IMS Hall of Fame reveals four nominees for 2019
Dale Earnhardt, Jacques Villeneuve, Dale Jarrett and Wally Dallenbach have been announced as the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame nominees for 2019.
The 2019 IMS Hall of Fame class will be voted for by a Selection Committee comprising nearly 150 media and racing officials and will be announced on Founder’s Day, March 20 – 110th anniversary of the IMS Company becoming incorporated. The honorees will be inducted at the annual Hall of Fame/IMS Oldtimers Club dinner on May 23.
Earnhardt, who died in an accident in the 2001 Daytona 500, matched Richard Petty’s record for most NASCAR Cup titles (Jimmie Johnson has since joined them in that exclusive club) at seven, accrued between 1980 and ’94. He lies eighth in NASCAR’s all-time winner list with 76 victories including the 1995 Brickyard 400.
Villeneuve is so far the only Canadian to have conquered the Indy 500, winning the event in 1995 in Team Green’s Reynard-Ford, just a year after finishing second there as a rookie, and going on to clinch the ’95 Indy car title.
He then switched to Formula 1 with Williams-Renault, finishing second in the title race in 1996 before becoming World Champion the following year.
Although he was never to win another grand prix, despite his best attempts to turn the new BAR team into a contender, Villeneuve continued racing in other series. In 2008 he won the WEC’s Spa 1000km with Peugeot and the following month finished second with the squad in the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Villeneuve remains one of only three drivers – the others being Mario Andretti and Emerson Fittipaldi – to have won the F1 title, the Indy 500 and the Indy car championship.
Dallenbach scored five wins in his 180-race Indy car career, and made 13 starts in the Indy 500. A burned piston wrecked his chances of winning the race in 1975 after leading more than half the laps in his Pat Patrick-run Wildcat.
After quitting the cockpit in 1979, the New Jersey-born/Colorado-domiciled Dallenbach became chief steward for CART Indy car racing, a position he held until 2004.
Jarrett scored 32 wins over his 24-year NASCAR Cup career, capturing the 1999 championship for Robert Yates Racing, as well as three Daytona 500 wins and two Brickyard 400 victories.
He and crew chief Todd Parrott are also credited with starting the tradition of kissing the bricks on the start/finish line at Indy, after their Brickyard triumph in ’96.
Be part of Motorsport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
Top Comments
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.