Few racing automobile designers can boast as long and distinguished a profession as Bob Riley. The American, who has died aged 93, was prolific and successful in lots of disciplines during his greater than 60 years on the drafting board.
Riley-designed cars have repeatedly won the Indianapolis 500 title, the United States Auto Club Champ Car title and absolutely anything else value winning in North American endurance racing. Repeatedly! His designs have won the 24 Hours of Daytona as many as 13 times.
It is these sports automobile racing successes that Riley shall be best remembered, not just for the sheer variety of races and championships won, but additionally since the cars that won them bore his name. Riley & Scott claimed three wins at Daytona driving the MkIII World Sports Car within the second half of the Nineteen Nineties, while the Daytona Prototypes, known simply because the Rileys, claimed one other 10 victories within the American endurance classic through the Daytona Prototype era from 2005 to 2015. including eight on the rebound.
The open-top MkIII prototype and the Riley DP family of coupes – MkXI, MKXX and MkXXVI – (each spaceframe chassis designed with son Bill) were series championship winners. The former's drivers won a complete of eight titles on the unique IMSA circuit (later often called Professional Sportscar Racing), the United States Racing Championship, the American Le Mans Series and the Grand American Road Racing Series. The DPs line has won the Grand Am crown nine times.
“Almost everything I drove that Bob designed was amazing,” says Wayne Taylor, who won Daytona in each the MkIII and MkXI, in addition to the IMSA and Grand-Am titles with each automobile. “With the Riley chassis, I knew I’d give you the option to win races and championships.
“Bob understood what it took to race on rough tracks in North America; he understood that a mechanical grip was needed. His cars have at all times been easy to drive. This has at all times been Riley's most vital quality.
Wayne Taylor, pictured together with his team after winning the 2005 24 Hours of Daytona, enjoyed huge success in Riley cars
Photo: F. Peirce Williams / Motorsport Images
“He has played a huge role in my career, starting with the Intrepid GTP that I raced in the early 1990s. I have a lot to thank him for.”
Riley's single-seater successes were the work of a mercenary. He went to work for American racing legend AJ Foyt for the 1971 season, designing the Coyote that helped his employer finish third at Indy that 12 months. An evolution of the automobile Riley had provide you with for 1973 gave Foyt his fourth and final victory on the brickyard in 1977.
By then, Riley had moved on to work for Pat Patrick. He designed a quartet of Wildcats for him, but not before constructing the primary Indycar to bear his name in 1974. There can be one other two R&S designs built for the Indy Racing League from 1997–2000. Both marques were race winners of their respective series, as was one other full ground effect Coyote built for Foyt in 1981. He sat up front to argue with Indy too.
Many of the sports cars Riley designed also didn’t carry his nickname. The Chevrolet-powered Intrepid RM-1, Taylor's 1991 IMSA race winner, was a crucial automobile in Riley's history: it was the primary machine designed jointly by father and son and may be considered the covered ancestor of the MkIII. This was followed by the primary Cadillac Northstar LMP, which flew the General Motors banner at Le Mans in 2000 and again, in modified form, in 2001.
His Ford Mustang GTP – a front-engine prototype that preceded the Panoz LMP models of the late Nineteen Nineties and early 2000s – also won the race. He won his first IMSA race in 1983 and never won again.
But Riley was greater than only a designer of prototypes and Indycars. His achievements were enormous. Its chassis won quite a few titles within the Trans-Am Silhouette Series: 13 drivers won championships within the tube-frame Riley races. GT machines, whether tube-frame or otherwise, have single-handedly won North American sports automobile championships under Chrysler's Dodge, Oldsmobile and Mazda brands.
Formula Ford, the Super Vee chassis and the NASCAR second-class Busch Grand National emerged from Riley's drafting board through the years. A land speed record automobile was even built for the Bonneville salt flats.
Foyt claimed his fourth Indy 500 victory in 1977 on a Coyote originally developed by Riley
Photo: Motorsport Images
Riley began by constructing cars that he could compete in himself. The first of those was the C-Modified Sports Car Club of America competitor in-built 1959, following on from a pair of Triumphs, the TR2 after which the TR3, purchased while serving within the United States Air Force. The tube-frame machine often called the Lynx was powered by a Chevrolet V8, as he recounted in his autobiography The art of racing automobile design published in 2015, it had greater than just a touch of the Jaguar D-type to it.
He began his engineering profession working within the Saturn space program, then moved to Ford, which assigned him to Kar Kraft to work on a project that gave the American manufacturer 4 consecutive Le Mans wins from 1966-69. Suspension design was his predominant concentrate on the MkII and IV Fords. All the while, he was constructing more Lynx, Vees, and FF1600 chassis in his spare time.
Riley & Scott was founded in 1990 by Briton Mark Scott, a former McLaren mechanic who moved to the US with Teddy Mayer's latest CART operation arrange after his departure from the F1 team. From 1999, R&S was briefly a part of the Reynard Racing Cars empire before ownership quickly returned to the Riley family. The latest name of the corporate is Riley Technologies.
A passion for engineering led Riley to proceed designing race cars to the boundaries of his abilities. Riley never really stopped working: during this decade he worked on a brand new Trans-Am automobile. Suspension and aerodynamics were his twin specialties: within the mid-Nineteen Seventies he was experimenting with ground effects concurrently one other great innovator, Lotus boss Colin Chapman.
Bob once remarked to this creator that he was now in his eighties and that he now only worked part time. He noted that in his old age, he reached the workshops only at 9:30.
Riley & Scott, which he founded with Mark Scott in 1990, helped cement Riley's name in sports automobile racing history.
Photo: Motorsport Images
