“I tell you, that A.J. Foyt (Jr.) was one fine driver,” Bob Riley said of the driver known to many as “Super Tex,” whose local, national and international exploits claimed wins across a broad spectrum of racing series and was the type of driver that some fervently assert is unlikely to again be seen in racing.
(NOTE: Porschemeister Vic Elford also competed in the 1972 Daytona 500, finishing 10th in a Plymouth.)
Despite Riley’s preference for a few “shop secrets” of those years being kept quiet for now, suffice to say Riley was nevertheless known to be a part of Super Tex’s inner circle for at least a few of Foyt’s 1970-era IndyCar poles and wins, including Foyt’s fourth Big One.
“A.J. is among the best drivers I’ve known and certainly was the best I knew during the 1970’s. It was a good time,” Riley said fondly of his “Coyote days.”
It wouldn’t harm that Foyt evidently held a correspondingly glowing opinion of Riley, which surfaced during a 1994 telephone conversation with one of today’s elder statesman of sportscar racing, Rob Dyson, who nearly 20 years ago was himself among the fiercest of competitors to be found on and off a race track’s asphalt.
“He said, ‘Riley’s a first-rate guy; does some really fine chassis work. He’ll treat you right,’” Dyson recalled of his succinct conversation with Foyt.
The early to mid-1990 period was a rerun of other similar episodes having occurred over the roughly four decades since sportscar racing took root in the United States. Describing the dilemma in his Feb. 8, 1993, wrap of that year’s Rolex 24 at
“Professional sports car racing, kind of a Baby Boomer on wheels, in the sense that it, too, was conceived in post-war euphoria, appears now, like many living Boomers, to be facing its own mid-life crisis. And the Big Question is the same: What to do next? What to do now?”
Awaiting was dramatic change – mostly a result of escalating, over-the-top costs that often depleted the sport’s ranks of one of its most important contributors: the sportsman driver, who raced not as much for collecting a trophy girl’s winning buss as for the almost indefinable, personal self-satisfaction of having weathered challenges most modern-world mortals don’t ordinarily face.
“In 1992 not a single race was won by someone like a Rob Dyson – the type of guy who’s necessary to what I believe is the backbone of sportscar racing,” then-IMSA president Mark Raffauf, now Grand-Am’s managing director of competition, said of the GTP era’s end – an era whose beginning he helped craft, too.
“Every single race in ’92 was won by teams having direct ties with car manufacturers. And by ‘direct ties’ I’m talking about deriving a budget and levels of technical support and resources that the everyday racer can and will only ever dream about.”
“The first GTP to finish the ’92 Rolex 24 was a Walkinshaw Jag (XJR-12D, driven by Davy Jones, Scott Pruett, David Brabham and Scott Goodyear) and they didn’t win it (the race),” Raffauf pointedly remarked.
“A lot of people forget that the overall winner (of the 1992 Rolex 24) wasn’t a GTP. It was a Nissan Group C (R91CP) car with three Japanese drivers (Masahiro Hasemi, Kazuyoshi Hoshino and Toshio Suzuki) who were in the race mainly because (IMSA) needed to bulk up the field with Group C cars; plain and simple.”
(NOTE: Of those Rolex 24-winning Nissan drivers, Suzuki thus far is the only to since return and compete in a US series; three times over the following nine seasons; one a 1996 NASCAR Busch North Series race at Nazareth Speedway.)
After Toyota and Jaguar yielded the 1992 season-opening Rolex 24 to the relatively unknown Japanese factory Nissan team, emerging once again to offer the Toyotas the most consistent challenge were Davy Jones and the Tom Walkinshaw Racing Jaguar fleet, which used the XJR-12D body style for endurance events; the XJR-14 for sprint races.
Winning at Road Atlanta and Mid-Ohio in the ’92 season’s first half, Davy Jones’ and his Jaguar would later be relegated to scrapping for second and third-place finishes with the likes of Geoff Brabham and Chip Robinson (Nissan NPT 91 A, B) Wayne Taylor and Tommy Kendall (Chevrolet Intrepids; by then two distinct teams) and Price Cobb (Mazda RX-792P). A talented pool of drivers to be sure and all of whom finished either second or third at one time or another in 1992, but also a clear testimonial to the AAR Eagle Toyota’s strengths, which closed the 1992 season winning nine of the 13 races on the schedule.
