USAC Names 2025 Hall of Fame
The United States Auto Club (USAC) revealed its 2025 Hall of Fame class, which will be inducted July 2 at USAC headquarters in Speedway, IN. The 12th class includes driver/owners, drivers, car owners, promoters and a race official that have been outstanding in USAC competition. The 2025 USAC Hall of Fame induction ceremony takes place as part of the BC39 festivities for USAC’s NOS Energy Drink National Midget Championship race on The Dirt Track at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, just a stone’s throw from USAC HQ.
This year’s exemplary class includes driver and car owner Jack Bowsher, driver Dave Darland, car owner and race official Bob Estes, car owner and crew chief Bob Hampshire, promoters Roger and Linda Holdeman, official Tommy Hunt and two-time Indianapolis 500 winner Gordon Johncock, listed in alphabetical order.
Each of these inductees has a great history in USAC racing.
Jack Bowsher, while he never earned a USAC Stock Car championship, was one of the greats of his sport in a career spanning two decades. Before kindling a full-time USAC career, Bowsher secured three straight ARCA driving titles from 1963 through 1965.
During his USAC career as both a driver and car owner, Jack Bowsher earned 21 wins as a driver, ranking seventh all-time; his 32 pole positions place him third and his 162 starts as a driver are eighth best. His 32 car-owner wins give him third position. Whether driving cars or owning cars, Bowsher had great USAC results: he finished as runner-up in USAC entrant points in three straight seasons (1968-1970); he placed two entries inside the top five in all three of those campaigns. In 1971 Bowsher took second in the standings as a driver, boosted by a four-race winning streak. Among the USAC Stock Car greats driving Jack Bowsher-owned cars are Parnelli Jones and A.J. Foyt. Bowsher died April 8, 2006; he was 75 years old.
There are only eight USAC career Triple Crown champions and Dave Darland, who hung up his helmet in 2023 is definitely one of them and definitely one of the greats. His 62 USAC National Sprint Car victories beat all other drivers, starting with the first in 1993. Darland has earned 115 total USAC feature victories – both national and regional – including 30 National Midget wins and 14 Silver Crown victories. Dave Darland is one of only seven drivers to earn in excess of 100 career USAC wins.
Dave Darland’s 1,334 total USAC National race starts rank No. 1 all-time, as do his 797 USAC Sprint Car starts, from 1986 through to his 2023 retirement. Obviously, Darland’s longevity is one of his attributes and the fact that he earned at least one USAC National feature victory in a record 24 consecutive seasons, between 1993-2016 might never be matched. Darland’s numbers show that he’s one of the all-time USAC greats, a status he retains with this honor.
Los Angeles, Calif. native Bob Estes was one of USAC’s founding fathers, who helped bring the group to prominence in its formative seasons. Both on and off the track, Estes, born in September of 1913, started his racing career as a driver but soon shifted his focus towards the business of motorsports and race-team ownership. Following his terms of service during World War II, Estes purchased an Inglewood, CA Lincoln-Mercury dealership and enlisted employee and car builder Jud Phillips as his racing sidekick. Estes’ and Phillips, working together, earned the AAA Midwest Sprint Car titles in 1953 and 1954 with Pat O’Connor at the wheel.
When USAC was born in 1955, Estes was elected as the national car owner representative, a role he kept through to 1960. He later served USAC as its western regional representative. Pat O’Connor and Bob Estes earned the inaugural USAC Midwest Sprint Car championship in 1956 and, with Don Branson in 1959, Estes’ team duplicated that a title. He also fielded several Indianapolis 500 entries, earning a best result of third with Don Freeland in the 1956 race. As a car owner, Estes also competed in USAC’s Road Racing series, capturing victory in the 1959 Pomona opener with Ken Miles driving a Porsche RS Spyder owned by Estes. Estes died on December 11, 2001, at age 88.
Car owner Bob Hampshire’s successes are inextricably entwined with those of two particular drivers, Jac Haudenschild and Jack Hewitt, both giants in the USAC universe. Hampshire was successful in two of USAC’s more dominant eras, the 1980s and the decade of the 2010s. Born in 1946, Hampshire’s initial success as a USAC car owner came with Haudenschild, who earned a pair of wins in 1982, yet his most iconic seasons came with Hewitt; in all the latter pair teams up for 22 USAC Sprint Car victories between 1985 and 1987.
Even so, the duo of Hampshire and Hewitt found their greatest success on USAC’s Silver Crown trail. With their Challenger Chevy, nicknamed “Gussie,” they overwhelmed the competition, winning all six dirt races they entered in 1986. In 1987 they repeated as series champs. Officially, Hampshire is credited with 14 USAC Silver Crown owner wins, at one time ranked as No. 1 in series history. As a crew chief, Hampshire has a series of victories with Hewitt at 6R Racing and has earned 21 wins with Kody Swanson at DePalma Motorsports, all between 2014 and 2018, a run that included four series titles in that five-year span. In 2014, Bob Hampshire was named USAC’s Chief Mechanic of the Year; in 2018, his “63” became the first number officially retired for use in USAC’s Silver Crown series.
Winchester Speedway, the 1/2-mile, high-banked oval purchased by Roger Holdeman in 1970, already had fame for its breathtaking speed and incomparable competition before he came to operate the Indiana track. In the years after he bought the track, Holdeman took the venue to another level, hosting 123 races between USC’s Sprint, Midget and Stock Car divisions, many of which featured unique double- and triple-header feature formats. He oversaw such cornerstone contests as the Rich Vogler Classic, Sammy Sessions Memorial, Border Wars and Oldtimers Weekend.
