Tuesday Oct 01, 2024
Rob Dyson's reflections on Watkins Glen at 75
Rob Dyson is a New York based businessman and retired professional racing driver with a long association with Watkins Glen International and the International Motor Racing Research Center. Following completion of his licensing school at Watkins Glen in 1974, Dyson began competing in amateur SCCA competition. In 1981 he won the Sports Car Club of America’s GT2 national championship.
Dyson began racing professionally in IMSA GTO and the SCCA Trans-Am Series in 1982. The following year, to support his professional racing efforts, Dyson founded the Dyson Racing Team, which over the next few years grew to be one of America’s premier sports car racing teams. From it base in Poughkeepsie, over the course of nearly four decades the team won 19 championships, 72 race victories, started 72 times from the pole and achieved 224 podium finishes. Among the team’s notable accomplishments is a pair of overall victories in America’s premier endurance race, the Rolex 24, at Daytona International Speedway.
The team fielded cars during the heyday of the IMSA Camel GT, winning its first time out with a Porsche 962 at Lime Rock Park. Under Dyson’s leadership the team went on to successfully field entries in Indy car, the World Sports Car Championship, the United States Road Racing Championship, the American Le Mans Series (where the team scored two championships), the Rolex Sports Car Series, and the Pirelli World Challenge, where the team scored Bentley’s first-ever North American race victory.
During his 21 seasons as a professional racing driver Dyson drove in 92 races, scoring four overall race wins (including the 1997 Rolex 24 at Daytona) and a total of 18 podium finishes. Dyson continued to compete episodically in professional racing through 2007 and today remains active driving his collection of vintage Indy cars in a variety of demonstration events. Dyson’s personal historic Indy car collection ranges from a 1913 Isotta Fraschini tipo IM to Johnny Rutherford’s 1978 Budweiser McLaren M24B, and includes the 1961 Kimberly Cooper Climax, the first successful rear-engine car to compete in the 500.
Named chairman of the board of directors of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum in 2021 following a decade as a member of the board, Dyson is guiding the institution through its $89 million transformational renovation as it charts its future path as the repository of the history and related artifacts of America’s oldest active and most storied racing facility.
In 2011 Dyson donated to the IMRRC the historic archives of National Speed Sport News, America’s premier motorsports news publication since the late 1930s.
Dyson is the chairman and chief executive officer of Dyson-Kissner-Moran Corporation, a privately-owned international holding company.
This episode is part of our HISTORY OF MOTORSPORTS SERIES and is sponsored in part by: The International Motor Racing Research Center (IMRRC), The Society of Automotive Historians (SAH), The Watkins Glen Area Chamber of Commerce, and the Argetsinger Family - and was recorded in front of a live studio audience.
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