Carl Edwards is a future inductee despite his short career. Carl may not get inducted in the 2021 class, but I would be shocked if he does not get inducted in the 2022 class.
Harry Gant is a wonderful candidate, but has some issues that I think he'll be ending up in the pioneer section. Harry has over 300 lower league NASCAR wins, but a lot of those wins are not documented back in the 1960s and 1970s. Harry started his racing career extremely late at the age 24 back in 1964. That is old for starting to be a race car driver by today's standards. Harry didn't focus on cup racing before he turned 39 years ago. The fact is cup teams wanted him was before 1979, but Harry was making more money as construction owner for building houses than what he was offered as a cup driver
. He had to sell his construction business to go cup racing.
Harry won 18 races, but the cup schedule was shorter from 1979 to 1994. Cup schedules from 1979 to 1994 were anywhere from 31 cup races to 28 cup races a season depending the years unlike the 36 race schedule. He never won a cup championship since there was not a playoff system. I'm mentioning this because he would've won the playoff system in 1991 if the chase existed.
His biggest things going for him is won 4 races in a row at the age of 51 years old and is the oldest cup driver ever to win a cup race at the age of 52. He was one of NASCAR most popular drivers and was known as the skoal bandit and Handsome Harry.
Harry Hyde is a favorite for getting inducted into the 2021 NASCAR Hall of Fame Class. Harry won 56 races as a crew chief and if it was not for him, Hendrick Motorsports would not exist today. He won a cup championship in 1970. Rick Hendrick went to Harry Hyde for starting up Hendrick Motorsports for getting the team together for 1984 seasons and Rick got a sponsor after the 1984 Martinsville win with Geoff Bodine as a driver.
Larry Phillips is another person who is likely end up in the pioneer ballot at some point. Larry's problem is he won championships in a racing series that is even lower than the regional touring series NASCAR has. He was one of the short drivers in the Midwest that influenced people like Rusty Wallace, and Mark Martin as exampled by learning from him. Larry has the wins in the lower levels of NASCAR. Since the Modern area only has 2 people that can be inducted in a year starting in the 2021 class, I have hard time seeing him being inducted.