The National Sprint Car Hall of Fame & Museum Foundation, Inc., was incorporated in the state of Iowa on 25 April 1986 as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. The $1.7-million facility is located on the Marion County Fairgrounds in Knoxville and officially opened on 4 January 1992.
The four-story structure's first floor houses the Donald Lamberti National Sprint Car Museum, a museum store, and administrative offices. The museum currently holds twenty-five restored big cars, supermodifieds, and sprint cars on loan for display. The 8,000-square-foot exhibit space contains trophies, paintings, photographs, plaques, helmets, and other memorabilia from throughout the history of sprint car racing.
Additional facilities within the building include a library and research center, a 40-seat theater, a catering kitchen, an administrative office, a conference and banquet facility, and a 150-seat clubhouse for race-viewing on event nights. The Bryan Clauson Suite Tower, opened in 2018, sits adjacent to the museum and adds twelve new suites across three upper stories, together with a rooftop observation deck reserved for suite-holders. Clauson was a celebrated sprint car driver who died in a racing accident in 2016.
The National Sprint Car Hall of Fame honors outstanding achievers in big car and sprint car racing. The entire nomination and election process is carried out by a 72-member National Induction Committee, divided into regional panels covering the East, West, Mideast, and Midwest. The committee consists of media members, historians, researchers, and representatives of major oldtimers organizations from across the United States.
Candidates must be nominated by 1 September of the year prior to induction. Those eligible for nomination include drivers, owners, builders, sponsors, mechanics, manufacturers, promoters, officials, or media members with a minimum of five racing seasons in the sport. Exceptions are permitted for individuals who moved on to other divisions of motorsport such as Indy Cars or stock cars. A nominee must either be retired for five years, be at least 50 years old as of 1 January of the nomination year, or have been deceased for at least six months prior to nomination.
The initial ballot is subsequently reduced to a second ballot featuring nine drivers, five nominees in the Vehicle-Oriented category, five in the Event-Oriented category, and five in the Pre-1945 category. On the second ballot, the top three drivers, the top two nominees from the Vehicle-Oriented and Event-Oriented classes, and the top Pre-1945 nominee are inducted — provided each has received a minimum of 25 percent of all ballots cast, equating to at least 18 votes from the 72-member panel.
The ballot is divided into four inductee types:
Driver-Oriented: covering drivers exclusively.
Vehicle-Oriented: covering owners, mechanics, builders, car sponsors, and manufacturers.
Event-Oriented: covering promoters, officials, media members, and event and series sponsors.
Pre-1945: spanning all three of the above categories for individuals whose careers primarily took place before World War II.
As the only museum dedicated entirely to sprint car racing, the institution serves as the sport's collective memory, connecting the open-wheel racing traditions of American dirt-track racing — from the earliest big car events through the modern World of Outlaws era — with new generations of fans and competitors. Its location in Knoxville, the self-described Sprint Car Capital of the World, places it at the heart of the sport's cultural geography.
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