Birth of the Skippy

I see that Iracing is celebrating 10 years of the Skip Barber. Well, I can beat that by a few decades !

In 1975 I attended the Skip Barber racing school at Thompson Speedway. The next winter I got a mailing from Skip announcing a new racing series for 1976. My own efforts at building a racing car with little knowledge and no money were getting nowhere so I gave Skip a call.

The cost was around $4000 (I think) which was pretty inexpensive especially when you just had to show up and drive. Oddly enough my family was the only one that camped out at the track to save money that year. The drivers would be divided up into groups which would share the cars. And he drivers would go out and do flagging for the other groups.

As I talked to Skip this was all sounding better and better…. But there was one question that I was reluctant to ask. Maybe he hadn’t thought about it, I fantasized…..

So Skip, what happens if I crash the car ?

Nothing.

Nothing? I don’t have to pay?

Skip then explained that he wanted to make good racing drivers and he didn’t think they could become good if they had to think about the financial consequences of a wreck.

In the 40+ years since then I can’t recall being so excited. Well, until that poor Nigerian widow asked me to park her $1.5 million dollar inheritance in my bank account last week !!