Ribbs, Willy T. 1956–

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Willy T. Ribbs 1956–

Race car driver

Forced to Withdraw From 1985 Indy Race

Gained Renown in the Late 1980s

Willy T. Ribbs qualified for the 75th Indianapolis 500 on May 19, 1991, becoming the first black person ever to participate in the famed motor race. As if to maximize the drama, Ribbs landed his spot in the competition with only 45 minutes left in the final six-hour qualifying session—just one week before the event. He drove his Buick-pow-ered 1990 Lola ten miles around the two-and-one-half mile oval at an average speed of 217.358 mph, making him the fastest qualifier of the day and earning the Walker Motorsports team a much needed $20,000.

The weeks before qualifying had been difficult ones for Ribbs and his team manager, Derrick Walker. Walker, an established pro who had led drivers to five Indy 500 victories during the 1980s as team manager for Roger Penske, had signed Ribbs in April. Ribbs had gained experience with Indy cars in 1990, starting in eight races and finishing 10th at Vancouver, but he failed to qualify at Indy in 1990.

The Walker Motorsports team had a $350,000 startup loan from actor Bill Cosby, but they lacked corporate sponsorship and were severely underfunded. They endured four blown engines in two weeks, putting a strain on the team budget. After he qualified, Ribbs was quoted in the Detroit Free Press as saying, “We knew we were out of time, and the clock was ticking. And if you’ve ever watched a football game, this wasn’t a punt or a field goal. This was a Hail Mary. We had to Hail Mary our way into the Indy 500, and that’s how we did it.”

On race day at the 75th annual Indy 500, engine problems again plagued the Walker team, and Ribbs only completed five laps before leaving the race due to mechanical failure.

Ribbs, whose father was an amateur road racer, began his racing career in 1977 at the age of 21, when he went to England to learn race driving. He outperformed most of that country’s promising young drivers, placing first in six of 11 races and earning the title “Star of Tomorrow” in a series sponsored by Dunlop Tire.

In 1978, Ribbs returned to the United States and made his American debut at the Long Beach Grand Prix, where he drove in a warmup race for young drivers. It was his 12th professional race, and he finished 10th in a strong field. At the time, he was criticized by automobile

At a Glance…

Born William Theodore Ribbs, jr., January 3, 1956, in San Jose, CA; son of William Theodore (Bunny), Sr. (a plumber and amateur road racer) and Geraldine (Henderson) Ribbs; married Suzanne Hamilton, November 22,1979; children: Sasha. Education : Attended San Jose City College, 1973-75.

Professional racing driver, 1977—.

Selected awards: Dunlop Star of Tomorrow Champion, Europe, 1977; named International Driver of the Year, Europe, 1977; Trans-Am Rookie of the Year, 1983; Interamerican Western Hemisphere Driving Champion, 1984; Motorsports Press Association All American Drivers Award, 1984-85; SCCA Trans-Am All Time Money Earner; twice named Norelco GTO Driver of the Year.

columnist Brock Yates for his off-track behavior, which included Muhammad Ali-style boasting and posturing with a chauffeur-driven limousine. Throughout his career, Ribbs has garnered a reputation for being outspoken and aggressive, qualities which may have caused corporate sponsors to shy away from him. Early in his career, as quoted in the Detroit Free Press, Ribbs described his abilities by boasting, “The way I drive cars is so smooth it puts chills on the arms of any person watching. I’m ultra-fast, aggressive, and smooth.”

Another 1978 incident, this one at Charlotte, North Carolina, rendered Ribbs ineligible for competition for the next three years. Having been offered a chance to race a National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) car, he apparently offended the local establishment with his boasting and was subsequently ticketed for driving the wrong way on a one-way street. “I was, in effect, blacklisted,” Ribbs said in the New York Times Magazine of his three-year hiatus from racing. During this period, he became friends with Muhammad Ali, who was promoting his own biography, The Greatest. Ribbs, himself a skilled boxer who was once offered a chance to fight professionally, saw a parallel between himself and Ali, who had been banned from boxing for two-and-one-half years at the height of his career.

A turning point in Ribbs’s career came in 1981, when he met Jim Trueman at the Laguna Seca track in Monterey, California. Trueman, the former owner and president of Red Roof Inns, was a major racing sponsor. For the next three years, Ribbs drove for Red Roof Inns in a semi-pro series. In 1983, he attracted the attention of Neil DeAtley, a wealthy contractor who was assembling a two-car team of racing Camaros for the Trans-Am series. DeAtley’s major sponsor was Budweiser, the largest-selling American beer, so the team was well financed. DeAtley asked Ribbs to be his number two driver, having signed the English road-racing veteran David Hobbs to drive his number one car. Ribbs agreed, and as a team, he and Hobbs dominated the 1983 season, with Ribbs winning five races and Hobbs winning four. Hobbs took the Trans-Am championship with his more consistent finishes, and Ribbs was named Trans-Am Rookie of the Year. Then, in 1984, prior to the first race of the season, Ribbs fought with a competitor, Bob Lobenberg, over an incident that occurred during the warmups. As a result, Ribbs was fired from the team, even though he claimed that Lobenberg tried to force him off the track, thus endangering his life and the $60,000 Camaro he was driving. Ribbs switched to the Livonia (Michigan)-based (Jack) Roush Racing team and drove Ford Capris for the 1984 Trans-Am season. With Ribbs’s help, Ford took the manufacturers’ title from DeAtley’s Chevrolet.

