Atmosphere Set Forth by the France and Bishop Families Still Rings True Today
November 2, 2023
By Mark Robinson
IMSA Wire Service
(To learn more about the IMSA Hall of Fame and the Class of 2023 inductees, visit imsahof.com)
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – The new IMSA Hall of Fame officially welcomed its inaugural class recently, but after hearing most of the inductees or their representatives speak about the honor, a more appropriate name may be the IMSA Hall of Family.“Family” was the overriding theme of the day when seven individuals and four legendary cars were formally introduced as the Class of 2023 on Oct. 15. The group included the late Bill France Sr. and John and Peggy Bishop, who came together to form the International Motor Sports Association in 1969.“It was a combination of two mom-and-pop outfits,” said Jim France, the son of “Big Bill” and Anne France. “My mom and dad were a team in their business, and John and Peggy were, too.”Jim France recalled how his father retained his passion for sports car and road racing even after founding NASCAR.
“My dad liked all motorsports,” Jim France said. “He started running some sports car races in Daytona when we were still running on the beach. When he designed Daytona Speedway, he put a road course in there. He named it the Daytona International Speedway, (when) in 1959 there was nothing international about NASCAR. The whole goal was to bring in international sports car racing and that’s how we got the 24-hour (race) and the sports car things going.”When John Bishop left his position as executive director of the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA), France Sr. invited him to Florida to according to Bishop’s son Mitch, to “drink some scotch and smoke some cigars and go fishing. They didn’t do any fishing, but when he got back, he was excited.”France offered to provide the financing if the Bishops ran the operation, which they did from top to bottom with the aid of their children. Mitch Bishop remembers his dad designing the first IMSA logos on a drawing board in the basement, going to the first IMSA race in October 1969, and how he and his brothers worked at those early events.“It was a family business from the start,” he said. “Everybody’s been talking about IMSA and using the word ‘family,’ and for me it was literally my family.”
Besides France Sr. and the Bishops, other individuals inducted were iconic drivers Peter Gregg, Hurley Haywood, Al Holbert and Scott Pruett.“IMSA was like a real family back then, and it still is,” Haywood said. “John and Peggy Bishop were like our mother and father to many of the people that were involved in racing. If you got scolded by John, Peggy was always there to sort of smooth it out.”Pruett as well lauded the family atmosphere at IMSA that launched a career that saw him win for the likes of Mazda, Ford, Corvette, BMW and Lexus – with successful runs in Indy cars and NASCAR in between.“If it wouldn’t have been for IMSA, I wouldn’t have gotten an opportunity,” Pruett said. “It’s a family, it’s a group of friends, it’s a group of people just wanting to do what they love to do, which was drive cars and work on cars and be somewhere where you’re accepted and you can do that. I think that has been the epitome of IMSA.”
Four Marques Make Their Mark with Hall of Fame Inductions
Four revered and groundbreaking race cars are also part of the inaugural IMSA Hall of Fame class: the Chevrolet Corvette C5-R, Ferrari 333 SP, Mazda RX-7 GTU and Porsche 962.
Corvette C5-R: This legendary car launched the vaunted Corvette Racing program in 1999. Over six years, the C5-R won 31 races and finished on the podium a mind-shattering 50 times in 55 races. The car also conquered the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2001 with a 1-2 finish in the GTS class.“The C5 was born to race,” said Herb Fishel, the longtime executive director of GM Racing who accepted the car’s Hall of Fame induction. “The aerodynamic features, the hydroform frame rails gave it a stiffness ideal for a race car. And, of course, it had the power by the most universally tested racing engine in the world – the small-block V-8.”
Ferrari 333 SP: As IMSA transitioned from the previous Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) era that ended in 1993 to the World Sports Car era starting the following season, the Ferrari 333 SP was a godsend. The pitch of the V-12 Formula 1 engine still resonates today with those who heard it almost three decades ago.“The sound, the noise, the design, the impact of it everywhere we went was just phenomenal,” said Mark Raffauf, IMSA Senior Director of Competition who has been with the sanctioning body virtually since its inception. “Everybody loved that car.“The car was phenomenal. It worked and won right out of the box. It won all the way well into the early 2000s. … The battles between the Ford/Rileys, pretty much Rob Dyson, and the Ferrari teams through the end of the ‘90s was pretty strong. It was just a magical piece of equipment; it was beautiful.”
Mazda RX-7 GTU: From its grassroots racing program sprung the Mazda RX-7, which won seven consecutive GTU class titles in the 1980s. According to John Doonan, who was Mazda’s director of motorsports before taking over as IMSA’s president in 2019, the car fit right in with the IMSA mission set forth from the beginning. “This is exactly what Jim (France) and his family and the Bishops were all about,” Doonan said. “An automaker chose to launch that model of car, the RX-7, at the Rolex 24 in 1979 at Daytona.”
It was in an RX-7 where Hall of Famer Pruett achieved his first IMSA success, finishing runner-up in class with a bare-bones outfit. He cited the RX-7 for being “affordable and reliable, more so than anything else.“Especially as a young driver working his way in,” he added, “you couldn’t over-rev ‘em, you couldn’t hardly hurt them, they were durable, they were affordable, a lot of teams had them. That put me in a position to get that first opportunity to go do a drive. As a privateer team going to Daytona in ‘85, leading a lot of that race, finishing second, privateer team, is unheard of.”
Porsche 962: The Porsche 962 set the standard for GTP prototypes in the 1980s. Developed from its predecessor, the Porsche 956, the 962 was made longer at the request of IMSA to improve driver protection by moving the footbox back in the car. The 962 won 54 of 148 GTP, races, highlighted by five Rolex 24 At Daytona wins and three straight championships with drivers Holbert and Chip Robinson.Alwin Springer, one of the founders of ANDIAL that’s helped prepare Porsches since the 1970s, recalled the serendipitous collaboration of the marque and Holbert.“The relationship with Al Holbert was absolutely important,” Springer said, “because with him, on the chassis side, on the management side, on the driving side and on the engineering side and ANDIAL on the engine side, it was a perfect combination. … The 962 was for myself and I think for IMSA one of the mainstays for the competitors and for everybody else. Very proud to be part of that time and I call it the golden era of sports car racing.” |
