My enjoyment of stock-car racing takes another hit with more greed from NASCAR. A NASCAR Hall of Fame is in the works with five cities bidding for the privilege of being the host city. However, read on to see why this is going to smell worse than week-old garbage sitting out in the open sun in high summer.

NASCAR wants to have its own Hall of Fame (which I figured they already had in Daytona but I was wrong). There are five cities that are bidding for the site: Daytona, Charlotte, Atlanta, Richmond, and Kansas City. Now, the first two cities make sense. Daytona is the headquarters of NASCAR and Charlotte is the racing hub of the NASCAR community of drivers. Atlanta figures “Why not? We got the Olympics, didn’t we?” so what the heck, bid on the Hall of Fame. The only reason I can figure that Richmond is on the list is because it has an ISC track to balance Bruton Smith’s Charlotte and Atlanta tracks.

Here’s the weird part. Kansas City? Where there is currently only one race a year at its track? Well, the NASCAR Hall of Fame selection committee swears that all cities are on an equal footing with no city having an advantage over another. But here’s the thing, ISC owns the Kansas track and NASCAR is desperate to expand more into the Midwest. A Hall of Fame in Kansas City will be sure to give the Kansas track another race date and give NASCAR the excuse to move the annual all-star race out of Lowe’s Motor Speedway and into the Kansas track.

Is this cynical thinking on my part? Sure, but then the primary condition for the host city is that it be big enough to draw enough visitors and attract new fans. I don’t believe that Kansas City qualifies at all on this point! Unfortunately, when has the France family ever done the right thing?

The selection process is expected to run through the end of this year.