Since 2002, racing legends and their fans have gathered at the Georgia Racing Hall of Fame to a special celebration and induction ceremony where the next class of racing superstars will be immortalized in the museum.
This year, the five inductees are Charlie Hughes, Dan Elliott, Dick Anderson, the late Rance Phillips and the late Russell Nelson. They were selected from a three round voting process and secured the most votes from a 60 member panel from across the state.
Charlie Hughes is a dirt Late Model racer from Dalton who began racing in 1966 at North Georgia Speedway. He continued to race until 1997 where he completed his last race, once again at North Georgia Speedway.
In 1976 Hughes had one of the best seasons of dirt Late Model racing, winning 42 races that year including the U.S. Dirt Track Championship, the sixth annual World 100 at Eldora Speedway and the second annual National 100 at East Alabama Motor Speedway.
Throughout his career, Hughes racked up major wins in the Midwest and the Southeast with 37 wins at Dixie Speedway and 14 at Rome Speedway.
Dan Elliott, brother to Bill Elliott, will be inducted into the hall of fame for his integral part of the Elliott family team.
In the mid-1970s, the Elliott family began competing in the Monster Energy Cup with Bill behind the wheel and his older brothers, Dan and Ernie working on preparing the cars and servicing on pit road.
Dan Elliott worked on engines, transmissions and changing tires during races. By the 1980s, the Elliott family had become the dominant team on the superspeedways.
Dick Anderson, from Chamblee, founded Carrera Shocks in 1964 and was an important innovator and industry leader for racers. He invented coil-over shocks, shock dynamometers and other shocks specifically built for drag racing.
Anderson was the first to mass product sprint cars, which saved drivers from the alternative of building their own cars from scratch.
In 1990, Anderson got behind the wheel and won first place in his division and second overall in the Mexican Road Race.
Rance Phillips was known as “The Fugitive” in his racing days as he dominated the tracks since his first race in 1964.
Phillips saw more than 700 feature wins and 19 track championships in his 40-year career. He was voted Most Popular Driver at Golden Isle Speedway in Brunswick in 1973 as was inducted into the Jacksonville Racing Hall of Fame in 2009 and the National Dirt Late Model Hall of Fame in 2011.
He passed away in 2012 and will be honored posthumously at Saturday’s ceremony.
Russell Nelson, of Buford, began his racing career at the Peach Bowl Speedway in Atlanta in 1960 and earned 364 feature wins throughout his career.
He won the Rattler at South Alabama Speedway in 1977 and was a regular competitor in the old All-Pro Series.
He will be honored posthumously at Saturday’s ceremony.
The 2018 Induction Service will begin at 1 p.m. Aug. 11. Tickets are $40 per person which includes dinner and the ceremony; they may be purchased by phone at (706)-216-7223 or by mail at GRHOF, P.O. Box 1561, Dawsonville, GA 30534.