Kenny Irwin Jr.

2018 NMARHOF Inductee 

Kenny Irwin, Jr. began his racing career in quarter midgets while in the second grade, but his racing career took a detour from 1988 to 1991 as he and his father raced a family-owned Buick Somerset in SCCA Trans-Am and IMSA GT racing series. In 1991 Kenny debuted in midgets with both the All-American Midget Series (AAMS) and the United States Auto Club (USAC).

Kenny claimed the 1992 AAMS championship in a season highlighted by a pair of wins on the high banks at Winchester Speedway and single wins at Salem Speedway and Indianapolis Raceway Park while he also challenged Stevie Reeves for the USAC national midget title. 

Irwin opened his 1993 campaign with a win in the Toronto Sky Dome Grand Prix 100, as he led the final 75 laps around the 1/6-mile oval and held off John Andretti for the win.  At the end of season, Kenny again finished a close second place to the repeat USAC Midget national champion Reeves. 

In 1994, Irwin finished fourth in USAC national midget points, then in August 1995 Kenny won his first and second USAC dirt races on the same day, as he won the Silver Crown and midget races at the Springfield Illinois mile dirt track.  During the 1996 USAC national midget season, Kenny drove for Steve Lewis’ Nine Racing team and scored two wins, at Richmond Virginia and Huset’s Speedway in South Dakota, and claimed the 1996 USAC National Midget Series Championship.

For 1997 Irwin went to the NASCAR Craftsman Truck series full-time, won two races and earned Rookie of the Year honors. In 1998 he moved up to the Winston Cup series and again was named Rookie of the Year.  Kenny lost his life in July 2000 in a practice crash at New Hampshire International Speedway only one month away from his 31st birthday.

In addition to his eight career USAC National Midget Series wins Irwin’s open wheel career record also count six USAC Silver Crown Series wins and seven career USAC National Sprint Car Series wins. The National Auto Racing Hall of Fame is honored to welcome Kenny Irwin Jr. as a 2018 inductee.

Bryan Clauson

2018 NMARHOF Inductee

Third generation racer Bryan "BC" Clauson won a quarter midget national championship and two California state championships before the Clauson family moved to Indiana to further his racing career. At the age of sixteen, Bryan started his first United States Auto Club (USAC) race in June 2005 and finished third. In October 2005, Bryan became the youngest driver ever to capture his first USAC national midget feature victory at Columbus Motor Speedway.

Clauson moved to ARCA and NASCAR stock car racing with Chip Ganassi’s team for several seasons before he returned to USAC open-wheel competition with a vengeance racing out of his adopted hometown of Noblesville Indiana.

Bryan scored wins at all the historic midget racing events – he was the two-time champion of the Turkey Night Grand Prix as won the 2009 and 2010 events held at the ½-mile paved Irwindale Speedway, as well as the 58^th running of the historic ‘Hut Hundred’ in 2010. Clauson captured the Belleville Nationals title three times in 2009, 2010 and 2015, and the USAC Eldora 4-Crown Nationals midget crown in 2014, the same year that he reigned as the champion of the Chili Bowl Nationals in Tulsa Oklahoma. 

Clauson is the sixth driver to score 100 USAC feature wins and his career record of 112 USAC wins is sixth all-time behind Rich Vogler, A.J. Foyt, Ron “Sleepy” Tripp, Mel Kenyon and Dave Darland, and his total of 38 USAC national midget victories places him seventh overall with two USAC national midget titles back-to-back in 2010 and 2011.

Bryan also won three Indiana Midget Week titles, back-to-back USAC national sprint car championships in 2012 and 2013 and was the USAC National Drivers Championship winner three consecutive years in 2010, 2011 and 2012 based on points he accumulated in all three USAC national series.

Bryan set a personal goal of competing in 200 races during the 2016 season, but he lost his life in a crash as he led the 2016 Belleville Nationals. For his racing accomplishments and legacy of organ donation, we are proud to induct Bryan Clauson into the National Midget Auto Racing Hall of Fame.

Mario Andretti

2018 NMARHoF Inductee

In 1961, young Italian immigrant Mario Andretti began his open wheel racing career in a three-quarter midget purchased from Bobby Marshman with the American Three-Quarter Midget Racing Association, then he scored his first of four ATQMRA wins with a 100-lap race win at Teaneck New Jersey in 1962. In 1963, Mario graduated to full-size midgets in his first race at Danbury Connecticut with the American Race Drivers Club (ARDC) with such legendary drivers as Len Duncan, and Ed “Dutch” Schaefer.

On Labor Day 1963, at 23 years of age Andretti accomplished the near-impossible as he won three midgets features in one day in a single car at two different tracks. In the afternoon program at the fast 5/8-mile Flemington Speedway in New Jersey Mario scored a “clean sweep” he set fast time in qualifying, won his heat race and scored the feature win.

The Mataka Brothers team then loaded up and towed west to Pennsylvania’s 1/3-mile Hatfield Speedway for the evening’s twin feature program. In the first race, Mario again scored a “clean sweep,” then won his third feature of the day with a victory in the make-up race from an earlier rain out. In one day, Mario scored three of his five career ARDC feature wins and from that day on, Mario Andretti was bound for superstardom.

Besides a NASCAR midget win and a United States Auto Club (USAC) midget win in Berlin Michigan in 1966 Mario’s record includes Rookie of the Year honors at the 1965 Indianapolis ‘500,’ victory in the 1967 Daytona 500-mile stock car race, the 1969 Indianapolis ‘500,’ and the 1978 Formula One World Driving Championship. 

Mario’s career record also includes three Sebring 12-hour race victories, four IndyCar championships with wins in each of four decades, Driver of the Year honors in three different decades and he was named the Associated Press Driver of the Century in 1999.

As a driver who started his illustrious open-wheel career in midgets, we are proud to welcome Mario Andretti into the National Midget Auto Racing Hall of Fame.