Sir Jackie Stewart is to be inducted into the Indianapolis Hall of Fame. The 71-year-old Scotsman raced twice at Indianapolis in 1966 and 1967. He was the Rookie of the Year and was leading with just nine laps to go in 1966. He was running competitively in 1967 when he suffered an engine failure. The decision was taken by a panel of nearly 150 electors, made up of racing participants, officials and media Stewart also served as a commentator on the event for 13 years with ABC television, between 1971 and 1984.
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joeblogsf1 
Would be great if they asked him to drive that safetycar (instead of Trump who backed out of it).
This another great feather in Sir Jackie Stewart’s cap – an illustrious career.
@BasCB – I agree that Stewart would make a great Pace Car driver, and certainly better than Trump, but they already got AJ Foyt to do it, who, in American Championship Car racing in all its forms in the last 100 years, is a much more relevant figure than Stewart (maybe next year though =)).
I must confess almost complete ignorance regarding Indycar, (apart from the ludicrous F1 race with only four teams,) but I am sure that Sir Jackie deserves it.
There are a number of world class drivers alive who would not be, had Jackie not made a stand on driver safety. I recently watched a documentary called “Grand Prix, The Killer Years”. I can remember quite a few of the fatalities which happened in my teens and onwards. (Also it diminished my respect for Colin Chapman somewhat) So Jackie cannot be honoured highly enough in “service to motor racing” terms.
Then of course there was the clay pigeon championships which he was very much involved with, this enjoyed a couple of seasons on UK tv.
@rpaco – it’s funny that you mentioned the “Grand Prix, The Killer Years” doc on this site. A friend sent me the doc and I watched it on a Friday night, it was a really amazing piece of work. I refreshed an entire part of history that I had forgotten, and really set me to thinking about how amazing modern safety is, and how important it should be.
Then I came here that following Monday morning and read a post from Joe about (I think) the Brazilian stock car driver being killed at Interlagos and how there were beginning to be rumblings that perhaps that track needed some improvements and some of the difficulties faced in making them. One of the first comments was from someone saying that the drivers needed to shut up and the track has always been safe enough in the past. It was a nauseating juxtaposition between that comment and the documentary, especially that horrendous clip they showed to end it.
Ah, must have missed that John. Certainly AJ Foyt is an excellent guy to drive the pacecar for the 100th Indy 500 race.
A fine tribute to a great sportsman, who was and still is greatly admired here in the United States. Stewart’s Can-Am success in an uncompetitive Lola was very well received in his last year of driving. And his example of retiring from competition while at the top of his profession set an example that probably should have been followed by many others.
The somewhat shy appearing fellow Scot Jim Clark was (we have only recently learned) also a great social success in racing circles over here, and earned the envy of the tough open wheel drivers of that era.
Great news – in other indy 500 news Pippa Mann is doing a great job in the Rookie Orientation Programme. Hoping she can qualify for the race.