“Starting with the ’92 New Orleans race (that year’s seventh), (Dan) Gurney’s two (Eagle MKIII) Toyotas went on a seven race consecutive-win run, with either (Juan) Fangio (II) or P.J. Jones winning in the (Nos.) 99 or 98 (respectively), Raffauf said.
“Now, I don’t want to take anything away from someone like Dan Gurney, because before he gained access to the factory deal he clearly paid his dues in this sport and today remains one of its finest ambassadors, but in 1992 and 1993 the Toyota operation versus pretty much of the rest of the paddock was like a tank-on-tank shootout between a (WWII German) Tiger II tank and a Russian T-34.”
In 1993’s 11-round IMSA race season, excepting the July round at Road America and from which it was absent (some say it was due to “budgetary issues” whereas others say “purely political” reasons were the root cause), the AAR Eagle Toyota MkIII won every race in which it participated.
“At that point the gentleman driver, the guy who got this sport going, just didn’t have a chance,” Raffauf insisted.
Whether sobered en masse by the cold reality of professional race car drivers really being disposed of an unfathomable ability beyond the norm or discouraged by moon rocket-like expenses, the gentlemen racers were nevertheless leaving.
At the IMSA-sanctioned 1988 Rolex 24 At Daytona – that race’s high-water GTP car-count mark – 31 GTPs were entered. By the 1992 Rolex 24, the GTP entry count was down to 12, one fewer than in 1991, and augmented by three Group C cars. Yet, two of the GTPs were parked when the race’s first green flag flew – and stayed that way.
(NOTE: The 1992 Rolex 24’s second-fast qualifier, a TWR Jaguar XJR-16, didn’t start that year’s race because the team decided to put the team’s resources into the 8th-fastest qualifier XJR-12D, which eventually finished second overall – nine laps behind the race-winning Nissan.)
Competing in the 1993Rolex 24 At Daytona were eight GTP and three Group C cars – all of the latter being TWR Jaguar XJR-12Ds and of which two, Nos. 3 and 32, did not last beyond 18 and 92 laps, respectively.
The No. 98 Eagle Toyota, No. 2 Jaguar and No. 30 Momo Nissan NPT-90 of Gianpiero Moretti, Derek Bell, Massimo Sigala and John Paul Jr. with about five hours remaining had a fairly spirited battle underway until troubles hit all three off and on for the race’s remainder.
The No. 2 XJR-12D, running in 1993 as a Group C car with drivers Scott Goodyear, Scott Pruett and Davy Jones, preserved a 10th-place overall finish despite having retired nearly three hours before race end. The Momo car sputtered on to a sixth-place finish, passed in the pits for fifth place as the race wound down by a near-relic, the No. 16 Porsche 962C of Rob Dyson, James Weaver, Price Cobb and Elliott Forbes-Robinson.
Although having earlier said the team would pack up its fangs and go home to England only after a following Sebring appearance, the TWR Jags actually had altogether retired from IMSA when they parked it at the Rolex 24, loosing the Eagle Toyota to fly nearly unfettered for the season’s remainder.
“It had become pretty clear that we had no choice but to pursue another path insofar as the cars were concerned. They just cost too much for the average racer,” Raffauf said.
In 1994, that other “path” became the all-new, open-cockpit World Sports Car, included among the limitations for which were restrictions on aerodynamics (e.g.: flat bottoms) and engines (e.g.: no turbochargers).
Making the GTP-to-WSC switch was Porsche 962 team owner Dyson, who in 1986 introduced his famed No. 16 to the Rolex 24 with himself, Price Cobb and Drake Olson taking turns at the wheel. (Below, an ‘88 Dyson Porsche 962 GTi-DR1 iteration at WPB.)
With an eye toward the new WSC rules, Porsche had developed its “Project X” car behind a thick veil of secrecy. Likewise involved in the Porsche 962’s introduction at the 1984 Rolex 24 at Daytona, driver Mario Andretti at the time described Project X as the most secretive he’d ever experienced as a racer.
Midway between Daytona International Speedway’s traditional early January test and the Rolex 24, however, IMSA decided to dial down the Porsche’s air flow with additional restrictions, to which Porsche took exception and altogether pulled their entries.
“Well, Porsche at that point obviously was pretty much out as a choice for any sort of future customer car. But before that happened and because Spice had built a really good GTP platform, we decided to try its open-cockpit WSC car,” Dyson said.
In the 1994 Rolex 24 at Daytona, the WSC’s first appearance at Daytona International Speedway, Dyson, James Weaver, Scott Sharp and John Paul Jr. finished 40th in a Spice-Ferrari DR-3, breaking after qualifying seventh and completing 339 laps of the winner’s 707 laps.
