My first race as a crewman – Sebring 1978

In the early to mid-1970’s I had been working part time (race weekends) as an IMSA tech inspector at some of the races, mainly the ones that I could fit into my work schedule of my day job as an engineer. At some point, I had decided that eventually I wanted to race myself, but I realised that I needed to work first with some team to learn what was required to actually go racing and so my first race as a crewman was at the 1978 12 Hours of Sebring.

I had found out that Dick Barbour’s team was actually based in Mountain View California, and that the shop was about a half mile from my house at the time. So, this seemed like a great fit for me. I approached Dick at Sebring early in the week (1978), and he was very receptive and introduced me to Bob Garretson and Gary Evans, his team managers. It was agreed I would start immediately. As soon as my tech duties were complete prior to the race, I started to hang out with the team and pay attention to what was going on, and to start meeting all the guys.