PETER REVSON: Revson was born into the company that started Revlon cosmetics. At the University of Hawaii Revson decided he wanted to race cars and started in a Morgan. From that meager beginning Peter went on to win in F1, in CanAm, TransAm and even the pole at Indy. Revson made it on his own talent, not as the rich kid people thought at first. How far could he have gone before his death in South Africa in 1974?
LANCE REVENTLOW: Boen of royalty and riches, Reventlow was a racer through and through. In 1957 he created a team to build an American sportscar that could dominate. And they did it, building the Scarab. Troutman & Barnes, Phil Remington, Chuck Daigh and others created one of the most beautiful racing cars of all time.
LANCE REVENTLOW: Shown in the cockpit of his Scarab, Lance was an excellent driver and businessman. His big mistake came in designing and building a Scarab F1 car exactly at the time the entire Grand Prix teams had switched to rear engined cars. Scarab returned with a CanAm car but Lance was on to real estate deals and the Scarab name died.
PAUL RICHARDS: A gentleman racer who started in FIII cars along with Lex duPont, Jim Haynes and George Alderman. Richards went on to join Team Roosevelt and won countless races in their FIAT Abarths. Richards drove the Kelso Cooper, Alfa coupes and spent some time with Cunningham in the E Type and Maserati and later dabbled in some Trans Am. We remember him flying his Cessna and landing on the front straight at Lime Rock.
ART RILEY: Mister Volvo who claimed he only raced to sell cars in his dealership. Hah, he was fast and put Volvo on the map in US racing. A true gentleman racer, Riley was around for years. There;s always a good story behind a private racer like Art. Here is a story by Rick Hayden who owns a few of Riley’s cars.
PEDRO RODRIGUEZ: The older of the brothers Pedro, while wild & crazy, was considered the more conservative. Pedro won two F1 races but was most spectacular in sports cars - most notably the devilish Porsche 917. A true rain master, Pedro was a winner at LeMans and the Daytona 24 among dozens of sports car races for Ferrari and Porsche.
RICARDO RODRIGUEZ; Ricardo, the younger became fast immediately with a sensational win at Riverside when 15 years old in a Porsche 550.. He out paced his older brother but was very hard on equipment. When Ricardo drove the 1961 Italian GP he was and still is the youngest driver to race a GP in a Ferrari.
PEDRO & RICARDO RODRIGUEZ: The BARCBOYS were super jealous of the Rodriguez brothers. We were the same age but they had the money and they had Porsche Spyders and Ferrari’s. We ate peanut butter sandwiches and slept in the back of our cars. We let them know if we had the car we’d beat them; in this photo the two brothers are saying “bring it on”.
TED ROUNDS: Known by the young BARC members as The Legend, Rounds was both a great wrench and driver. He went to school with Sherm Decker and they remained friends forever. Rounds decided to go racing in 1959 and bought the 1957 factory Sebring MGA from Morris Garage where Decker worked. Ted had a number of podiums and an outright win at Berwick, PA.
PETER RYAN: Peter Ryan was a brief and shining star. Born in the US but the family moved to Mont Tremblant and became Canadian. He was a championship skier before turning to racing cars. We saw him often at Watkins Glen, Sebring and in Canada. Tragically he was killed in 1962 in an FII race in France.