IMSA has announced the second class of inductees for the IMSA Hall of Fame, headlined by four drivers, two architects, and four vehicles.
At Saturday morning’s announcement, prior to the start of the Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona, IMSA President John Doonan remarked: “Our second round of inductees is a fantastic follow-up to last year’s debuting class.
“We feel like we’ve landed on a great formula for determining inductees; in IMSA both the drivers and the cars are the stars. Always has been, always will be. And that makes for an amazing hall of fame.”
Derek Bell, Geoff Brabham, Jim Downing, and Gianpiero Moretti are the four drivers inducted.
Bell, best known as a five-time overall winner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, also won the Daytona 24 Hours three times (1986, 1987, 1989), among his 19 overall wins in IMSA competition.
Brabham, a 25-time IMSA race winner, won four consecutive IMSA GTP Class championships from 1988 to 1991, and won the 12 Hours of Sebring twice in 1989 and 1991.
Downing won 24 races across multiple classes of IMSA competition as a driver – from the Radial Sedan class to GTU and Prototype Lights. Significantly, he worked with Dr. Bob Hubbard to develop the HANS device which has saved the lives and livelihood of countless drivers.
Moretti, “Mr. MOMO” was responsible for bringing the successful Ferrari 333 SP to IMSA – one of the cars that headlined the inaugural 2023 class. As a gentleman driver, Moretti took ten wins.
Bob Riley is inducted as an architect, the co-designer of several successful Riley & Scott chassis and the co-founder of Riley Technologies alongside his son, Bill Riley.
The other architect inducted is Jack Roush, founder of Roush Racing, whose Ford Mustang GTOs won their class at Daytona five times from 1989 to 1995, parallel to Roush’s rising success in NASCAR competition.
The four cars inducted are the Nissan GTP, Porsche 935, Roush Ford Mustang, and Toyota GTP.
Alongside Brabham, the Nissan GTP family – the GTP ZX-Turbo and NPT-90 – is inducted on the strength of its four consecutive IMSA championships in the premier class.
The Porsche 935 won Daytona and Sebring six times each, driven by inaugural Hall of Fame class members Peter Gregg and Hurley Haywood among others.
The Roush Mustangs are inducted alongside their architect, driven by the likes of IMSA Hall of Fame inductee Scott Pruett, NASCAR Hall of Famer Mark Martin, Tommy Kendall, Dorsey Schroeder, and Lyn St. James.
And the Toyota Eagle Mk III, designed by Dan Gurney’s All-American Racers, makes its way in as the most dominant force of the early 1990s. The Toyota GTP took 21 wins in 27 races that it entered including a record 17 in a row, and previously held the course record at Daytona through 2019.
Inductees were selected by a nominating committee of past and present IMSA executives and media members. The 2024 class will be showcased on 13 October at the WeatherTech Night of Champions, following the running of Motul Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta.
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