Two of America\u2019s most accomplished race drivers will be inducted into two San Diego halls of fame. Dan Gurney, whose 15-year racing span included Indianapolis and Formula One, will become the ninth member of the Auto Museum\u2019s honor roll on Nov. 22 at the U.S. Grant Hotel. Ironman Ivan Stewart, a San Diego native who dominated off-road racing, is a rarity for the Sports Hall of Champions. In February at the Town and Country, he\u2019ll be the second motorsports driver to join the all-sports hall in almost 30 years. Hydroplane legend Bill Muncey, inducted in 1980, is the only other. Gurney, 77, who began his sports car career in a TR-2 at Torrey Pines in 1955, finished second twice at Indy, ran off four straight stock-car victories at Riverside International Raceway and is the only U.S. driver in Formula One to win a race with his own designed car. Stewart, 63, gained the name “Ironman” because of his many solo wins in the Baja 500 and 1000.\u00a0His triumphs included the Mint 400 in Las Vegas and Mickey Thompson\u2019s national stadium and closed course races. In retirement, each pursued careers in design, Gurney with his successful Indy Eagles and Stewart with his Pro-Truck class. Gurney was given a Ferrari to drive in early Southern California sports car races, where he mastered the 2.8-mile Riverside road course.\u00a0Not long after, he joined the International Ferrari team. He had a pair of second-place finishes at Indianapolis and won there as a car owner in 1975 with Bobby Unser at the wheel. Stewart\u2019s reputation as the Ironman came in 1973 when his co-driver Bill Hrykno fell off a ladder and broke a leg. Stewart took over and drove solo to victory. His long association with Toyota projected his career, and although retired for eight years, he is still the company\u2019s spokesman. The Auto Museum\u2019s Hall of Fame honors individuals who have significantly shaped automotive history. Previously\u00a0inducted were Juan Manuel Fangio, Carroll Shelby, Rodger Ward, Phil Hill, Parnelli Jones, Joe Leonard, Andy Granatelli and Bob Bondurant. By the time he retired in 1970, Gurney had raced in 312 events in 20 countries with 51 different makes of cars, winning 51 races and finishing on the podium an additional 47 times. He won seven races in Formula One, seven in Indy Cars and five in NASCAR stock cars. Additionally, he won in Trans-Am, Can-Am and endurance races at Daytona, Sebring and Le Mans.\u00a0 His company, All American Racers, designed and manufactured racecars with great success for the last 30 years, winning eight championships and capturing 78 victories and 83 pole positions.\u00a0 He was instrumental in bringing Monte Carlo-type street\u00a0racing to the United States, becoming co-founder of the Long Beach Grand Prix in 1974. He continued to serve on its board of directors for 24 years. During Stewart\u2019s first two years behind the wheel of his Toyota truck, he earned six class victories, including two SCORE World Championships. The next two years, he drove one of two Toyota truck entries in the mini- and mid-size pickup class in both the SCORE and HDRA desert series.\u00a0 Stewart claimed Toyota\u2019s first Baja 1000 victory in 1993, clinching his second SCORE overall and unlimited class series championships, matching his 1990 record. He played an important role in Toyota\u2019s 12-year dominance of the stadium series. Stewart holds the record for all-time MTEG wins with 17. Stewart accumulated 84 career victories and 10 driver\u2019s championships. The wins include 17 Baja 500s, eight Mint 400s, four Parker 400s, three Baja 1000s and four SCORE World Championships.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Two of America\u2019s most accomplished race drivers will be inducted into two San Diego halls of fame. Dan Gurney, whose 15-year racing span included Indianapolis and Formula One, will become the ninth member of the Auto Museum\u2019s honor roll on Nov. 22 at the U.S. Grant Hotel. Ironman Ivan Stewart, a San Diego native who […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":284564,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11560","_seopress_titles_title":"Halls of fame gear up to honor drivers","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11560],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-284563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-la-jolla-village-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284563\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}