Quote:
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Originally Posted by Slowhands
And while you're at it, a little history for a newbie about our real founder, please.
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Skip Barber
Nationality: American
World Championship Career
Active years 1971 - 1972
Team(s) non-works March
Races 6
Championships 0
Wins 0
Podium finishes 0
Pole positions 0
Fastest laps 0
First race 1971 Monaco Grand Prix
Last race 1972 United States Grand Prix
John "Skip" Barber III (born November 16, 1936 in Philadelphia, United States) is a retired racecar driver who is most famous for his Skip Barber Racing Schools.
Barber started racing in 1958 while studying at Harvard University, where he earned a degree in English.
In the mid-1960s, he won three SCCA national championships in a row and finished third in the 1967 United States Road Racing Championship. Later, Barber went on to win consecutive Formula Ford National Championships (1969 and 1970), a record tied only recently.
At the start of the 1971 season he purchased a March 711, which he planned to take back to the United States and race in the U.S. Formula 5000 series. Before he did so, he took part in the Monaco Grand Prix, Dutch Grand Prix, United States Grand Prix, and Canadian Grand Prix in a privately funded March Engineering. He returned to the U.S. and Canadian races again in 1972. After that he raced GT cars.
Retirement leads to Skip Barber Racing
When his racing career ended, Barber's belief that auto racing was "coachable" in the same manner as any other sport -- at the time, a distinctly minority position -- led him to create the eponymously named Racing School, and a year later, the equal-car Race Series.
In 1975, with two borrowed Lola Formula Fords and four students, Barber started the Skip Barber School of High Performance Driving. In 1976, it was renamed the Skip Barber Racing School and that same year, he created the Skip Barber Race Series.
Barber remains active in motorsports today as the owner and operator of Lime Rock Park, a road racing venue in the northwest hills of Connecticut. He lives in the nearby town of Sharon, with wife Judy.