It should go without saying that if you’re tasked with preserving a repository of racing history, you shouldn’t sell the museum’s cars to yourself for pennies on the dollar. Alabama Governor Kay Ivey dismissed the entire board of the International Motorsports Hall of Fame on Monday in the wake of an embarrassing audit last month. It was uncovered that over $263,000 of the Talladega museum’s funds were misspent, and several cars were missing. The audit cited 35 violations in total.
While NASCAR opened its own Hall of Fame in 2010, organization founder Bill France Sr. previously conceived the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1970. Once it was decided that Alabama would host the institution, infamous segregationist and then-Governor George Wallace established an 18-member commission to oversee the museum in 1975. Former state senator Gerald Dial sponsored the legislation that created the commission and was the board’s chairman when the museum opened in 1983. He was dismissed as chairman on Monday.
There wasn’t only one bad apple
Dial denies any wrongdoing on his part. He said in a release, “I’m more than confident. Me and that board has never done anything wrong. We’ve worked. I’ve been there for 45 years.” According to Alabama Daily News, he blamed a former employee who dealt with the museum’s financial issues on a contractual basis for two years. However, I highly doubt that a single rogue individual committed the lengthy list of transgressions.
The audit noted that Karen Lakey, the museum’s accounts manager, should pay back $236,600 in misspent funds. She paid $5,428 in personal electricity bills, spent $12,714 at retail stores, made $40,053 in payments to her family members, withdrew $22,525 in cash and overpaid her salary by $26,240. These illicit transactions are on top of expenditures that feature no supporting documentation.
Lakey wasn’t the only bad apple caught in the audit. Former executive director Mike Raita mishandled the museum’s collection of cars. First, he sold two vehicles to himself and his wife at cost. In 2023, he bought a 1968 Camaro Convertible Pace Car for $15,000.00. The commission had paid over $27,900 to repair the Camaro. The costs also included a newspaper advertisement to create the impression that it was an open sale, but the ad only mentioned the car was a “1968 Chevrolet,” with no other details. Raita’s wife bought a 1998 Ford F-150 in 2024 for $1,000 under similar circumstances. He left the museum a month later
These illicit auction sales were surprisingly low
It should be noted that the collection’s vehicles can’t be sold without the State of Alabama’s permission, which they did not have. These dubious sales weren’t outliers. Four vehicles were auctioned off without proper approval: a 1980 Pontiac Turbo Trans Am, a 1982 Pontiac Trans Am, a 1983 Pontiac Trans Am and a 1986 Pontiac Grand Prix 1986 2+2 Aerocoupe. The three Trans Ams were pace cars used at NASCAR races. All four were auctioned off for the shockingly low combined total of $46,000. Not to mention that two donated cars just went missing. A 2001 Pontiac Firebird Firehawk 10th Anniversary Convertible and a 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona were never received by the museum. A $150,750 ledger entry was the only hint that the cars were, in fact, sold.
It’s not entirely clear how far back this corruption went, as the audit covered only a five-year period that ended in September 2024. One can only hope that the new board appointed by Governor Ivey is more upstanding than their predecessors, but it won’t be a high bar to clear.
