DAVID HOBBS
A truly versatile racer, with Formula 5000 and Trans-Am titles, and starts in Formula 1, the Indy 500 and 20 times at the 24 Hours of Le Mans just part of his résumé.


In IMSA, the irrepressible “Hobbo” spans the rich mid-1970s scene filled with titanic GT combat, through the peak of GTP ferocity, and usually with a certain Bavarian manufacturer whose presence continues to be felt today.

One way and another, I did a hell of a lot of IMSA races, and my time with BMW covered the majority of it, starting back in 1976. I’ve got so many great memories of it. I had a massive pole position run at Sebring; broke the lap record there by about four seconds. And everybody thought I was cheating, said I missed a couple of corners… Of course, that BMW 320i Turbo was definitely not suited for a 12-hour run, that’s for sure. And we dropped out of the race. But we had some pretty good times with that car.

Oh gosh, my first win in IMSA came at Mid-Ohio in 1977. And another great moment was the penultimate race of the year at Laguna Seca that same season. I had a terrific battle with Al Holbert, who had his Chevy Monza there. Of course the Monza had much more grunt than the BMW because, in that first year in particular, we had terrible turbo lag because of that great big turbocharger and that little engine.

I overtook Al pretty much on the last lap coming down through the Corkscrew. Then you came around the left-hander, then down to the right-hand sweeper and then into the hairpin to fire up the straight to the checkers. I overtook him around the outside of that right-hander and I always thought that old Al could’ve just eased me off the track into that wall in a heartbeat. But that’s not how we used to race in those days. You didn’t just push everybody off the track. Anyway, I won the race, so that was terrific.



But I suppose the most memorable day when we raced the 320i Turbo was Derek Bell and I winning the Pabst 500 at Road America in 1979. We’d thought long and hard about even doing it, because the BMW was quick, but longevity was not its finest attribute.

And then my first prototype year with BMW was in 1981. It was a real
flop with that awful March M1C with a six-cylinder in it. It was absolutely no match for the Lola T600 and the V8s.

But then we came back in 1986 with the second prototype March. And by that time, its engine had gone through more development. It was based on the four-cylinder, turbocharged Formula 1 engine and gave 1,000hp. I mean, it gave like 900hp in race trim. We won Watkins Glen in that car. Simply magic, it was.

STEVE MILLEN
Two-time IMSA GTS class champ and the overall winner of the 1994 Rolex 24 At Daytona and 12 Hours of Sebring.

The versatile New Zealander was in his element with IMSA’s silhouette GTO cars, using his prodigious car control to tame GTP-engined tubeframe concoctions bearing the Nissan name beginning in the late 1980s.

IMSA racing was extremely good for my career. The seven years that I had with Nissan in IMSA were terrific, because we developed a car from scratch to where we got it to lead laps, win pole positions and then win races.

The other thing is that IMSA did a pretty good job of parity with the GTO cars. You’d have a rotary Mazda RX-7, and you’d have a Roush Cougar with either a four-cylinder turbo or naturally-aspirated V8, and you’d have an Audi with a five-cylinder turbo motor, or whatever, and the parity in the cars, plus the power and the weight and all that, was amazing.

You could get four different combinations of car and engine qualifying within a quarter of a second of each other. So for me, it made it technically very, very interesting. Then that would then parlay into a race strategy, because we often used to fight with the Mazdas, which had decent lap times, not necessarily the top speed, but they were
very light, which was a huge advantage.

They would often go with a very soft tire, whereas we would have to stick with a more durable harder tire. Often, the Mazdas would disappear at the beginning of the race, but at the end of the race it came back to a fight to the checkered flag. There was a lot of really interesting stuff going on in IMSA GTO racing that maybe gets overlooked historically.

Later, GTS was fun, too. Winning at Daytona in 1994 with the 300ZX was very special.

CHIP ROBINSON
1987 IMSA GT champion and Rolex 24 At Daytona winner; 1989 12 Hours of Sebring winner.

Chip Robinson made waves in junior open-wheel racing, tried his hand in Indy car, and finally found a home in IMSA as the GTP series rose from its privateer roots to all-out factory wars.

One of the really great races for me was winning at the Daytona season finale in ‘86, my last race with Bob Tullius and the Group 44 Jaguar team. That was actually my first IMSA win and it was Bob’s last race. As a driver, that just meant an awful lot to me because Bob had given me the opportunity to have a professional career as a driver.

From there I went straight on to drive for Al Holbert. There was something really special about doing that with Bob, and then getting the chance to drive for the Holbert Racing team – the best in GTP – and win the 1987 drivers’ championship. And, of course, the next race after the finale with Bob was the Daytona 24 with Al, and we won that, too. That was cool.

WAYNE TAYLOR
As a driver, he’s a multiple IMSA WSC title-winner, 2005 Grand-Am champ and a two-time Rolex 24 At Daytona winner. His eponymous Wayne Taylor Racing squad continues to be one of IMSA’s benchmark teams in the prototype ranks.

Taylor’s first chapter was written at home in South Africa and throughout European sports car racing. His move to the U.S. penned a second chapter that contains championships and wins at every major event as a driver and team owner, and shows no signs of being completed.

When I came to America in ’89, at the end of my Group C program, I did three GTP races for Spice. And getting to race in front of Geoff Brabham and Davey Jones and Jaguars and Toyotas and Nissans and factory cars was electric. I was in a privateer car when I got that first call, and then I suddenly realized how much I loved this country. I said to myself, “I’m going to do whatever it takes to come back here.”

And then the next thing was obviously getting an invite to come race with Jim Miller and General Motors in 1991. Wow, that Intrepid GTP is still probably one of the most spectacular cars I’ve ever driven.

Soon after that, I won my first championship in 1994 with Jim Downing and the Kudzu, but we didn’t win a race. So while I was excited, I was disappointed that I hadn’t won a race, but so many other achievements came in the latter part of the 1990s. All from staying here with my wife Shelley, raising our boys here.

So I had a championship in 1994, another in ’96, and in 2005, my last championship, I was 49 years old and I thought, “You know, man, I just can’t believe that all these things have happened like this for me.”

And then I went into team ownership, and that was a whole new world for me. And now my sons are champions and continuing the tradition in IMSA for the Taylors. I am so humbled by what I’ve been given.