one million dollars in gifting by the year 2025. It appears likely this will happen by early next year. I am so thankful we can then set our sights on another million dollars going forward.”

 

Previously announced members of the Class of 2024 are the late Dick Cobb, Las Vegas, Nev., winner of eight track championships over a 45-year racing career in Nevada and California; Eric Holmes, Escalon, Calif., winner of three NASCAR West (now ARCA Menards Series West) titles; Jimmie Johnson, El Cajon, Calif., seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion; Jimmy Vasser, Canoga Park, Calif., 10-time Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) winner, Indianapolis 500 co-owner champion and 2023 IMSA GTD championship co-owner; and Calvin (Cal) Wells III, NASCAR Cup Series race winning team owner, Off-Road Hall of Fame inductee and current chief executive officer of Legacy Motor Club.

 

The inaugural 10-member Pioneers of Speed class – industry figures whose careers largely began prior to World War II – will be announced later this spring.

 

Highlights of the induction ceremonies will be broadcast later this summer, network, air dates and broadcast times to be announced.

 

The event also will be highlighted by presentation of the 4th Annual Knockin’ Doorz Down Philanthropist of the Year Award presented by 51FIFTY.