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Remember what made us fall in love with racing in the first place? That sense of family, with camaraderie in the paddock, but competition on the track? Racers enjoying the give and take, and giving something back to the sport. Now, our sport is too often divided by self interest, and commercialism. In this sea of disunity there is an island of gentleman's calm - a continuation of racing's original heritage -- Rob Dyson and Dyson Racing.
Rob has been a stabilizing, some would say life saving, influence in sports car racing for over 20 years. He has overseen the premier sports car team in North America for the past twenty years. First and foremost, Rob competes to win, but also for the enjoyment of the competition and for the good of the sport. For example, he had an opportunity to run the Ferrari 333P at a very attractive price when everyone was switching to them after the factory GTP cars went away. He turned down the offer, believing that if his team ran them, than it would become a de facto spec series, and that would not be good for the fans and the long term viability of the series. So he commissioned the Riley and Scott Mk III and ran it against the ubiquitous Ferraris.
Rob is not an owner who bought his way into victory circle. He has worked his way to the top of the sport. Rob started SCCA club racing in 1974, running a Datsun 510. He hooked up with Pat Smith who taught auto mechanics at the local vocational technical school. One of many stories of loyalty within the team, Pat ended up being the team's chief mechanic and team manager for 28 years. Pat and Rob did all the mechanical work on that little Datsun, Rob being better at fabrication and Pat was better at transmissions.
By 1982, they had two more mechanics and decided it was time to move up, so they had a Firebird built for IMSA GTO. To be charitable, the car did not do anything very well, but it taught the team a lot. Rob raced a mixed schedule in 1983 and '84, running some Trans Am races in addition to the IMSA schedule. They did finish third at the Elkhart Lake 500 miler in 1983.
It was while they were running the Firebird that they started thinking about life at the top: the IMSA GTP class. Rob looked at Lolas, Marches and Porsches. Bob Akin, a good friend, said the Porsche 962 was the only way to go, pointing out, with eminent common sense, that nobody collects Marches. Rob made a deal with Bruce Leven in 1985 to buy the 101 chassis, which Rob still has.
In 1994, when the GTP era morphed into World Sports Car, Rob ran a Spice chassis with a Ferrari 348 engine. He started running the Riley and Scott MK III the following year. They ran the Riley and Scott for eight years (and 36 wins) until they switched to the AER powered Lola EX257 in 2002, where they continue to compete in the American Le Mans series with Chris Dyson, Butch Leitzinger, and Guy Smith. They moved to new equipment in 2006 -a pair of Lola B06/10's with AER's V8 Turbo. And 2007 saw them renewing their historical relationship with Porsche. Rob ran Porsche 962's from 1985 through 1991, winning a dozen races. They traded in their Lolas and in 2007 ran two RS Spyders in the ALMS LMP2 class against ten other cars including two Penske Porsches and the three Acura teams.
Rob has been behind the wheel since that Datsun 510. A shoulder injury and resulting surgery in 2003 removed him from the regular cockpit driver rotation, but he still competes, most recently in five Grand-Am Daytona Prototype races in 2007, including the Daytona 24 Hours, his eighteenth. He co-drove with his son Chris in the Grand-Am races in partnership with Howard-Boss Motorsports and Crawford Race Cars.