In defense of Anne B. France’s Hall of Fame nomination

When NASCAR announced its 2013 Hall of Fame nominations on Wednesday evening, a familiar surname was among the new nominees. Anne B. France, wife of Big Bill and mother of Bill Jr., was there among Rusty Wallace, Wendell Scott and others, and the reaction of many was along the lines of another France? Really? The family doesn't just have the sport to itself, it's got to turn the Hall into a shrine to self-love also? I received more than one email with some version of the disgusted subject line "A secretary?", and I have to admit, I wondered about the propriety of this myself.

Yeah, shows how much we know. In a column on ESPN.com, Ed Hinton gives us the real story on the woman who, in his estimation, is responsible for NASCAR as we know it:

I agree with many NASCAR pundits that Anne Bledsoe France shouldn't go into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in the fourth group. I think she should have gone in before her husband, NASCAR founder Bill France Sr., and her elder son, the second czar, Bill France Jr.

I think she should have gone into the Hall of Fame before there was a Hall of Fame. They should have laid a cornerstone with her name on it before they even started construction of that building in Charlotte, because she WAS the cornerstone of NASCAR.

The anecdotes he tells about Anne B. France, who worked the books through NASCAR's early days, are priceless (she knew "where every g------ dollar in this organization is," one publicist once told Hinton) and serve to tell a remarkable story. Like so many others at the forefront of small institutions that become huge, she was exactly the right person in the right place at the right time.

"The Frances now are all millionaires many, many times over," Hinton writes. "So are a lot of NASCAR's owners, drivers, even crew chiefs. Every one of them has that little lady to thank profoundly."

Check out the full article. It might just change a few Hall voters' minds.