The newest members of the NASCAR Hall of Fame were chosen Tuesday in uptown Charlotte — at the Charlotte Convention Center, a few blocks from the building where the trophies actually live. This town is where the sport keeps its history, and on Tuesday it added three more names to it.

The Class of 2027 is Kevin Harvick, Jeff Burton, and Larry Phillips. The voting panel also tabbed Lesa France Kennedy, of the sport's founding family, for the 2027 Landmark Award for Outstanding Contributions to NASCAR. All four will be enshrined Friday, January 22, 2027, at the NASCAR Hall of Fame and Charlotte Convention Center.

Let me start with Harvick, because the voters did. On the ballot for the first time since his 2023 retirement, he pulled 92 percent of the Modern Era vote. Twenty-four years in the Cup Series. Sixty wins, 11th all-time. A 2014 championship in his debut season with Stewart-Haas Racing, sealed with back-to-back must-win drives at Martinsville and Phoenix in the first year of the elimination Playoff. And before all of it, the hardest assignment in the sport's history: in 2001, a kid pressed into the No. 29 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet after the death of Dale Earnhardt in the Daytona 500. Harvick won in his third start in that car, beating Jeff Gordon by 0.006 seconds at EchoPark Speedway in Atlanta. He'd later win the 2007 Daytona 500 by 0.020 seconds over Mark Martin as Clint Bowyer slid across the line on his roof. Harvick also won 47 times in the O'Reilly Series, third all-time, with two championships.

"When you start this journey as a kid to go to start racing go-karts and go to your local short track… I was fortunate to be able to go through all the NASCAR ranks," Harvick said after learning of his election.

Jeff Burton goes in on the strength of a 21-year Cup career — 21 wins, 134 top-fives and 254 top-10s across 695 starts — but Charlotte fans will remember the Crown Jewels. Two of his biggest came right here: the 1999 and 2001 Coca-Cola 600s. Burton was the 1994 Rookie of the Year, won 27 times in the O'Reilly Series, and earned the nickname "Mayor of the Garage" for years of advocacy on driver safety, work he carried into his role directing the Drivers Advisory Council from 2022 through 2025. These days he's in the NBC Sports booth. He was named on 32 percent of Modern Era ballots, edging Neil Bonnett, Randy Dorton and Greg Biffle. Burton said he was on the golf course when the call came.

The third name is the one casual fans won't know — and that's the point of the Pioneer ballot. Larry Phillips, a Springfield, Missouri short-track legend who died in 2004, was the only five-time national champion of NASCAR's Weekly Racing Series, winning titles in 1989, 1991, 1992, 1995 and 1996. He was named on 38 percent of Pioneer ballots.

"His accomplishments are incredible," NASCAR Vice Chairman Mike Helton said. "I can't even begin to imagine all the drivers that aspired to race with him and then wanted to be like him. That's what NASCAR's all about."

Kennedy's Landmark Award honors the executive who has done as much to shape where this sport races as anyone. As Executive Vice Chair of NASCAR, she led the revitalization of Phoenix Raceway, spearheaded the Daytona Rising project, and was at the forefront of building Kansas Speedway. "She has done so many things behind the scenes that we all benefit from today," Helton said, "and she's not done yet."

Three drivers, one executive, one founding family. They'll all be back in uptown in January — a few blocks from where the votes were counted — to make it official.