Not every sports icon has been as successful as Michael Jordan in owning a NASCAR team. NFL stars Roger Staubach and Troy Aikman serve as strong examples of how wrong things could go in racing team ownership. Hall of Fame Racing, the team that they co-founded along with Trans Am veteran Bill Saunders lasted barely 4 full years in the top tier before it was closed down for good. But how did this fated end come to be?
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The story of Hall of Fame Racing begins with talks of a NASCAR team being formed in 2003 by Staubach and Aikman. Though star power and big bank accounts backed them, it wasn’t until 2006 that the team materialized and had its debut. Before the team got its first start, Staubach was a big man of confidence. He’d said, ”It’s been 2 years to really try to understand as owners and business people what does it take to have a chance to be successful in NASCAR. … Now’s just the beginning.”
With that, Hall of Fame Racing joined hands with Joe Gibbs Racing and made some talented hires to propel itself up. Dale Earnhardt’s former crew member Philippe Lopez was brought in as crew chief and Terry Labonte was chosen as the first driver. The #96 car that Joe Gibbs had provided the team finished its maiden year 26th in points with Labonte and Tony Raines alternating their duties behind the wheel.
Midway into its second season, Staubach and Aikman had already decided that they’d seen enough of NASCAR to lose hope. They sold the majority stake in the team to executives from the Arizona Diamondbacks and chose to stay on as minority holders. The team ended the year 25th in the standings. For the 2008 season, the team signed JJ Yeley from Joe Gibbs Racing. Though the deal was expected to be a pathbreaker for both the team and the driver, it never transpired into anything of value as the team finished the year 39th in owner standings.
It’s a shame, a car so clean that usually ran so poorly pic.twitter.com/AfeYz26SMX
— Racing RoundTable (@RacingRT1) March 6, 2020
Though Staubach and Aikman had begun their NASCAR journey with a big vision, they decided to call it quits after the 2008 season and exited their team altogether.
The final season of Hall of Fame Racing and the eventual shutdown
The economic crisis that hit the country and NASCAR in 2008 further tightened the noose around this one-car racing outfit, forcing it to lay off employees and struggle to find a sponsor for the 2009 season. Hall of Fame Racing broke away from Joe Gibbs Racing in its final year of operation and joined hands with Yates Racing to stay alive.
It got to have former champion Bobby Labonte behind the #96 car courtesy of the partnership. One more painstaking presence in the Cup Series was followed by the management choosing to stop bleeding money and shutting down the doors. Whether it was the economic crisis that forced the team to be shut down or not, the team had lost its soul even before its maiden 2006 race at Daytona.