Forced to Withdraw From 1985 Indy Race

In 1985, Ribbs scored seven victories in the Trans-Am series, finishing second in points and becoming the leading money winner in Trans-Am history. That year, he also announced he would become the first black driver at the Indianapolis 500. He hired flamboyant boxing promoter Don King as his manager, and King obtained sponsorship from the Miller Brewing Company. But, because all of the top teams had already set their driver lineups, there was no competitive car for Ribbs to drive in the race. Against advice from his mentor Trueman and others, Ribbs agreed to drive an Indy car for independent team owner Sherman Armstrong. During practice runs three weeks before the race, Ribbs was only able to get the car up to 170 mph. Since it would take an over-two-hundred-mph average just to make the field, he withdrew from the race.

Gained Renown in the Late 1980s

Ribbs’s withdrawal from the 1985 Indy 500 hurt his chances with other teams for the 1986 season, and he didn’t want to go back to Trans-Am racing. He finished the 1986 season driving for a privately sponsored team as a rookie on the NASCAR Winston Cup circuit. The next year began without corporate support, too, but his luck changed when an opening developed on seasoned driver and manager Dan Gurney’s team of four-cylinder turbo-charged Toyota Celicas, which was competing on the International Motorsports Association (IMSA) sports car circuit against big American V8’s. Just before the start of the 1987 season, Gurney’s number two driver was hurt in a practice accident. When his replacement was also hurt, the call went out to Ribbs.

In one stretch, Ribbs won three of four races and put Toyota in contention for the manufacturers’ championship. In fact, it came down to the last race of the season, and Toyota had to beat Chevrolet Corvettes and Camaro V8’s to win it. Early in the one-hundred mile race, Ribbs touched wheels with another car and broke the valve stem of his tire. When he rejoined the race on a new tire, he was dead last. By brilliant maneuvering on a narrow, crowded track, Ribbs managed to finish third behind another Toyota and a Pontiac. In a dramatic race, he had caught and passed all the Chevrolets and won the manufacturing championship for Toyota.

By 1988, Ribbs was “America’s only nationally known black race driver,” according to the New York Times. Although he was named Driver of the Year in the IMSAGTO sedan racing series in 1987 and 1988, his career to date has been marked by controversy and on-again, off-again success. His reputation for fighting with other drivers may have undermined his chances to obtain major corporate sponsorships, which would be essential for him to compete in the increasingly expensive Indianapolis-style events. In 1987, he became the first driver ever suspended (for 30 days) by IMSA for slugging another driver. In a New York Times Magazine article, Ribbs explained his actions by saying, “You’re going up the ladder, and there are other young lions in the den trying to prove the same thing.”

Ribbs’s difficulty in obtaining a sponsor apparently began as early as 1986, according to Advertising Age. Among the reasons given for the funding problems were Ribbs’s outspoken and aggressive nature, his rookie status, and an alleged lack of interest in NASCAR events among black audiences. At that time, Ribbs was the only black driver on the Winston Cup NASCAR circuit.

Derrick Walker and Ribbs teamed up in April 1991. At that time, the Walker Motorsports team was funded only by Walker himself and actor Bill Cosby, who provided a startup loan of $350,000. When Ribbs qualified for the Indianapolis 500 in May, the team still lacked corporate sponsors, and Walker expected to go $100,000 in the red. But on the Friday before the race, McDonald’s announced it had formed a sponsorship with Walker Motorsports—for the Indy race only. Associate sponsors included Quaker State Motor Oil, Coca-Cola, Kleen Cote, and Kodak. McDonald’s had been approached in 1990, but it was Ribbs’s successful qualification attempt and the attendant publicity that closed the deal. As a McDonald’s spokesperson commented in the Detroit Free Press, “It just seemed like the spirit of persistence and determination was coming to a head here. It just appeared to be the right time for that right decision.” The decision to sponsor Ribbs for the Indianapolis 500 made McDonald’s the last of the nation’s top 20 advertisers to put its name and corporate marketing dollars on a car racing in a national series.

Walker Motorsports’ ability to field a car for subsequent CART races was in doubt following the 1991 Indianapolis 500. They managed to enter the Detroit Grand Prix in June, but Ribbs was discouraged by the ongoing lack of corporate sponsorship. He said, “I don’t know if I want to continue racing. If this is what I’m going to be subjected to over and over again, if this is what the sport is all about, I don’t know if I can endure it. I keep trying to prove myself, but I guess hard work doesn’t pay off.”

Ribbs finished 11th in the 1991 Detroit Grand Prix, driving a Cosworth-powered Lola for Walker Motorsports and earning $47,280. He had begun to attract a kind of “grass roots” sponsorship. The Detroit CBS affiliate, which televised the race, solicited private funds for Ribbs and got its name and slogan on his car. Also appearing on his car is “Saint Andrew Apostle Grade School,” for the $20 it collected for Ribbs’s team prior to Indianapolis. Walker explained in the Detroit Free Press, “At that time, we didn’t have anybody that had committed to any sponsorship at all. So that stays on the car forever.”

After Detroit, Ribbs skipped the CART event in Portland, Oregon, but was able to enter the Cleveland Grand Prix scheduled for July 7, 1991. His hometown, San Jose, raised about $50,000 from friends and San Jose businesses. Observers have noted though that without a major corporate sponsor, Ribbs’s future in racing as well as that of the Walker Motorsports team remains in jeopardy.