“We stuck a Ferrari engine in it that frankly, in my estimation, sounded better than the Ferrari 333SP’s engine. Unfortunately, the (WSC) Spice was just junk.”
“So, we were in the position of wanting to compete and not having many choices aside from the Ferrari 333SP, the Spice, Lola and a few other minor players. I just didn’t like what was available.”
“So I called A.J. (Foyt) and asked him what he thought, who he thought would be capable of building a competitive car, and he said to go with Bob Riley,” Dyson said.
Commissioned by Dyson of Riley Technologies’ corporate predecessor Riley & Scott, the R&S MkIII was born.
Introduced at the 1995 Rolex 24 with Ford power (eventually settling on a 5.5L Ford built by Lozano Brothers Porting), the U.S.-designed-and-built World Sports Car was specifically created to go toe-to-toe with the Ferrari 333SP, if in no one else’s mind but in that of Dyson’s.
“The Ferrari was a great-looking and great-sounding car, and we thought seriously about getting one, but Ferrari tended to want to control everything and have a final say on engine, chassis, suspension and so on, “Dyson said.
“So, if you went with Ferrari, they were going to basically tell you what you could do with your car. Well, I don’t like that. I like to experiment and try things on a car that maybe others haven’t tried. I couldn’t do that with Ferrari.”
Facing four Ferrari 333SPs (built by Dallara with a heavy assist from Kevin Doran) among the 18 WSC cars in the largest overall field since the 1988 race, Dyson’s new No. 16 Ford-powered MkIII – the sole such in the 74 cars starting the race – qualified 6th-fastest over the 3.56-mile road course in the hands of Weaver.
(NOTE: Though Butch Leitzinger had not raced anything but a Nissan at Daytona until the 1995 race with Dyson, his previous race there proved pretty successful. Stepping from a 240SX to a 300ZX in 1994, Leitzinger teamed to win his first Rolex 24 with Scott Pruett, Paul Gentilozzi, Steve Millen and was aided in the pits by usual Gentilozzi team manager Lee White - more recently of TRD fame.)
(NOTE: In a still-standing record, Spirit of Daytona Racing founder Troy Flis, brother Todd Flis, Craig Conway and Richard Nesbitt drove a Mitsubishi from a 74th-place start to a 24th-place race finish – an improvement of 50 positions.)
After a 37th-place in the 1995 Mobil 1 12 Hours of Sebring, afterward characterized as an extended, 201-lap test session, the Dyson team would start campaigning a second R&S Mk III and despite its ignominious start, Dyson’s MkIII team was on its way to win five of the 1995 season’s races, finishing with 11 top 5s and nine podiums.
Yet, most likely owed to Daytona and Sebring, Weaver would finish second to Fermin Velez in the championship. Leitzinger finished fourth in the championship points, mostly because he missed a WSC race while stoking the budding fires of a stock car racing career at Watkins Glen International (for a NASCAR Cup Series ride; winning a total of three NASCAR Busch North races in 1994, 1995).
While a third MkIII would make a couple or three starts late in 1995, the MkIII really started rolling in the 1996 season with a Riley & Scott “factory” team, under the Doyle Racing banner and with driver Wayne Taylor (yep, that “Wayne Taylor”), who was back in a Riley car.
“We entered it primarily as a test bed for product development,” Bob Riley said. “You just can’t stand pat with something that’s been developed, however good it may be and think it can’t be further developed. As true now as it was then, the best way to do it is on the track, in a real-world environment.”
Powered by a new Oldsmobile (Aurora) 4-cam, 32-valve 4.0L V-8 engine, the “factory” effort, with Bill Riley also involved, the MkIII caught its first Rolex 24 win with Taylor, Jim Pace and Sharp co-driving; the Mobil 1 12 Hours of Sebring with Taylor, Pace and Eric van de Poele driving. Eventually, Taylor snagged a competitive 1996 IMSA driving championship.
In 1997, after being a member of the only seven-driver team to have won the Rolex 24 at Daytona, Leitzinger would eventually win that year’s top-driver award and followed it with another driving championship in 1998, again with Dyson’s Ford-powered MkIII.
In its eight years of competition, the R&S MkIII chassis: won slightly more than a third of the races it entered; its drivers claimed eight driving championships; helped take six team championships; and, won three constructor titles for Riley & Scott.
But if you think those numbers were impressive . . .
Later,
DC
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