John Fitch in 2007 Motorsports Hall of Fame
Driver of Italian, German and American Cars

John Fitch, recently inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame. Photo copyright Bernard Cahier.

Story by Carl Goodwin

DETROIT, Aug. 15, 2007… Sports car racing driver, team manager and safety engineer John Fitch has been inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame, along with seven others.

Fitch was the first Sports Car Club of America national champion, in 1951, and won the Argentine Grand Prix in the same year. In the 1952 Mexican Road Race he drove the prototype 300SL roadster for Mercedes. As a former P-51 fighter pilot in WWII, Fitch quipped: “In 1945 I was shooting at the Germans and seven years later I was driving their racing cars.” In 1953 he won 12 Hours of Sebring with co-driver Phil Walters. They beat the Aston Martin factory team with a single Cunningham C4-R. Fitch was essentially the first American to compete in Europe (Harry Schell was an expatriate) and the only American to drive for the Mercedes Benz team, which won world championships in Formula One, sports racing and GT classes in 1955. His teammates were Juan Manuel Fangio, Stirling Moss, Karl Kling and Peter Collins, among others. He was a co-founder, with first president Tobe Tobin, of the exclusive Road Racing Drivers’ Club.

Fitch trying out a Maserati A6GCM at the 1953 Italian Grand Prix at Monza. In the race Fitch drove an HWM-Alta but retired with engine failure. Photo copyright Bernard Cahier.

John was a driver for Briggs Cunningham from 1951 to 1966, piloting many of the great cars that team fielded, including the Cunningham C-4R, the D-Jaguars, the Lister Jaguars and Porsche 904s. And Fitch was a Corvette driver, as Sebring team manager in 1956 and ’57, and first among the Cunningham Corvettes at Le Mans in 1960. As Sebring team manager, he took early Corvettes that initially could not complete a lap around the course, and he made sports cars out of them.

Fitch sitting on the door sill of the 300SL after the 1955 Mille Miglia. He drove it in 11 hours, 29 minutes and 21 seconds ("a thousand miles in half a day"), faster than the previous year's winner, Alberto Ascari in a Lancia D50. Fitch broke the GT class record by more than an hour, in a steel-bodied production car. Photo copyright Bernard Cahier.

Over the years, Fitch drove Italian cars in 22 events, according to records compiled by motorsports historian Larry Berman. His first race in one was at the wheel of a Cunningham-entered Ferrari 195S coupe at Watkins Glen in 1951, finishing behind George Weaver in the Grand Prix Maserati nick-named “Poison Lil.” In a similar Ferrari owned by Bill Spear, he finished 1st in the 1951 Convair Trophy Races. In a Maserati 250F borrowed from Stirling Moss, he contested the 1955 Italian Grand Prix at Monza, finishing 9th. Two years later he was 1st in a Maserati 150S at Lime Rock, followed by a class 1st at Montgomery NY in a 300S Maserati owned by patron Mrs. Henry Clark Bowden IV. In this race, he drove a Class D 3-liter car against Walt Hansgen in a 3.8 liter D-Type Jaguar in class C. He also drove an E-Modified Maserati 200S five times, with four 1sts and a DNF. With a Ferrari 250 Testa Rosa he contested the 1957 Sebring race with co-driver Ed Hugus, but the car went out with engine failure. He later scored two endurance race class firsts at Road America – 1960 and 1961 in a Type 60 Birdcage Maserati. Additionally, he used an Alfa Giulietta coupe in the John Fitch school of competition driving at Lime Rock. In one of his on-track sessions, a student rolled the Alfa, with John in it. This was in the era before roll bars and yet the car showed little sign of having rolled. “The windshield wasn’t even cracked,” John marveled.

Briggs Cunningham and John Fitch with their #58 D-Type Jaguar at the Sept 8-9, 1956 Road America Enduro. They finished 2nd overall to the 4.5 Ferrari of Howard Hively and Jim Kilborn. Photo copyright Alix Lafontant.

His favorite Italian car was the Maserati 250F borrowed from Moss, even though it did not finish well. “It was a marvelous car, a beautiful driving car. It behaved so well, it was a great pleasure to drive.” In business, besides driving professionally, he was the general manager of the Lime Rock race course and helped to design it, mainly adding safety features. Fitch filled in the ditches, cut down the trees and provided as much runoff area as possible for the drivers. In the mid-sixties, he invented an energy-absorbing barrier for highway use. Called the Fitch Barrier, this is the array of yellow barrels seen in front of bridge abutments. They are used from coast to coast and in Europe, on race tracks as well as highways; they have saved an estimated 20,000 lives. In recent years, he has concentrated on racing safety, with designs called the Compression Barrier, the Displaceable Guardrail and the Driver Capsule. These are described on his web site, www.racesafety.com . Fitch has been instrumental in persuading the FIA to recommend paving gravel traps on its courses. Spa, Silverstone and the Istanbul Autodrome are among the ones that have done so.

Fitch in the pits at the June 14, 1952 Le Mans Race. In the foreground is the C-4R coupe and Phil Walters, among others. The C4 roadster that Fitch drove with Briggs Cunningham was running in 3rd at the 4-hour mark when the engine failed. Collection of John Fitch

Other 2007 Motorsports Hall of Fame inductees are Goodyear racing manager Leo Mehl, Indy-car mechanic Jim McGee, 1960 Indy winner Jim Rathman, dirt-track motorcycle hero Bubba Shobert, NASCAR champion Bill Elliott and the Pro-Stock drag racing team of Sox and Martin. Full details can be obtained from president Ron Watson on the web site www.mshf.com. The Motorsports Hall of Fame notes that “motor racing is the most colorful and creative form of technological innovation” and endeavors to capture the broad expanse of motorsports achievement in its award program. It does this by including the drivers of sports cars, stock cars, open wheel cars, dragsters, motorcycles, powerboats and airplanes as well as figures in the sport who are not necessarily drivers.