Born in Winchester, Roger graduated from the local Winchester High School in 1957 as the class’ president. As caretaker for Winchester Speedway, he oversaw a complete reconstruction of its grandstands, multiple repaves, the creation of a tunnel and new track lights. When he married Linda, the promoter of Oswego Speedway, in 1988, Holdeman found the right partner. The two managed Winchester’s day-to-day duties and constructed their new home outside the track’s first turn. The duo were named USAC’s Race Organizers of the Year in 1990. Roger Holdeman passed away in 1996 at age 58; later that year, Linda was the recipient of USAC’s Diana Fell Gilmore Woman Behind the Scenes award.
The Hunt family is multi-generational in the sport of racing. Tommy Hunt is the son of Joe Hunt, a magneto magnate and longtime Champ Car team owner who employed some of greatest drivers of his era. Tommy’s son, Tony Hunt, is a 10-time, USAC driving champion in both rear-engine machinery and in sprint car racing. Tommy was weaned on the sport from birth, serving on his dad’s crew and eventually becoming a driver. Most notably he scored three California Racing Association (CRA) Sprint Car feature victories and a 1974 Most Improved Driver award, while also running the family’s magneto business through to 1986.
Hunt’s experiences in the sport prepared him for his 28-year role with USAC from 1986 through 2013, where he served as vice president and head of the series’ west coast operations. He oversaw the Midget, Sprint Car, Supermodified divisions, and introduced both F2000 and Russell Pro series to USAC. He also introduced the Ford Focus Midget Series. Tommy Hunt earned the Dick Jordan Award of Excellence in 2024 before being inducted into this Hall of Fame.
Known as “the natural,” Gordon Johncock is still considered one of the greatest drivers of any era, and has won in any type of car, including his pair of USAC Stock Car victories, in 1972 at Milwaukee and 1973 on Texas World Speedway’s oval. Born in 1936, in Hastings, Michigan, Johncock started in Supermodifieds, winning races throughout the midwest and as far east as New York’s Oswego Speedway. His prowess in sprint cars saw him earn the inaugural Williams Grove (PA) National Open in 1963 and, with USAC a year later, he conquered Indiana’s daunting Winchester Speedway while setting a new world record in qualifying – without brakes – at an average speed of nearly 105 mph.
Johncock finished fifth as a rookie in the 1965 Indianapolis 500 and earned his first Indy car victory on the Milwaukee Mile that same year. He eventually carried 20 career USAC National Championship trophies home, but his defining moments came at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, in both the tragedy-marred 1973 race and again in 1982, when his 0.16-second winning margin over Rick Mears proved to be the closest in race history at that time, but has since been beaten five times, by Buddy Rice (2004), Dario Franchitti (2010), Dan Wheldon in 2005, Tony Kanaan (2013) and Takuma Sato (0.0577 over Scott Dixon) in 2020. In addition to his two Indy 500 victories, Johncock earned the 1976 series championship.
USAC HALL OF FAME INDUCTEES:
2012: J.C. Agajanian, Mario Andretti, Gary Bettenhausen, Tom Binford, Jimmy Bryan, Duane Carter, A.J. Foyt, Tony Hulman, Parnelli Jones, Mel Kenyon, Roger McCluskey & Rich Vogler
2013: Earl Baltes, Henry Banks, Tony Bettenhausen, Tom Bigelow, Pancho Carter, Jack Hewitt, Johnny Rutherford, Al Unser, Bobby Unser, A.J. Watson, Don White & Bob Wilke
2014: Rollie Beale, George Bignotti, Don Branson, Larry Dickson, Gus Hoffman, Jud Larson, Norm Nelson, Eddie Sachs, Don Smith, Bob Stroud, Rodger Ward & Bob Wente
2015: Clint Brawner, Jimmy Caruthers, Butch Hartman, Lindsey Hopkins, Jim Hurtubise, Don Kenyon, Sheldon Kinser, Fred Lorenzen, Roger Penske, Larry Rice, Shorty Templeman & Sleepy Tripp
2016: Steve Butler, Russ Clendenen, Jimmy Davies, Willie Davis, Bob Higman, Tommy Hinnershitz, Dick King, Rick Mears, Pat O’Connor, Kevin Olson, Tony Stewart & Bob Tattersall
2017: Donald Davidson, Frankie DelRoy, Bob East, Chuck Gurney, Gene Hartley, Steve Lewis, Howard Linne, Lloyd Ruby, Ken Schrader, Robbie Stanley, Steve Stapp & Johnny Thomson
2018: Mike Devin, Tony Elliott, Paul Goldsmith, Jason Leffler, Bill Lipkey, Troy Ruttman, Bob/Gene Shannon & Jimmy Sills
2019: Bryan Clauson, Johnny Capels, Dick Jordan & Dave Steele
2020: None
2021: None
2022: Doug Caruthers, Jay Drake, Galen Fox, Jeff Gordon, Dan Gurney, Ray Nichels, Johnny Vance & Joe Shaheen
2023: Bobby East, Ted Halibrand, Tracy Hines, Terry Lingner, Bill Marvel & The Wilke Family
2024: Gene Crucean, The Hoffman Family, Rickey Hood, Levi Jones, John Mahoney, Tom Marchese & Jud Phillips
2025: Jack Bowsher, Dave Darland, Bob Estes, Bob Hampshire, Roger & Linda Holdeman, Tommy Hunt & Gordon Johncock